It’s a partly cloudy day in Charlotte with a breeze. The clouds look heavier than at race time yesterday. I’m guessing that’s why NASCAR moved up the start time for activities today. This race is an elimination race. The drivers whined and whinged so much about Talladega being an elimination race due to the uncertainty of the outcome – more so than the average race. So now we have the race on the new track – idiotically called the Roval, grow up please, what a lame name. After lots of wrecks during practice NASCAR modified a portion of the course. Since the drivers are so very careful during all of the races during the play-offs I expect this will be another snoozer of a race. One of the joys of the race at ‘Dega was the lack of control the drivers had on the outcome of the race as well as on their outcome. It actually provided some excitement. The drivers do their best to avoid the unexpected during the play-offs. They play it safe. They make boring television and worst racing. NASCAR would do better to insist the drivers make the fans happy by racing all out, not carefully. Kurt Busch has the pole for today’s race. The stages for today’s race are 25-25-59. Yesterday’s race indicated that a long third stage will be a boring third stage – though the entire race yesterday was boring and I expected it to be more exciting, interesting, entertaining than the Cup race going into the weekend. I’m dreading this race, but hoping for the best.<\/p>\n
Good luck to Justin Marks (15) in his final Cup race. Stanton Barrett (51) is in today’s race. Nice to see him back in NASCAR.<\/p>\n
Sherry Pollex, Martin Truex Jr’s partner, is the honorary pace car driver. Martin Truex Jr (78) gave her a bit of a bump for a portion of the pace lap.<\/p>\n
Kurt ‘KuBu’ Busch (41) and AJ ‘Ding Dong’ Allmendinger (47) are on the front row.<\/p>\n
Television is switching between the two man ‘race’ up front between KuBu and ‘Kutey’ Kyle Larson (42) and their dumb graphic of the track with the car number . Really extraordinarily boring television. Seemingly not much racing involved in this race.<\/p>\n
Denny Hamlin (11) comes in for a pit stop on lap 5 of 109.<\/p>\n
‘Kutey’ takes over the lead on lap 7 of 109. He’s a newlywed. After two children he finally put a ring on it this past Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Caution on lap 13 of 109 for Stanton Barrett (51) plowing the tire barrier.<\/p>\n
18 cars decided to stay out on this pit sequence.<\/p>\n
Restarting on lap 16 of 109 of Kutey and Chase Elliott (9) up front.<\/p>\n
‘Kutey’ crosses the finish line well ahead of everybody else to finally end the stage.<\/p>\n
PRN was saying on the final lap there was no challenge for position until you got back to the battle for 9th and 10th position.<\/p>\n
Larson and Martin Truex Jr (78) will stay out on this pit sequence as well as 20 others.<\/p>\n
Restarting on lap 30 of 109 with Kutey and Truex up front.<\/p>\n
It appears we have a choice of either a blimp shot of the field, or watching 2 or 3 cars. The television coverage of this race is awful and I can’t tell if viewing is any better at the track.<\/p>\n
PRN is saying they’re not going to race from 21st into the top ten, so that’s why they’re ignoring what’s going on in the pack. They said the only way to get up front from 21st is with strategy. Not much of a race, nor much opportunity for a race from the sound of it and look of it at this point.<\/p>\n
Aric ‘Afterburner’ Almirola(10) tagged the wall trying to get around William Byron (24) who was smoking on lap 45 of 109.<\/p>\n
On lap 48 of 109 Brad ‘It’ Keselowski (2) lost control and slid into Martin Truex Jr (78) sending both of them around. They got it back going in the right direction and continued on. ‘It’ is smoking. Looks like a big tire rub.<\/p>\n
Ryan ‘Son’ Blaney (12) wins the stage. <\/p>\n
Congrats to the 48 team on finishing second in the stage.<\/p>\n
Restarting on lap 48 of 109 with Kutey and Daniel Hemric (8) on the front row.<\/p>\n
Caution for debris in turn 13 on lap 58 of 108.<\/p>\n
Restarting on lap 61 of 109 with Kutey and Kyle ‘KyBu’ Busch (18) on the front row.<\/p>\n
Austin ‘Frankenstein’ Dillon (3) slams the wall on lap 63 of 109 according to PRN. The tv broadcast doesn’t seem to have any video of the incident. We were stuck looking out the windshield of some car while the action was occurring on the track. Dillon’s had several incidents before this one. It appears this one will end his day.<\/p>\n
Caution on lap 63 of 109 for debris from the 3.<\/p>\n
Restarting on lap 64 of 109 with Kutey and KyBu up front.<\/p>\n
Caution on lap 69 of 109 for Chris Buescher tagging the wall and it goes stuck on his car and he’s driving it back to the pits. Aric ‘Afterburner’ Almirola went around in the grass around the same time.<\/p>\n
Restarting on lap of 109 with Ricky ‘Stinkhouse’ Stenhouse Jr. (17) and Paul Menard (21) on the front row.<\/p>\n
The NASCAR tracker seems to have stuck on lap 63 of 109. And it’s finally going again on lap 70 of 109.<\/p>\n
So, instead of watching the action on the track we were stuck watching Erik ‘Da Brat’ Jones (20) slowly make his way to pit road.<\/p>\n
Stenhouse lost control and drops back from the lead through the field on lap 73 of 109.<\/p>\n
Ryan Newman (31) got turned around on lap 74 of 109, but gets it headed back in the right direction and continues on.<\/p>\n
J.J. Yeley (23) is driving the Bojangles sign into the pits on lap 75 of 109.<\/p>\n
After the spin Newman says ‘the 14 is not going to make it into the next round’. Clint ‘Drunk Daddy’ Bowyer (14) has been warned. The spotter and the crew-chief have decided to not let the driver know what Newman said.<\/p>\n
Fuel-saving mode is underway. As if the race wasn’t boring enough, now its moving into a fuel strategy race.<\/p>\n
Let’s talk boring. TV has a triple split shot showing Kevin ‘KHarv’ Harvick’s 4 car going around the track, Happy’s feet in the car, and Kevin driving the car.<\/p>\n
A little racing between the top two on lap 83 of 109.<\/p>\n
Caution on lap 101 of 109. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (17) slammed the wall. He’s taking the Sunny D car to the garage.<\/p>\n
Restarting on lap 103 of 109 with Brad ‘It’ Keselowski and ‘Kutey’ Kyle Larson up front.<\/p>\n
Big wreck on turn one of the restart as Keselowski misses the turn and plows head-on into the tire wall and collects Kyle ‘KyBu’ Busch (18), Trevor Bayne (6), ‘Kutey’ Kyle Larson (42), Paul Menard (21), and William Byron all hit the wall\/tire barrier. Ryan ‘Son’ Blaney (21) and Daniel Hemric (8) got some of that according to the tv graphic.<\/p>\n
Menard t-boned Keselowski after ‘It’ hit the tire wall. Byron hit Larson after he hit both ‘It’ and the tire-wall.<\/p>\n
That turn wall will need to be repaired. Red flag is out. The track crew prepared for this eventuality and know they can fix it in 10 minutes.<\/p>\n
Aric ‘Afterburner’ Almirola (10) says Darrell ‘Bubba’ Wallace (43) ran into him from behind. Clint ‘Drunk Daddy’ Bowyer (14) got caught up in that and they’re assessing the damage.<\/p>\n
Yellow flag is out.<\/p>\n
The 88 of Alex Bowman is getting a push after the red flag.<\/p>\n
Restarting on lap 106 of 109 with Martin Truex Jr (78) and Jimmie Johnson (48) up front.<\/p>\n
Radio is calling a battle for the lead while tv is showing the middle of the pack racing.<\/p>\n
They finally split screened the front two and that mid-pack group.<\/p>\n
Truex has taken the white flag in the lead with Jimmie Johnson behind him.<\/p>\n
Ryan Blaney wins the race. Jimmie Johnson spun and the back end caught Martin Truex Jr sending him into a spin. Then he had to stop because he hit the chicane.<\/p>\n
The last 6 laps were the only thing worth watching of the entire 109.<\/p>\n
Jimmie is unofficially scored as finishing eighth.<\/p>\n
A few quotes from NASCAR social:<\/p>\n
@NASCAR_Alerts – .@MartinTruex_Jr expressed his displeasure with @JimmieJohnson by spinning him on the cool down lap #BofAROVAL<\/p>\n
Unofficial top 10 as we wait for final scoring: 12-1-14-88-41-9-47-48-4-22 #BofAROVAL<\/p>\n
Unofficially: A three-way tie between @KyleLarsonRacin @Aric_Almirola @JimmieJohnson. Only two will advance. We will let you know once the<\/p>\n
@KyleLarsonRacin position could be affected by if Jeffrey Earnhardt is scored as finishing the race #BofAROVAL<\/p>\n
Television says it’s official, Jimmie will not move on to the next round of the play-offs.<\/p>\n
@NASCAR_Alerts – .@JimmieJohnson has been eliminated from the playoffs. Also eliminated the 3, 11 and 20. @KyleLarsonRacin advances #BofAROVAL<\/p>\n
Martin Truex Jr finished 14th. He’s very angry with Jimmie for spinning him out.<\/p>\n
Jimmie is crushed to have missed the next round of the play-offs due to wheel-hopping, losing control and spinning into Martin Truex Jr and spinning him out.<\/p>\n
So after 103 laps of boring we finally had some excitement in the last 6 laps that ended in heartbreak for the 48 team who came out on the losing end of a three-way tie for the last two positions.<\/p>\n
It’s a partly cloudy day in Charlotte with a breeze. The clouds look heavier than at race time yesterday. I’m guessing that’s why NASCAR moved up the start time for activities today. This race is an elimination race. The drivers whined and whinged so much about Talladega being an elimination race due to the uncertainty … <\/p>\n