Night Ranger? Doing the National Anthem? Seriously? Who knew they were still around? New album? Okay. Why does SMI seem to consistently dig up acts you didn’t know still existed for the anthem? I don’t typically keep track of who owns which track, though I know they’re in charge of Atlanta. I was fortunate enough to see Dierks Bentley in concert at an Atlanta race, though he didn’t do the anthem. Otherwise the people doing the anthem were either acts from the past or that group of guys singing to recorded background music. Awful in general. While watching television I’ve seen Luke Bryan and Darius Rucker do the anthem. Atlanta never gets anything like them. The other races I’ve considered attending were the same and were SMI tracks. What’s up with that? Why can’t they get quality anthem performers? Just saying. Maybe the majority of people don’t care enough about it for SMI to put in the effort.
Sunny skies with fluffy white clouds today. They’re saying its really warm there. It’s 43 degrees here in north Georgia and cloudy. Would love to trade weather. 🙂
Martin Truex Jr has outside pole for the race. Stages are 80-80-107.
‘It’ did that gimmicked start he tends to end up having to get warned about by NASCAR before he stops doing that one.
Corey LaJoie hit the wall – outside first, then inside – bringing out the first caution on lap 17 of 267. TV showed a very distant camera shot of the incident
so I’m not sure what happened – it was too tiny for me to see.
Happy 45th birthday Matt Kenseth!
Kevin Harvick hits the wall on lap 68 of 267 bringing out the second caution. He blew a tire. TV showed an in-car shot for the replay. KHarv is climbing out of the car which is sitting against the wall. Corey LaJoie also got out of the car. Have the rules changed regarding when drivers can leave the car? Maybe the emergency crew were there – ah, they were almost at the car when he was sitting in the window. We were stuck on an in-car shot of Happy taking off his helmet, so we couldn’t see where they were.
They will restart with 5 laps to go to the end of the stage.
Squinty-Douchey didn’t take tires and will lead them to the green flag. Jamie Mc took two and is inside Squinty-douchey.
Luckily ‘It’ was behind S-D when he spun the tires on the restart and gave him a push. Truex ate them up as the first car with four tires.
Ryan Blaney is coming hard toward the front.
Stage 1 ends with Martin Truex Jr in the lead.
Happy Harvick isn’t. He was quite curt talking to – snapping at – the PRN guy when leaving the infield care center.
Happy said, on tv, it was vibrating about four laps before and he was trying to ride it out to the end of the stage. He was also complaining about the amount of time it took the emergency crew to get to the car – said he thought they’d gotten better about that. He said he didn’t know if it was the bead, or what. He was the points leader coming into the race,but isn’t expected to be at the end of the race as he’ll finish 38th. Corey LaJoie will finish 39th. Not sure what happened to the 40th car for this race. KHarv’s average finish is 15th, but since he won stages he has the points lead due to the stage points. He slowly got unhooked from everything – seemingly waiting for the emergency crew. Someone on his radio told Corey to get out of the car after his wreck.
Restarting on lap 88 of 267.
It’s a sad statement that the best battle on the racetrack is for two cars battling for 13th position.
Green flag pit stops underway around lap 153 of 267.
KyBu has the first speeding penalty of the day – too fast in segment 6. Gray Gaulding also penalized for speeding.
So Wendy Venturini is saying that the reason KHarv was so unhappy was because of how long it took the medical crew to get to him after the changes with the medical crew for 2017. NASCAR decided to use a traveling medical unit instead of local personnel.
Derrick Cope brings out the caution on lap 151 of 267 for a spin by Derricke Cope. Whatever happened to his daughters who were trying to race. I’d forgotten about them. They were very blonde.
The 48 stayed out so he will lead them to the green flag with four laps to go in the stage.
And Martin Truex Jr ate him alive with the new tires on the 78.
Truex wins stage 2.
Restarting at lap 167 of 267. Truex stayed out and led them to the green flag.
Jimmie Johnson stayed out during the green flag pit stops around lap 217, while everybody else came in so he has a huge lead, but will have to pit at some point for fuel.
The best I can say about this race so far is that it is passing quickly. BORING race. The Xfinity race was boring also.
Jimmie pitted on lap 229 of 267 leaving the lead to Martin Truex Jr.
Danica blowed up with 16 to go bringing out the caution
Newman has a tire rub.
Everybody hits the pits on lap 253 of 267.
Stenhouse’s axle is showing outside of his wheel so he’s headed back in to the pits. Jimmie Johnson is returning to pit road to tighten lug nuts. Kurt Busch is also coming back in.
They put down a lot of speedy-dry for Danica’s engine issue that they’re working on cleaning up.
Looks like we restart with 9 laps to go.
Truex wins! He is the first stage winner to win the race in the Cup series.
KyBu spun out on the final lap. He’s out of his car and seems really upset. He was in fourth place when he slide across the track.
There’s a fight according to PRN. Joey and KyBu are fighting on pit road. The teams are involved.
Finally the tv broadcast gets around to showing the chaos in the pits. NASCAR officials have pulled KyBu away and he’s still trying to get away from them to get back to the fight. He was in a pile of 22 team members. KyBu has blood on his forehead.
The 22 spun KyBu out. Squinty-douchey says he got loose because Kyle tried to crash him and it took him a bit to gather it up. They were trying to get around the 2 which was blowing up.
Of course the tv cameras weren’t in place when it all started, but there’s a shot on pit road of the pile of 22 crewman. Joey said none of the blows were landed to him.
KyBu went over to where Joey’s crew were, and Joey was out of it quickly, so its likely the crew got in a few punches on KyBu. Someone pulled Joey away from it pretty quickly.
‘It’ claims something broke on the white flag lap. He says it wouldn’t turn and he lost brakes.
Joey Logano may have gotten punched unintentionally by someone. There’s some question as to whether he’s playing it down.
Congrats to Chase Elliott on a third place finish. Good going Ryan Blaney on the seventh place finish. Jimmie managed to pull out an eleventh place finish. Kasey Kahne finished twelfth.
KyBu ends up 22nd. He said, “He (Joey Logano) races that way he’s gonna get it”. He was furious and still bleeding leaving the infield care center.
Okay, on replay KyBu dropped down to avoid ‘It’ who was slowing on the track drastically. He did bump Squinty-Douchey, then went up the track away from him as soon as he got around ‘It’. Then in the next corner Squinty-Douchey went hard at him and caused him to spin.
That was quite a boring race, and to think next year we’lll get two boring races at this track. Winner, winner, chicken dinner – for someone.
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