Qualifying was rained out Friday so Kevin Harvick will lead the field, set by owner’s points, to the green flag.
Kyle Busch won the Xfinity series race last night. It was pretty sad to see the Chase standings and see only three Xfinity series winners at this point in the season. That, to me, makes the series’ drivers look really weak. NASCAR has to figure out something for this season. The drivers need to learn to drive, of course, but there needs to be something unique and interesting about the series that will create an audience. Reliance on Sprint Cup series drivers’ appearances does nothing to make stars, nor make the series. Since Cup has become strictly a marketing mechanism, it would be a boon to both the Truck and Xfinity series to be about driving/racing and to be more exciting than Cup. Once of the reasons I loved the ARCA series – during the old SPEEDTV days – was the unpredictable nature of the racing. You just never knew what would happen next in that series. It was organically exciting. Xfinity and trucks could wrench themselves out of the stranglehold of the money-men and bring the thrills. Eh, wishful thinking I’m sure. It seems NASCAR prefers manufactured excitement indicated by screaming “announcers/commentators” to honest-to-goodness heart-stopping racing actions that doesn’t require hype or hysteria.
Apparently Serena Williams won Wimbledon, again. I didn’t bother to watch. I look forward to the day women’s tennis is once again competitive without all the grunting. It’s been a long time coming, but I’m enough of an optimist to believe that day will come. When it does I’ll return to the level of attention I used to give to tennis. Until then I listen to the early rounds of tournaments on the internet and watch the finals if the competitors aren’t the usual suspects – which means I don’t see a lot of final matches these days.
I went to bed during the Truck series race. Back in the day – four or five years ago – I would stay up as late as needed to watch a race from flag to flag, these days it’s just not worth it. The racing simply isn’t interesting enough typically. The truck series has improved over last year and the year before, but it’s still not where it was when Johnny Benson was battling Rick Crawford for the title.
There will be a competition caution on lap 25.
Caution on lap 11 of 267 for Ricky “Stinkhouse” Stenhouse hitting the wall again. He kissed the wall initially, then it drifted hard into the wall.
Competition caution is out on lap 27 of 267.
Caution out on lap 33 of 267 for Jimmie Johnson going around and into the wall on the restart. Chadley told him to take it straight to the garage. Jimmie Johnson is in a backup car having hit the wall in practice on Friday.
Just heard a tv commercial for Loudon that featured fuel mileage as the “exciting” part of the race – with Rick Allen yelling his fool head off about Kevin Harvick running out of gas. Manufactured excitement. It might be a bit more believable if, like a radio broadcast, we couldn’t actually see that nothing exciting is happening
Caution is lout on lap 53 of 267 for “Squinty-Douchey” who hit the wall earlier and damaged his car finally hitting the wall. NASCAR was concerned about the car ages before, but since they didn’t bother to black flag Logano, he did a typical Penske and stayed out there being a moving chicane while trying to hang on until someone else brought out the caution. NASCAR needs to do something about that behaviour, but then again there’s lots of Penske and JGR behaviours they need to be as attentive to as they have been to Hendrick behaviours..
Caution on lap 80 of 267 for Matt DiBenedetto hitting the wall.
Caution is out lap 89 of 267 as both Chase Elliott and Ryan Blaney go around and hit the wall. Both head to the garage.
Cation lap 94 of 267 for an incident with Chris Buescher and Brian Scott and AJ Allmendinger. Brian Scott got sideways and managed to correct it, but Kyle Larson got into the back of him sending him up the track where he bounced off Smoke, which spun him around into the front of Chris Buescher, couldn’t see how AJ Allmendinger ended up in the wall.
Caution on lap 151 of 267 for Regan Smith into the wall.
Caution on lap 161 of 267 for Clint Bowyer losing the car after having the air pulled off him by Danica Patrick which pulled him around. He managed to gather it up without hitting the wall. Great driving by “Thrilla” David Ragan. “Drunk Daddy” Bowyer was sliding sideways in front of him and Ragan stayed on the brakes until he could drive around Bowyer. Nice job “Thrilla”.
Caution on lap 172 of 267 for AJ Allmendinger. Not quite sure what happened since the only shot NBC seemed to have was a shot from pit road looking at Happy Harvick’s pit sign up close and the track and the car in the distance.. Eventually the 47 comes from behind the sign with smoke trailing it. Shoddy.
Caution on lap 194 of 267 as Landon Cassill flat-sides the right side of his car getting into the wall.
“It” wins a boring race. It was a busy race, but ultimately boring.
NASCAR News:
- Darrell Wallace Jr. must pay for likening NASCAR officials to Muppets.
- Newman/Haas IndyCar owner Carl Haas dies at 86.
- Fire breaks out in parking lot at Kentucky NASCAR race.
- Backup Car for Kurt Busch.
- NASCAR Awards Return to Vegas, Miami.
- Kentucky Cup Qualifying Cancelled.
- Johnson Goes to Backup Car.
- Kurt Busch Unhappy With Logano.
- Busch Dominates at Kentucky.
- Wallace Fined $15,000.
- Byron Gives KBM Record Win.
- Townley Sidelined for Kentucky.
- Moffitt Subs for Tifft at Kentucky.