Indy/Edmonton/Germany

Brickyard 400

I'll start with the Brickyard 400: Seeing Jamie McMurray win two big races this year is awesome. He seems like a classy individual, and now that he's back with Ganassi, it's good to see him win races, even though he's still a long shot for the Chase.



The call for four tires on the #42 car was so stupid, in my opinion. Now, I'm not a big Montoya fan, but I think he is deserving of a Brickyard win, or any win in that case. But I think it's a known fact that other teams will try two tires, in order to gain track position. Montoya's crew chief, Brian Pattie, called for four, so they restarted seventh on the restart, and Juan wasn't able to make up any spots and eventually wrecked the car. I know they can win at Indy, but they don't deserve it when they make stupid calls like that.....Oh, and when Juan crashed, who else was involved? Why, who else then Dale Jr.? It's not his fault, but Junior got collected with Montoya, and I'm not surprised.

Coming into this race, Chip Ganassi had a chance to be the first owner to win the Daytona 500, Indianapolis 500, and Brickyard 400 all in one year. And whatya know, he did it! I thought Juan was gonna be the driver to put him into the history book, but Jamie Mac really came through.

Honda Indy Edmonton:

What a bad call. I mean, the replay shows Helio Castroneves making a slight turn to the left to keep Will Power at bay. They disqualified him for blocking??? I mean, I know this is the IndyCar series, where rules are different, and if guys block, they might touch wheels and crash, but in the end, it's RACING! If I was Helio, I would block the other driver to keep my lead. What the hell, IndyCar!?!

By the way, Helio was piiiiiiissed. I mean, that boy was ready to fuckin brawl!

Santander Grand Prix of Germany:

Now, I understand the reasoning behind Ferrari's call to Felippe Massa to relinquish his lead to teammate Fernando Alonso with 19 to go at Hockenheim, but what I don't understand is why Felippe did it....Even though Alonso may have had the faster car, you don't just give it to him. Again, this situation goes back to RACING. It's racing, you have to earn a victory. Sure it helped Alonso in the points, but c'mon!

Good to see Lewis Hamilton still leading the points. I think he'll win the title again this year.

Indy Preview

I fully expect this Brickyard 400 to be a Jimmie Johnson/Juan Montoya shootout. They both qualified on the front row (Juan taking the top honor), and the way it turned out last year, all signs point to one of those two taking the coveted checkers.

Last year's edition featured Montoya smoking the field, leading 116 laps (of 160) before being penalized for speeding on pit road. Jimmie was there to take advantage of Juan's mistake and cruised to the victory, his second consecutive and third out of the last four years.

Juan has led every practice session this weekend thus far, and I pick him to finally get his second career victory, first on an oval, as long as he can stay out of trouble and run a smart race.



Other drivers that could potentially challenge those two are Clint Bowyer, Tony Stewart, Kevin Harvick, Jeff Gordon, and Denny Hamlin. Jeff Gordon is so hungry for a win, and he's riding a hot streak right now.

If Chip Ganassi were to win this race, he would become the first car owner to win the Daytona 500, Indy 500, and Brickyard 400 all in the same year. He's got a good shot at it with Montoya, and even Jamie McMurray, who starts fourth. If Jamie could win it, he'd join a short list of drivers who have won Daytona and the Brickyard in the same year.

Brad and Carl Penalty

This section below is from jayski...

- NASCAR has penalized the #60 team and the #22 driver for rule violations committed during last Saturday's NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Gateway International Raceway. The penalties come as a result of violating Section 12-1 (actions detrimental to stock car racing/ aggressive driving) of the 2010 NASCAR Rule Book. Carl Edwards, driver of the #60, has been penalized with the loss of 60 NASCAR Nationwide Series championship driver points, fined $25,000 and placed on NASCAR probation until Dec. 31. Car owner Jack Roush has been penalized with the loss of 60 series championship owner points. Brad Keselowski, driver of the #22, has been placed on NASCAR probation until Dec. 31.(NASCAR), the probation for both drivers applies to the Sprint Cup Series as well.(7-21-2010)

The 60-point penalty given to Carl I think was definitely fair. That means Carl received 130 points at Gateway and Brad got 131, so all in all, Brad extended his points lead by one point to 228 ahead. Before the penalty, Carl was 168 behind.

I don't know why they put Brad on probation, but that doesn't really mean anything.

Next time something like this happens with Carl Edwards, suspend him a race!

Gateway Finish

Ok after the finish in the Nationwide series at Gateway on Saturday night, here is my take....

Although what Carl did was unnecessary, it can be argued that both incidents this year he's had with Brad have looked much worse than they usually would've been (and therefore people have scorned Carl because of it). In the Atlanta crash, Brad happened to go airborne, and in this one he was t-boned in the pileup. I mean, that was a wicked hard hit Brad took by Shelby Howard on the final lap. Good thing he's ok.....like I said, I'm not saying what Carl did was right, but both crashes have happened to be bad, and therefore people have taken a strong stance against Edwards.

Kinda reminds me of Jamie Mac and Todd Bodine at Darlington in the Busch race in March 2003. Que Ball got loose trying to block Jamie, and spun both cars out, with Bodine coming out the victor. If not for the late race caution, the same exact thing would have happened. Again, I'm not saying what Carl or Todd did was right, fair, or good; I'm just saying that people sort of blow it out of proportion because the crash is bad.

On another note, the battle for the championship is starting to look rather exciting. Like Edwards in 2007, Keselowski could have a second-half "slump". I have a feeling Carl and Brad will be racing hard until the final lap at Homestead to win this thing!

Chicago Remarks

Boy was I wrong in my Chicago picks...almost none of those guys I had picked to challenge for the win ran up front. Jimmie was running strong early, leading 92 laps, but missed pit road, and eventually spun midway through the race and finished a lap down. Jeff Gordon ran pretty strong late in the race, but was passed by Reutimann and wasn't able to catch back up after the final round of pit stops. By the way, great to see David win! He can finally stop apologizing for the Charlotte win.

Lots of guys got good finishes that needed them, like Carl Edwards (2nd), Clint Bowyer (4th), Jamie McMurray (5th), and Paul Menard (10th). Bowyer thought he should have won last week at Daytona, and this top-five finish will help vindicate that. McMurray is definitely capable of making the Chase and winning races, but he is very inconsistent. One week, he is finishing in the top-five, the next he is a couple laps off the pace.

It sure was good to see the race play out, with no "debris" cautions at the end. I actually thought the finish wasn't bad. Carl was more than three seconds behind David after the pit stops, but started gaining on him with 20 to go. He cut the margin down to under a second, but ran out of laps.

One more thing, that was awesome to see Austin Dillon win the Truck race today in Iowa driving the black #3 truck. He may not be a threat to win the title, but Richard Childress sure looked proud.

C'mon Jeff....Really?

Reutty-Tooty won the race at Chicago!!!

In other news, how many races will it be until Jeff Gordon breaks his winless streak??? C'mon, I mean, the law of averages has got to catch up to them sometime! Jeff was running strong at Chicago, leading laps, and just lost time to David and finished third. Consistency will win a championship, but wins are equally important today!

FRUSTRATED!!!

Chicago Prediction

I believe that Denny Hamlin will win tomorrow in the Windy City. He's really picked up his game this year on 1.5-mile tracks, and seeing as winning from outside the top-10 is more common than winning from a top-10 start, Denny starts 17th and will get his sixth victory of 2010.

Of course, you can expect to see guys like Jimmie Johnson, Tony Stewart, Juan Montoya, Kasey Kahne, Jeff Gordon, and Kurt Busch to challenge Denny. Oh, and maybe Jamie Mac will do good starting from the P1 position.

NASCAR Date Changes

Why is NASCAR considering all these stupid date/track changes???

Kansas is lobbying for a second date, which most likely would take a race away from California. Look, if Fontana's going back to one-race-a-year, they ought to give the date back to Rockingham, not give another to Kansas. Nothing personal against Kansas, the racing there isn't bad...but why must we have another cookie-cutter date? Same goes for Las Vegas.

In a perfect world, the schedule would look like this:

Racetracks losing a date:
1. Fontana
2. Texas
3. Loudon

Racetracks gaining a date (or a second one)
1. Rockingham
2. Darlington
3. Montreal

The road course Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal ought to be in the Chase, giving the champion more credibility. It would replace Texas in November. Rockingham would replace California in the Chase, and Darlington would replace Loudon in the Chase, as well.

The Chase would look like this:

1. Darlington
2. Dover
3. Kansas
4. Rockingham
5. Charlotte
6. Martinsville
7. Talladega
8. Montreal
9. Phoenix
10. Homestead

That way, there's a little of everything....high banked speedways, flat tracks, a short track, a plate track, cookie-cutters, and even a road course.

Daytona Recap

How 'bout that race at Daytona? The last one with the old pavement sure was a doozy, hehehe...

Kevin Harvick won from the provisional pole position after a series of late cautions due to wrecks.

One incident we saw that hasn't happened at Daytona in a while was the "Big One", which, in this case, took out 20 cars. Usually the crashes at Daytona don't involve that many cars, as they often do at Talladega. But 12 laps from the scheduled distance, we saw half the field wiped out in turn three, due to Kurt Busch and Jeff Burton tangling. The reason we don't see it as much is because the handling that comes into play during a race at Daytona spreads the field out a bit more, so it's easier to avoid a spinning car cuz everyone's not right on top of each other. Check it out here!

Even though Kurt Busch spun twice in the final 20 laps, he still managed to finish seventh! ...and Reed Sorenson in the #83 car, who was involved in the big one, still managed to finish 8th!

The driver I had picked to win, A.J. Almmendinger, wasn't so lucky, as he got wrecked early on. He finished 36th.

And how about Junior??? He won the Nationwide series race on Friday night in that special #3 Wrangler car! When I saw that he won, I thought 'what are the chances of that?' He runs a special one-off deal to honor his late father, and he wins! ...and to cap it off, he finishes fourth in the Cup race! I see him making the Chase, because it's an even year. He makes the Chase in even years (2004, '06, '08, and now 2010).

Joey's Pick Of The Week: Daytona

A.J. Almmendinger.

Yes, I said it. The Dinger is my pick to win the Coke Zero 400 on Saturday night. He's finished well here before (third in the '09 Daytona 500), and he's not bad on restrictor plates overall.

With the unpredictability of these races, why not? It's easy to just go with the usual plate favorites, like Jamie McMurray, Dale Earnhardt Jr, Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch, and Tony Stewart, although they all will most likely make their way to the front at some point.

Driver emotions, Daytona

Kyle Busch is arguably one of the most talented drivers in the garage today. When his car is running good, he is virtually untouchable.

Notice I said, "when his car is running good", because when it's not, he can turn a bad day into a worst day.

Good drivers are guys that can turn a 15th-place car into an 8th-place finish. Jimmie Johnson is a perfect example of that. There are times (very few) when the 48 Chevy is running like junk, but somehow, either through pit strategy or tweaking of the car, they come out with a good finish.

Kyle, on the other hand, is certainly capable of winning a championship or two; he just needs to learn to keep after it during their struggles and "make lemonade out of lemons". Too many times I've seen him wreck a car that could've finished in the top-20 or top-15, if he hadn't lost his cool and, ultimately, stormed off without an interview, I might add.

Anyway, this weekend is DAYTONA!!! I've already seen a few wrecks in practice. Kyle Busch, David Ragan, Kasey Kahne, Reed Sorenson, Denny Hamlin, Tony Stewart, and Joey Logano have all been involved in incidents in practice. Kasey, in my opinion, has the ability to run very well the rest of the year, if he stays out of trouble. The new Ford engine seems to be very competitive, but he isn't finishing races, which isn't necessarily his fault. Last week, at Loudon, he blew his new Ford engine, after a strong run (he led 110 laps, the most). He needs to rally to make the Chase, but I have faith.

This Saturday's race will be the last one with the old asphalt. After that, the track will be repaved, the first time since, like, 1979. I guess it's for the better, especially after the pothole incident in the 500 this year, but the way it is now is awesome! The old pavement gives the racing it's own unique style, cuz it's so worn and bumpy, that handling plays a much bigger role than, say, Talladega. Just to see those drivers bouncing around and off each other out there makes the racing at Daytona so good...

I still think Bobby Labonte needs to be in the #83 Red Bull Toyota. He said he wants to be competitive, well those owners need to think twice before putting in guys like Casey Mears or Reed Sorenson (not saying they aren't good).

By the way, good to see Steve Park try to make his first Cup race since 2003. The last time he was at Daytona (July 2003), he won the pole.