So, we get a stand-alone Nationwide Race weekend. Too bad it’s at Chicagoland. Chicagoland is one of the most boring tracks typically. Due to my busy week I have managed to miss any practice or race coverage so far this weekend. There’s also an ARCA race airing this evening. I am very much looking forward to that race.
Bestie is back!!! Hooray!!! No Maddening Marty Reid this weekend. I so enjoy listening to Andy Petree tell me what’s what. If only we could get rid of Brad Daugherty and replace him with someone much less biased and much more informed. He’s almost as bad as Michael Waltrip, though at least Mikey has actually driven the cars in a race. It drives me nuts to hear him answering driver questions like he’s actually been a Sprint Cup or Nationwide series driver. I bring as much legitimacy to the job as he does. Yes he’s a car owner, but so are a lot of other people. Since he’s an active car owner that seems like it should disqualify him from calling races – since he has a dog in the fight – but it appears ESPN would rather have incompetent color on the desk than to get someone who’s good at the job. Unfortunately Ray Evernham only does a recorded segment. I enjoy Ray on the desk so much!
Caution is out on the first lap as Joey Gase’s car goes up in smoke on the start of the race. Regan Smith is complaining about issues with his voltmeter. Since the race never really got going tis hard to tell if its a fluke or a real issue. Clean up is rather extensive because of where he blew up and how far he had to travel to get to the garage.
Caution is out on lap 48 for the 23 of Harrison Rhodes blowing up.
Sam Hornish got caught speeding coming onto pit road so after leading the entire race in a dominant fashion up to this point he becomes the last car on the lead lap.
Nelson Piquet Jr is making an unscheduled pit stop on lap 56 of 200. He’s reporting a vibration.
Alex Bowman as come in on lap 88 to change a battery.
Caution is out on lap 114 for Travis Pastrana hitting the wall. He apparently had contact with Nelson Piquet Jr earlier got damage to his fender which eventually took out the tire and sent him into the wayll.
Caution is out on lap 129 for Regan Smith going farming through the infield.
Caution is out on lap 171 as Mike Bliss tries to go to pit road and spins past it instead.
Nice battle for the lead on the restart that almost got four wide. Joey Logano took them three wide and took the lead from Elliott Sadler who was doing a slide job on Sam Hornish Jr who restarted alongside him. Frankenstein (Austin Dillon) tried to take them four-wide and luckily changed his mind, because that would’ve been a nightmare.
Caution is out for Reed Soreson blowing up on lap 179. The cars are taken down onto pit road while cleanup is underway.
We’re restarting with 15 laps to go Joey Logano and Sam Hornish lead them to the green flag followed by Elliott Sadler and Frankenstein. Logano takes the lead. Logano came to this race at the request of the Captain Roger Penske who is seeking the Owner’s championship.
Regan Smith has a truck team pitting his car this weekend. Usually he has a cup team pitting for him, but since Cup has the weekend off, they got the truck team to pit him. So far it’s not been a very positive change. The crew performed wonderfully on the first pit stop and has since been slow every stop losing Regan positions.
With 3 laps to go unless something happens before the white flag lap Joey Logano has this race won. Sam is chasing Joey, but it doesn’t look likely. Joey wins the race. Sam comes in second. Elliott comes in fourth. Vickers holds off Parker Kligerman for fifth and Dewy Alligator (Justin Allgaier) comes in sixth. Sam retains the championship points lead. Regan Smith finishes 13th.
21 July 2013 17:43:08
ARCA – Chicagoland
Frank Kimmel has tied Iggy Katona’s records in the ARCA series. Since he’s still racing he will most likely surpass him soon becoming the greatest driver of the ARCA series.
Caution is out on lap 5 of 100 for an issue for Thomas Praytor – looks like flat tires.
Overall this is a typical Chicagoland race – lots of green flag laps, not much action.
That was the craziest race at the end! They ran Ryan Blaney until he ran out of gas! The guy who took over the lead from Ryan also ran out of gas. Justin Boston ran out of gas. Corey LaJoie ends up winning since he had the most gas of the frontrunners at the end.
Randy LaJoie says Ryan Blaney is going Nationwide next season. He also said: “I gotta fart in my wallet to have a cent” – Randy LaJoie
In NASCAR news this week:
- NASCAR plans to modify the appeals process. They had really backed themselves into a corner with the current process. While they insisted it would be business as usual after the recent penalty adjustments, their recent ‘no penalty’ call for 31 cars modifying the roof flaps indicated they were gunshy. While some pundits said it wasn’t a big deal, the fact that the parts were confiscated leads me to believe differently. Many things that have previously not been problematic are problematic within the current rules. I believe this announcement will give NASCAR the opportunity to tighten up the rules and curtail the ‘winning whiner’ trend.
- NASCAR will no longer allow television to hang cameras over the track. HOORAY!!! Earlier this season an overhead camera fell onto the track damaging cars and injuring fans. The risk outweighs the benefit. I’m rarely able to determine anything beneficial from those shots anyway and find the streaking camera at Indy very distracting.
- Theoretically James Finch has finally sold his Sprint Cup team. The report has come out though he won’t say to whom claiming the new owner wants to make the announcement himself on Friday or Monday. Well Friday has come and gone, so we’ll see what happens tomorrow. Since there’s a race today to talk about tomorrow, it seems it would’ve made more sense to talk about it while Finch was leaking it throughout last week. I don’t believe a word James Finch says.