All track activity Saturday at Talladega called off
Cup quals canceled; Nationwide race moved to Sunday
That headline from NASCAR.com says it all. I’m quite a Talladega fan and have been looking forward to this race since the start of the season. No qualifying means my boy starts on the pole – not horrible, but it might make it tough for him to dawdle along at the back. Of course, these days with Big Daddy being a Big Baby and Junior always being undependable, its not like Jimmie would’ve had a teammate to hang around the back of the pack with anyway. (And no I’m not forgetting Mark Martin, I’m just ignoring him right now.) Smoke and Newman tend to run with (or ahead of) the pack so they wouldn’t be options in the dawdle game. So it will be interesting to see what happens Sunday.
This week’s NASCAR news includes BooBoo getting mad at DW because he spilled the beans about Jr driving the 3 in an upcoming race. Apparently they’d planned a big press conference to announce it, but DW apparently tweeted about it, ruining the surprise. DW is such a big Jr supporter, though he doesn’t hesitate to criticize “JuneBug” like any friend of your parents would do. I think BooBoo has been a little unhappy with DW since he said earlier in the year that Jr should drive some truck races. DW thought it would help Jr’s confidence.
Other news involves follow-ups from the Monday Texas Race. Jimmie and Big Daddy had a bit of a tussle on the track and were “disappointed” with the way they were racing each other. Both said they would resolve the issue during the week. This has been brewing for a long time. I noticed at the very end of 2008 Jeff was a bit snippy about Jimmie. He tended to give a lot of credit to Mark Martin whenever someone asked him about Jimmie, glossing over Jimmie. Last year I noticed the anger/frustration/jealousy was a bit more palpable when he’d speak about Jimmie. I also noticed occasionally Jeff’s would drive in such a way as to hamper Jimmie’s on-track performance. The media seemed to not mention these incidents. This year it started earlier and was even more obvious. I know Jeff is competitive and it had been a couple of years since he had a winning season, but I don’t know that he really wants to win this way – but maybe I’m giving him too much credit. We’ll see as the season continues.
Other news, Shell/Pennzoil is leaving RCR and going to Penske. Kurt Busch will drive the #22 Shell/Pennzoil Dodge next year. Brad Keselowski will drive the #2 Miller Lite Dodge. Mobil 1 will leave Penske at the end of the season, so the Captain is searching for sponsorship for the #77 Mobil 1 Dodge driven by Sam Hornish Jr.
I ended up talking to LiverPooh all afternoon; so more tomorrow!