Rain, rain, go away! Its raining in the Poconos – AGAIN! So practice is a no go. The Cup cars are at Pocono. The Nationwide cars are at Iowa. Joey Logano is the only driver doing both of those races. The trucks are at Texas. Three races, three tracks in three states and we’re stuck watching The 10 and Race Hub. Seriously SPEEDTV? That’s just sorry. Occasionally we received updates from Adam Alexander, Larry Mc-Talk-Too-Much, and Wacky Wally Dallenbach. Eventually NASCAR called everything off for today including Cup practice and qualifying and ARCA practice and qualifying.
Congratulations to Trevor Bayne who tied the knot earlier this week.
Unfortunately the aired an episode of Race Hub. Danielle Trotta was wearing a red skirt, black low cut blouse and something frightening in her hair that looked like a really, really, really cheap flower. It seems someone told her dress like a professional and she misunderstood them to say dress like a pro. Can someone please teach that girl how to look like a sportscaster instead of like a sports groupie??? To top it off, Matt ‘Clueless’ Clark’s role seems to have expanded. Bunny said they keep getting one terrible person after another. Danielle is bad enough. She makes Larry Mc seem like a professional broadcaster. Clueless Clark makes Michael Waltrip seems seem smooth and experienced and knowledgeable. I’ve stopped watching Race Hub. I used to tune in everyday – even when they were playing musical hosts with Krista ‘Krap’ Voda, Byrnes, John Roberts and Rick Allen. When Byrnes took over and took the show to an hour I cheered. Then Trotta
began stinking up the show with her useless streams of numbers, convoluted writing, and cheap call girl attire. As if that wasn’t bad enough Larry Mc was allowed to repeat his repetition of other people’s words on a growing number of episodes. Petty Kyle got more time to grinch and contrarian his way through episodes. That catastrophe was followed by an expanded role for ‘Clueless’ Clark. The show became a parade of the talentless with Steve Byrnes playing ringmaster. After the destruction of Trackside, the deletion of This Week In NASCAR, Race Hub was the only series that was watchable and I watched it go down in flames. So, as a result of the infantilization and quality decimation of some of my favorite shows my weekly NASCAR viewing has dramatically decreased. I miss coming home on Thursday and/or Friday and diving in to NASCAR coverage on SPEED. I miss the real Friday Night House Party that used to be Trackside. I miss professional NASCAR news
reporting on Race Hub. I miss the exciting and surprising Race Day – when guests used to drop by and the announcers didn’t yell, argue, and court twitter-heads. Lots of people miss ‘the good ole days’ of NASCAR racing. I miss the ‘good ole days’ of SPEEDTV.
Jimmie Johnson will lead the Cup field to green since qualifying was rained out.
Johnny Sauter has the pole for the Texas Truck race.
Frank Kimmel will start up front for Saturday’s ARCA race.
Nationwide Series qualifying is scheduled for tomorrow in Iowa.
The revised Saturday Pocono schedule worked for the morning as ARCA got their practice in, as did Cup and the ARCA race is currently underway. Will Kimmel wrecked out early. Frank Kimmel says they’re looking for consistency. He’s running in second early on.
Eric Jones(15) was leading the ARCA race and ran out of gas on lap 44. The caution came out for another car running out of gas. Jones managed to wiggle the car to pit road, but was having trouble getting the car started and keeping it started long enough to get going again. He made it to the end of pit road and continued to try to get it started. Finally with the pace car led field getting larger in his rear view mirror as they approached the start-finish line, he managed to get the car running and keep it running. Of course, he also pitted before pit road was open, so he has to go to the back of the lead lap. Frank Kimmel brushed the wall on the restart. Buster Graham (88) spun around bringing out the caution before the completed a lap. Frank thinks its tire issues – but then again he said the same thing before his pit stop. They looked at his tired during the pit stop and didn’t find anything. Hard crash on the restart. The rest of the race was less
crash-filled. Congrats to Chase Elliott on his first ARCA win. He is the youngest super speedway winner in the history of the ARCA series.
So now we’re in Iowa. Rain, rain go away! When they went on the air for NASCAR Countdown it started raining. The rain appears to have stopped for now, and track drying is underway. It’s been underway for 90 minutes at this point. The race is airing on ESPN, so at least local news stations won’t be upset about the overrun. They are reporting that there’s another rain cell on the way, but they’re hoping to get some racing in tonight. Joseph Nemecheck is also doing double duty this weekend. Ryan Blaney is Joey Logano’s backup should they not get the race in tonight. Apparently it would be rescheduled for tomorrow – and of course Joey can’t make that since he will be in Pocono for the Sprint Cup race. The forecast for Pocono has been updated and no longer includes rain during the day. Rain has started again in Iowa. By the time the rain stopped NASCAR called the race for the night. It has been postponed to tomorrow at 11am on ESPN2. So Joey doesn’t get to
drive his car and Ryan Blaney is thrilled to get a chance to drive it. Drew Herring is also in this race in the 54 car for JGR.
Be still my beating heart! Bob Varsha on Speed Center! I love, love, love it when he’s on. Professionalism and great hair too!!! Wow what more can I ask for – except the end to the bad porn voice over and for Speed to actually hire more professional broadcasters like Bob Varsha! It’s been such a delight to watch the show when Bob’s talking. He’s just quality – like Mike Joy and Dick Berggren. Either they just don’t make ’em like that anymore, or else, no one currently in power at Speed recognizes talent when they see it.
I’m so used to the crappy Race Day show that I did the usual. I turned it on and turned down the sound. I tend to use it to time the start of the network pre-show and to see my favorite drivers (if possible). So imagine my shock when I wandered back into the room to find a WONDERFUL panel, instead of the usual aggravations!!! DW, Phil Parsons and Jeff Hammond!!!! How fantastic!!! Like Speed Center with Bob Varsha I was bummed I’d missed the majority of the show. I almost missed Kenny Wallace. He’s become a bit bitter – probably from too much time next to Petty Kyle. But it was FANTASTIC!!! No Larry McRepetitive. No Petty Kyle. It made Rutledge a minor aggravation, which is quite a feat. It was like going back to the good ole days of Race Day. Of course, I don’t know if they had those idiotic segments with the percentages, but it was good to see a good crew on the show for a change. One of the only benefits to the TNT races is that the useless cusses
aren’t on the regular Speed shows leaving them much more watchable.
Countdown to Green, on the other hand, is just as awful as ever. Mute. Let’s see if the MRN pre-race show is on. Brilliant! It’s on.
The sun is shining in Pocono its a beautiful day for 160 laps of NASCAR Sprint Cup racing. Jimmie Johnson and Carl Edwards will lead the field to the green flag. As expected David Hoots addressed restarts and how long the driver in second has to give back the position if he beats the leader to the green flag. He also announced that NASCAR wouldn’t warn the driver.
Jimmie didn’t have a great start, but Carl Edwards and Matt Kenseth did. Carl led 9 laps of the race before Jimmie caught and passed him. Kasey Kahne is off the pace almost immediately. He has a violent vibration at the left rear of his car. They do a bit of work and send him back out, still on the lead lap. After another lap he heads to the garage. He’s having transmission issues. On the race start his car wouldn’t change gears. They’re replacing the transmission, the rear end gears and looking at a couple of other things.
Caution at lap 65 for debris.
Caution at lap 124 for fluid from Truex’s car
Caution is out at lap 133. JPM gets into Kenseth and they both spin off the tunnel turn. Neither hit anyone or anything else it appears.
Keselowski and Smoke got way out of shape but both saved the cars and kept going.
Caution is out on lap 137. Dave Blaney got turned into the wall.
Dale Jr fights hard for second position at the restart.
Caution is out on lap 127 for AJ Allmendinger’s flat tire.
Caution is out on lap 154 for Dave Blaney hitting the wall.
Jimmie Johnson leads more than 140 laps to win!!!!
Biffle holds off Dale Jr for second and Dale Jr holds off Tony Stewart for third. Newman finished fifth so its a Bloomin’ Newman Monday at Outback tomorrow.
Smoke indicated he was pinching Keselowski down to cause that issue. Surprising! Lately it seems he is rarely at fault for anything. I guess I should say they, since Smoke always seems to refer to himself in the plural.
Jimmie says that’s the best car he’s had in a long long time. Jimmie said this win doesn’t make up for last week. That’s what I would expect from him. He was quite serious with his problems with NASCAR’s call on last week’s final restart. Of course NASCAR still hasn’t addressed his issue which was what does the second place driver do if the leader won’t re-take the lead when the second place car reaches the green flag first.
Judging by Race Day Victory Lane on Speed should be the most enjoyable episode of the year. Fingers crossed that we’ll have the Race Day guys instead of the usual chumps. Hello Hammond! Hooray!!! Thank you powers-that-be for the return of sanity to Victory Lane.
Congratulations again to Trevor Bayne who wins the NNS race at Iowa! What a great wedding present.
In NASCAR news this week:
- Paul Wolfe’s first week back from suspension, the 2 team gets penalized. The Miller Lite 2 driven by Brad Keselowski failed post-race inspection last week. Wolfe will pay $25K and the team loses 6 points. His probation continues through the end of the year.
- In the wake of several engine issues for Toyota teams Lee White steps down as President of TRD. Three Toyotas experienced engine issues in last week’s race. The issues were a continuation of engine issues plaguing all of the Toyota teams this season. In the aftermath of White’s departure David Wilson is named Acting President of TRD.
- Juan Pablo Montoya played games on last week’s final restart causing Jimmie Johnson to get a penalty and end up finishing 17th. Until that restart Jimmie had led the majority of the race and obviously had the strongest car in the field. Tony Stewart went on to win the race. Jimmy begged NASCAR to review the penalty since he knew JPM refused to catch up to him in order to draw the penalty. Jimmie maintains his beliefs on the issue and JPM is playing dumb, though his post race comments indicate he did restart slowly intentionally because he knew Jimmie would roll off quickly. I hope karma takes appropriate care of JPM.
Next Race: Michigan (one down on TNT five to go)