Sunday, Sept. 7, 2008 | 4:58 p.m.
What a difference a week can make. Richmond produced a great race with side-by-side racing, numerous lead changes, wrecks between rivals, battered cars that remained competitive and an emotion-filled finish that made me wish we could see this type of racing every week.
Kyle Busch, Carl Edwards and Jimmie Johnson combined have won the last nine straight races, which would seem to indicated that the competition for the championship will be between these drivers. Don’t bet on it. If there’s one thing you can expect from this sport, it’s the unexpected.
Was the bump by Dale Earnhardt Jr. that sent Kyle Busch spinning on lap 212 some sort of payback by Dale for their last encounter at Richmond? I don’t think so. The replay showed smoke from Dale’s front tires as he locked up the brakes in an attempt to avoid taking Kyle out.
80 laps into the event, NASCAR warned the No.11 car and the No. 88 car to take it easy on the track, which, I thought, was a little overbearing on NASCAR’s part. I hope we don’t get to the point where every incident during a race is a reason for NASCAR to act like a helicopter mom and start issuing too many warnings that end up sanitizing the events. I wonder if any warnings were issued after the dust up between Dale and Kyle.
It was a great effort by Clint Bowyer and his team as they made it into the Chase. But David Ragan and his team deserve a lot of credit for the constantly improving performance of their operation. That improvement is in no small part due to Ragan’s seasoned and battle-worn crew chief, Jimmy Fennig. Remember how well Kurt Busch did when Fennig was his crew chief?
I thought the ad with Tony Stewart showing Joey Logano the ropes of home improvement was amusing. Maybe the next series of ads could show Stewart instructing Logano on ways to avoid losing your cool at the end of a race.
Angry Tony Stewart
Those of you who may have looked at this week’s Carl Edwards Caption Contest probably noticed that it isn’t getting too many caption suggestions. That is my fault. Check back later this week and I’ll attempt to have a cartoon that, hopefully, will get your creative juices flowing again.
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