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.

NASCAR Makes And Models Throughout The Years

I was talking today with my dad about all the different makes and models of cars that have been rotated through NASCAR throughout the years, and I'd like to share a bit of that conversation...

Chevrolet has been around NASCAR pretty much since the beginning. Today, when one thinks of Chevy, they think of teams like Rick Hendrick and Richard Childress, who both have been around for years, and both have fielded Chevy teams for the majority of that time. Drivers that really found success with Chevy include Dale Earnhardt, Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Kevin Harvick, Dale Jr., Tony Stewart, and Terry Labonte.

On the other hand, you have team owners such as Joe Gibbs, who has been successful with a variety of makes and models. Starting in 1992, Gibbs ran Chevy's, with Dale Jarrett as his driver in the #18 Interstate Batteries Chevy. Of course, they won the 1993 Daytona 500, a huge accomplishment. The only other race Jarrett won with Gibbs was the fall Charlotte race in 1994. Starting in 1995, Jarrett left for Yates, in which he found most of his success with, and Gibbs brought in Bobby Labonte, who really is known for driving the green #18 machine.

Starting in 1997, Gibbs switched to Pontiac (Grand Prix). In that ride, Bobby won 19 races and the 2000 championship. Tony Stewart joined the team in 1999 driving the #20 Home Depot Pontiac, and he went on to win the 2002 championship.

Gibbs once again switched allegiances to Chevy starting in the 2003 season. Tony won the championship again in 2005, which makes him the only driver to win a title with both the old points format and the Chase format (so far).

Gibbs racing changed make/model once again starting in 2008, getting on board with the Toyota camp (Camry), and has been successful with it so far.

Ford has not been so successful this year (2010) in the NASCAR top series, with Carl Edwards' Nationwide series win at Road America two weeks ago being the lone victory. But Ford has been quite dominant at times in the past.

Ford used to run the Thunderbird in the 80's and 90's, with teams such as Alan Kulwicki single-handedly winning the championship in 1992 (they called themselve the "Underbirds"). Mercury ran in the 60's and 70's quite successfully, but starting in 1998, Ford switched to the Taurus. In fact, at Las Vegas that year, nine of the top-10 were Ford Taurus'. They were so successful early on, that NASCAR made a rule saying all Ford teams must change their rear spoiler so there would be less downforce on the cars compared to other teams. This evened out the competition.
Fords top teams in recent years have been Roush Racing (now Roush/Fenway Racing), Yates Racing (now merged/defunct), Penske (now runs Dodges), and the Wood Brothers.
Roush racing has produced good drivers such as Matt Kenseth, Greg Biffle, Mark Martin, Jeff Burton, Kurt Busch, and Carl Edwards. For his entire career, Jack Roush has ran Fords consistently.

Dodge, which made a comeback to NASCAR in 2001 after 20 years or so, is thinking of running the Challenger, which would be different from the Charger they currently run. The only other model Dodge has run since their return was the Intrepid, used by teams such as Evernham Motorsport, Penske, and Chip Ganassi until 2005. As of right now, the only team running Dodges is Penske, with Kurt Busch (#2), Brad Keselowski (#12), and Sam Hornish Jr. (#77).

I wish Pontiac was still around. They gave us some good memories, such as Bobby Labonte's championship season in 2000, Tony's in 2002, and their final Winston Cup victory was nothing short of spectacular. Ricky Craven, driving a Pontiac Grand Prix for Cal Wells, beat Kurt Busch's Ford by .002 seconds at Darlington for NASCAR's closest finish ever (well, at least since the introduction of electronic timing in 1993).

Whew! There's much more to be said about all the different makes and models run in NASCAR throughout the years, but these are the things I know about the current models being run. It is interesting to note how some car owners have changed models over the years (Gibbs), while some have always stayed the same (Hendrick), and all have had success.