Congrats to Kyle Busch on his Truck Series in in Pocono Friday night. Congrats to Ryan Blaney on his Xfinity Series win at Iowa last night. Lots of hot-heads after the Xfinity race. Kids! The race had its moments though. It was much more fun to watch than usual. On an unrelated note, R.I.P. “Rowdy” Roddy Piper. RP suffered cardiac arrest on Friday. You will be missed.
So far the NBC coverage has lived up – make that down to my expectations. Dale Jarrett won’t shut up, babbling incessantly like he’s on radio and can’t have dead air. Petty Kyle never improves. Same goes for his brother from another mother Rutledge Wood. Ralph Sheheen shrieks his way through broadcasts. Michael Waltrip is still doing his gimmick and seemingly competing with Dale on the number of words used per minute. It seems the babbling is contagious since Jeff Burton and Steve Letarte have ratcheted up their word count recently.I believe everyone is talented at something. I really wish they’d find their talents and a venue to showcase them. I hope things will settle down in the near future and NBC will hire people who are actually capable of being professional broadcasters. I believe Stevie and Jeff have potential – they just need guidance and sadly, Steve Byrnes is dead and there doesn’t seem to be anyone currently on NBC with the talent and experience to provide guidance. I still hold out hope.
Kenny Wallace competed in his final Xfinity series race last night. He said he’s “leaving at the right time”. He seems to love racing so much I’m bummed that its time for him to go, but happy for him he’s leaving by his choice. I’m also pleased that he understands he was never Jeff Gordon. He said that yesterday, that everyone dreams of being Jeff Gordon, but he never was, but he did get to start 900+ NASCAR races. He gets it. Good for Kenny and his little Kimmy. Hope he has more fun than ever.
On lap 5 of 160 Kasey Kahne just hit the pit road wall hard. He said he’s okay. Kasey got loose and tried to correct, and his car spun away from the turn three wall, then slid into pit road and the pit road wall. He hit pit stall 38. Apparently someone hit the wall yesterday. It happened between Travil Kvapil and AJ Allmendinger’s pits. Part of Kasey’s car is embedded into the wall. Where Jeb Burton’s car hit the wall yesterday at pit stall 42 they repaired it overnight. Kasey was basically sliding in Jeb’s tire tracks.
The race is red-flagged while they repair the pit wall. They think it’s going to take about 10 minutes. The impact bowed the wall.
Kasey said he just got loose and basically spun and that was it. He said it’s a rough last month for the Aquafina team. He doesn’t know why they were so far into the corner. He looked and sounded shell-shocked.
Steve Letarte said he’s never seen two cars spin into pit road like that since he’s been coming to Pocono (since the mid 90s).
We’re back under caution and rolling around the track.
There was an ARCA race yesterday which left a different kind of rubber on the track which the Cup cars will need to wear off/lay rubber over.
Competition caution scheduled for lap 15. The red flag lasted for 14 minutes.
Because the track was cleaned due to fluid put down during yesterday’s ARCA race NASCAR decided to throw a competition caution to allow the teams to check tire wear.
Caution is out on lap 20. Looks like Happy Harvick blowed up.
Brett Moffitt and David Gilliland got into each other and Brett Moffitt has damage that’s causing tire smoke.
The 17 of Ricky Stenhouse Jr brings out the fourth caution on lap 28 as he hits the wall hard. Sam Hornish in the 9 appeared to also be involved in the incident. The 9 slowed down and the 17 plowed into him then into the wall. David Gilliland turned left to avoid Sam in the 9. Sam missed a shift on the last restart. He said he had smoke in the car shortly before the accident.
Keselowski slid through his pit box and hit the jack-man and the tire carrier. The tire he was carrying went rolling into pit road. It eventually rolled from the middle to the other side of pit road.
Caution is out on lap 62 of 160 for the tire that’s sitting loose on pit road near the outside wall.
Caution is out on lap 66 of 160 as Sam Hornish hits a spinning Kurt Busch who was trying to hold on to his car. Paul Menard went up into Kurt’s left rear causing him to spin. He’d gotten the car stopped when Hornish rammed him.
Caution on lap 72 of 160 – the restart. The field came through the turn about three wide and the 13 of Casey Mears forced the 88 car down and Cole Whitt was right there caught Dale Jr’s left rear sending him spinning.
Trevor Bayne lost an engine – a header came through his engine. Alex Kennedy brought out a caution on lap 92 of 160 for a spin.
With 3 to go Joey Logano has run out of fuel and has to pit from the lead.
The 19 of Carl Edwards, the 3 of Austin Dillon, the 78 of Martin Truex Jr are out of fuel.
Kyle Busch is out of fuel on the final lap and won’t make it back to the start-finish line. He manages to tortoise across the start-finish line and finishes in 20th position.
Kenseth saves enough fuel and wins.
Keselowski, Gordon, Dale Jr., Biffle and Johnson round out the top-five.
Kyle says he wishes he would’ve known they were that close on fuel and that Joey was nowhere near able to make it.
Kyle is 13 points out of 30 position. If he wouldn’t have run out of gas he would’ve been in whether he won or finished second.
Logano is frustrated. He said Todd’s calculations showed they would be good by half a lap, so they’re not sure what happened to cause him to be that short.
Keselowski said they ran out at the end.
In NASCAR news this week:
- Crew chief for No. 98 Sprint Cup team suspended one race, fined $25,000.
- Ryan Newman, Casey Mears teams issued warnings for violations at Indy.
- Kenny Wallace preps for final NASCAR race.
- Daniel Suarez wins pole for Xfinity race in Iowa.
- Gordon to wave goodbye to winless races in final season.
- MWR owner Kauffman wants consolidation with Ganassi.
- Bowyer faces uncertain future at Michael Waltrip Racing.
- New Trackside Store Debuts.
- Kauffman Talks of ‘Integrating’ with CGR.
- Red Hot Busch Wins Pocono Pole.
- Bowyer Staying Focused.
- Toyota Statement on Kauffman Announcement.
- Kauffman Buys Interest in Ganassi Team.
- Report: Team Ownership Shake-Up.
- Premium Motorsports Penalized.
- Blaney Dominates at Iowa.
- Wallace Set for Final NASCAR Start.
- Crafton: ‘The Idiot Hooked Me’ .
- Busch Wins in Truck Return.
- Gaulding Joins KBM for Three Races.