Jimmie Johnson has captured the pole – his first career Texas pol. He starts the race 2 points ahead of Brad Keselowski in the championship race. Race day dawns sunny and bright, 68 degrees as race time draws near.
SpeedTV is doing a special on Hendrick Motorsports’ 200 NASCAR wins that will air November 11th. They’ve been airing small portions of it throughout the weekend. The drivers who contributed to those 200 wins get together and tell stories and share memories. SpeedTV is also airing a special on November 15th called ‘Kurt Busch: The Outlaw’. Seriously? Okay. It will help as the season draws to a close, but, Dude! Seriously?
So a parachutist dropping into the infield and onto the track carrying a Texas flag (with a 20 pound sandbag attached) hit the 29 car and put a dent in it by the driver’s door. NASCAR officials allowed them to take it back to the garage and repair the damage. Harvick won the mundo boring Nationwide race last night, so it seems like he might have used up all of this luck for this season. At the end of the race Austin Dillon thought it would be a good idea to bump Denny Hamlin’s car. Denny put him into the wall and then they had words. Danny Stockman, Frankenstein’s crew chief, also had words for Denny. When interviewed after Danny Stockman walked away, Denny said:
“First of all, he got his ride because of his name. Second of all, you’ve got to take advantage of the opportunity. If he’s points racing, you can’t crowd a guy that’s running (for wins). I’m on the bottom; I’m all the way to the apron. I’m doing everything I can, and after the checkered flag, he wants to run into me – so I ran him into the fence.
“Danny says, ‘Look, he ain’t got to fix it.’ Maybe he needs to take his little ass over there and fix the race car if he wants to keep wrecking. He needs to learn a lesson.
“I believe he got wrecked at Bristol a couple times because he crowds really, really bad. That’s part of it. If you’re going to pinch, you’re going to pay.
“I don’t know why he was upset. After the checkered flag he runs into me. I don’t know if he feels entitled by the number on his door to think he’s tough. If he’s going to start it, I’m going to finish it.”
Go Denny Go!!! He said what I believe everybody else is thinking about Frankenstein.
The race started off boring like the usual Texas race. Jimmie led early and often. During transition time, Brad and KyBu took over the lead and ran around up front for a while. The cautions started falling during the second third of the race and were sprinkled throughout leading to a green, white, checkered finish. After a few sketchy restarts by Keselowski resulting in complaints from both KyBu and Jimmie, and some beating and banging between Jimmie and Bradley K, Mark Martin brings out the final caution as he goes spinning. Jimmie takes the lead on the restart and finishes out front. Maximum Points Day!