Trouble in Turn2

The final pit stop. It’s cliche to say it means everything in NASCAR, but at Atlanta it was true. The top five entering the pits were Kyle Busch, Matt Kenseth, Martin Truex Jr and Jimmie Johnson, but that’s not what came out. Denny Hamlin stayed out, Johnson, Dale Earnhardt Jr and Reed Soreson took 2 tires, completely shuffling the top five. Worse, Hamlin ran out of fuel on the restart inciting all kinds of mayhem. Three of the four best cars all finished with unbelievable versions of heartbreak. It’s a shame for Truex, and Earnhardt Jr’s day was completely bizarre before ending with his 8th DNF. Although Kyle Busch’s frustration was equally warranted, it’s tougher to feel bad for him after hearing the in-car audio of him threatening to wreck the car.

It probably was a two man race last week, but it’s definitely true now that Tony Stewart had problems and Clint Bowyer could only gain four points on Gordon. There has to be some concern about Texas for Gordon. He typically doesn’t run well there and he didn’t run very well on Sunday at Atlanta. Nine points. That is the difference of between 1st and 2nd.

It’s impossible to tell who will win, but this much is true. The winner will be the better team, not the one that better avoids trouble. Hendrick Motorsports does just build fast cars, but they pay such attention to quality it’s incredible. Johnson and Gordon have both had parts failures, but it rarely happens more than once. Things like wheels breaking on a restart, losing the power steering or blown engines are not regular events at Hendrick (think Jr can wait for 2008?).

Johnson won his 8th race of 2007. No matter what happens in the Chase, it’s long overdue for Johnson to be recognized as one of the best drivers not only today, but ever. He has 31 wins in six years and is only 1 win behind Dale Jarrett and Tony Stewart and 4 behind Mark Martin. In his career he has never scored less than 20 top tens in a season. It seems like when someone talks about Johnson, they’re quick to mention his crew chief Chad Knaus, his great team at Hendrick or even his great mentor in Gordon before giving credit to Johnson. He is putting up amazing numbers in an era that is more competitive than it was even ten years ago when Gordon was so dominant.

Other Thoughts

• Advertisers in other sports typically roll out new commercials during the playoffs. If advertisers get more bang for their buck in NASCAR (according to NASCAR), why do they keep running the same stale ads all season? I’m looking in your direction Gillette Young Guns.

  On a related note, I usually tape the race and then fast forward through commercials (it’s not Tivo, but it works). If any sponsors are reading this blog(and they probably aren’t), I almost always stop for two ads, Geico and my homeboy Lauren Wallace and the Napa commercials where Michael Waltrip reads his “fanmail”.

• When ESPN’s Cup coverage started Rusty Wallace didn’t seem to fit. Maybe he tried too hard or just didn’t know how to play off of Andy Petree, but something was off. Things have improved over the season. After Petree explained downforce through the example of sticking your hand out of a moving car window, Wallace responded, “We spent $3million on graphics and you just explained it better for nothing!”

• The wreck involving David Gilliland and Mark Martin looked bad. Like most bad crashes, both drivers walked away. The problem is that the cars get obliterated. I’m curious to see how the CoT will handle damage at 190mph next season.

This race had too many stories to try and cram in one post. I’ll have more tomorrow in my recap of the non-Chasers called The Other 31