Spring Vegas Sunday

The weather folks said sunshine and sunshine it was.  It was a beautiful day in Vegas.  All that sun made the track hot and slippery though.  The race was kinda uneventful overall.  Occasions of good racing, mixed with Big Daddy just running away with it with almost three second leads.  A few wrecks, all of which seemed to be a result of people getting loose.  Kevin Conway had a couple.  Jamie Mc hit Juan Pablo (who was very, very upset with his teammate).  Robby Gordon hit the wall.  AJ Allmendinger mowed the lawn a bit.  Kurt Busch hit JPM also when Jamie Mc was t-boning him.  Okay racing, but not that exciting.  The finish – JIMMIE JOHNSON WINS!!!  Jimmie finally passed Big Daddy with about fifteen laps to go and held on to win.  Big Daddy got two tires when Jimmie got four and that seemed to be the call of the race.

From what some of the announcers were saying Jimmie and Chadley were having words, though Jimmie said he needed to vent apparently.  I’m guessing Jimmie is still a bit unhappy with Chad for dismissing his complaints about restarts last week.  Apparently that was the subject of the rants this week also.  I understand what Jimmie is saying.  He just hasn’t had the power and speed on restarts that will guarantee him the lead and that will become a problem.   NASCAR has changed the green, white, checker rule for this year.  Now they will have up to three attempts to finish a race on green.  It’s been tested once – at Daytona.  Jimmie wasn’t remotely in contention for the win at that time (he wasn’t even on the track), but I’m sure he’s thinking ahead and also remembering how many races ended last season with a green, white, checker finish, or with a late race restart that made the difference in the outcome.  I agree with his thinking and I know Chadley has to focus on the race they’re currently running, but their restart performance is something he has to also fix – soon.  If he doesn’t (and continues to poo-poo what Jimmie says like he did at the beginning of last year) the 48 team will be playing catch-up with their fingers crossed this summer.

Michael Carl and Dr. Kate had baby Anne this past Wednesday.  She weighed 8 pounds 4 ounces.  Carl says he’s already been changing diapers.  Still to come, new arrivals for Jimmie & Chani Johnson, Jeff & Ingrid Gordon, and Juan Pablo and Connie Montoya.  Kate wanted the baby to have a simple name, so Annie it is. 

Spank Boy led a lap or two under caution.  One of the guys on tv said today that it was known that his job would be in jeopardy if he didn’t start well this year.  For goodness sakes this is just his second full year in Sprint Cup and he’s shown so much improvement.  He was bad at the start of last year and didn’t seem to take it seriously enough, but as the season progressed his frustration seemed to push him forward and he learned a lot fast.  He made some mistakes trying to get too much too soon, but his effort is showing and the number of laps led so far this year seems to indicate he should be given a shot.  He’s so much better week-in and week-out than Sideways Sam Hornish and “My Daddy Owns The World” Paul Menard.  It frustrates me to think his career will be cut short by shortsightedness. 

The hives are better today.  No problems this morning, but the itching started this afternoon and has been getting worst as the evening progresses.  I took some benadryl and that seems to have helped earlier, though not quite as much right now.