So the ESPN Kansas broadcast started out in typical NASCAR on ESPN fashion – the Countdown show had video, but no audio. Yesterday’s Countdown show wasn’t shown, as usual, due to a college football game. It is a mystery to me that I see a zillion ESPN channels in the channel guide, but regularly at the scheduled time for Countdown I’m stuck watching some other sporting event. Now interestingly at race time there was a notification at the bottom of the screen that the race would be broadcast on ESPN Classic. It seems to me that it would be a better idea to schedule the race on a channel that does not have something else scheduled during that time, and have a plan B that is announced early when problems arise. When I checked ESPN Classic a few hours before the race the channel guide indicated that it was a channel that was not a part of my cable package. That’s unacceptable. It doesn’t really matter if it is or is not. NASCAR is a sport of the people and should be readily available to the people. I wish they would put it back on ABC or ESPN should have a channel dedicated to motorsports, or dedicated to programming which conflicts with current broadcasts – basically a dedicated overflow channel.
And for the love of all that is good, GET RID OF MARTY REID. Why we had to spend time hearing about his head cold yesterday is beyond me. He blamed it for several things, but his lack of talent for his position existed long before he complained about the sniffles. I would prefer that he stay at home in general, but if you’re sick, don’t bring your germs to the booth – KEEP YOUR SICKNESS AT HOME.
And then there’s the whole, why does he constantly talk about people NOT in the race? He takes up airtime talking about people who didn’t make the race, and about people who have started and parked, and for people who are in the garage. Unless it is something unusual, why waste the airtime? He talks entirely too much!!!! So much so that it causes me to tune him out frequently. His outbursts at the least little thing causes me to ignore him and occasionally miss something I want to see – like Jimmie Johnson’s spin during practice. That was something of interest to me, but since he’s constantly making noises to indicate something big is happening, I didn’t pay much attention until I heard tires sliding on pavement and turned to see my driver going the wrong direction.
On a beautiful sunny day in Kansas the race is underway with Kasey Kahne on the pole leading the charge. Menard who started second dropped back pretty quickly and Big Daddy who was in third pulled up pretty quickly.
Caution is out – not surprisingly, JPM was trying to open up the top groove and kissed the wall on lap 41.
Caution is out, Kyle got into the back of Reutimann and spun him out on lap 52.
Kinda hard to tell where they are in the race because they’re not keeping the laps listing up very often it seems. At least just about every time I look up I don’t see it. So far a boring race. When they get strung out early, its pretty boring.
We’re under caution again at around lap 156. As I expected Reutimann paid Kyle back for the earlier hit. Kyle says the car is killed. Reutimann has damage from the hit too. They didn’t cause a bit mess or anything, just Reuti-Tooty ran into the back of Kyle and Kyle says he bent the rear end housing and the steering wheel is ia quarter-turn off. They’re trying to get him out so he stays on the lead lap. Kyle wasn’t yelling or anything, just giving an inventory of what was wrong with the car, what he felt was damaged in the hit. They were talking earlier about how he thanked his pit crew after qualifying 19t and they were saying, what are you talking about you only qualified 19t and he explained that that was the highest he’d qualified at that track so he really appreciated it. He mentioned something about not going crazy on the radio when things go wrong and losing his focus – seems like that decision is going to be tested.
It would be nice if they kept the lap count (we’re restarting at lap 160) on screen constantly. Happy stayed out under the caution. Jimmie lost five positions in the first pit stop and restarted 21s, then fell back in that run, then came in at the next available opportunity and restarted 28t. Since then he’s been coming up nicely. He’s now in 10t at lap 164 of 267. Happy was kind of giving a play-by-play of Reutimann-Busch incident on the radio. As we were listening to the audio and watching Happy in the car, Kasey spun out. On lap 165 Kasey Kahne hit the wall and brought out the caution and his left front tire blew as he was headed to pit road and blew off the left front of the car. Kenny told him to just go to the garage. Kyle says he has a serious problem with what just happened and he doesn’t think the tower is going to do a damn thing about it. Dave told him to just concentrate on what they’re doing and try to get their car as good as they can. Dave then said Reuti’s crew chief told him he’d better stop wrecking people or he’s going to quit!!! Reuti-Tooty is 10 laps down right now after that hit. He’s had to keep going in and out for work. Kyle wants to replace the rear arm, Dave says they will have a better points day if they stay out instead – even if they limp around and go five laps down. Carl almost hit one of his pit crew as he took off. 48 stayed out and didn’t come in on this pit stop. 24 was told to come in but he stayed out thinking that’s what they wanted him to do. Carl did a two-tire stop and got out fast, as did Burton; so we’ll get to see how that works out.
85 laps to go and I’m having to worry about Dammit Carl Edwards who is harassing Jimmie.
80 laps to go and we’re under caution again. Kevin Conway in the 7 blowed up.
Marcos Ambrose is behind the wall they can’t get the engine to fire. Carl is thrilled, he’s the in-car reporter for the race and they’ve actually had time to talk to him a couple times
Restarting on lap 73. Menard stayed out and led for a while, only to be passed by Biffle. 15 laps to go and Biff is still leading 5.2 seconds ahead of Smoke. Smoke got most laps led.
12 laps to go Jimmie is trying to pass Smoke for second. Because of the battle Harvick is coming up behind Jimmie as we approach 9 to go. Because of that Happy is just behind Smoke and Biffle has extended his lead in traffic. Smoke is coming back after Jimmie until he got bad loose and Harvik passed. Carl passed Big Daddy on the apron. Big Daddy is coming back on Carl. The ran side-by-side for a while (after Carl did his on the apron thing again) and then had to get out of it because he got loose under Big Daddy. Jimmie is 7.59 seconds behind Biffle and Harvick is about a second behind Jimmie.
White flag lap and Biff is still way ahead. This will be Biff’s 16th cup win. Jimmie comes in second and gives him the points lead. Clint Bowyer comes back from a horrible day to salvage a 15t place win. Biffle wins.
After the race they ask Kyle what he would like to see NASCAR do to Reuti-tooty and he said, “Nothing. I thought about it. Nothing. Whatever.” Joe Gibbs had a talk with him after the race – it seemed to be a rather loud talk – though quick. Reuti-tooty gave the “my guys worked so hard” thing, along with the “getting wrecked for no reason whatsoever at that point of the race” speeches. He didn’t straight up admit to payback, but he gave every other indication that he intentionally hit Kyle. Kyle, on the other hand, mostly talked about how it didn’t make sense for Dave who’s racing for nothing hit someone who’s racing for the Chase. He said, “He’ll be here next year. He would’ve had 26 chances to hit me next year. If he would’ve hit me in any of those 26 races it would’ve been fine. We salvaged a finish, but it just wasn’t the finish it might have been.” There’s more of that more mature Kyle Busch. Whatever Joe Gibbs said to him he said, “Okay.” And kept walking and in the end he didn’t put them in any more hot-water. The interview he did made sense and he said hitting Reutimann was his fault, he took full responsibility for it. He said Reutimann was saying he was loose on the radio.
Ford said they were going to give a very nice bonus to the next guy who won to spread between he and his crew. Biffle and his crew will get that $100k. Carl says they said they had some extra money in the budget. Carl says, “(He has) learned though he may not always apply it, to sometimes take a breath in the car.” He also said, He “learned his lesson with Denny Hamlin”. So he was bummed about not finishing fifth until he found out he is 53 points out of the point lead.
Boring race, and just think, there will be two of them next year. I understand that NASCAR is thinking about butts-in-seats, but they’re also concerned about television ratings, and boring races don’t keep butts-on-couches. Jamie Little is looking more animal-like as she ages. She’s lost weight which seems to have enhanced the beaverishness of her face. Interesting. I’ve heard that Sophia Loren has said when you age you make a choice, your butt or your face. She’s apparently chosen her butt. Since I’ve heard that I’ve watched the choices that women of a certain age make/made. Most American women choose their butts, which is sometimes a shame, because their butts aren’t seen on camera and off camera as often as their faces. Many European women have previously chosen their faces and some still do. Its an interesting thing to watch – people fight the natural results of aging. They all want to keep living, but no one seems to want to get older.