{"id":681,"date":"2013-04-13T23:24:14","date_gmt":"2013-04-14T03:24:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/briari.net\/blog\/?p=681"},"modified":"2013-04-14T12:29:30","modified_gmt":"2013-04-14T16:29:30","slug":"2013-nascar-sprint-cup-race-seven-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/briari.net\/blog\/2013\/04\/2013-nascar-sprint-cup-race-seven-texas\/","title":{"rendered":"2013 NASCAR Sprint Cup Race Seven Texas"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"wuiHQ.St.158\"<\/a>It is a beautiful, sunny afternoon in Texas, 77 degrees with a light breeze. John Darby was underneath the 22 and 2 cars checking out the rear-end gear mounts. They did not meet NASCAR approval resulting in major last minute changes for both cars shortly before race time. NASCAR confiscated the rear-end gear mounts for both cars. Each car had to be inspected after the changes. Joey Logano’s car took a few trips through inspection and resulted in his getting a penalty for not being on the grid in time. Not only was he not on the grid, he didn’t leave the pits until after the rest of the field were making the parade laps. Logano has to start at the rear of the field. Kyle Busch will lead the field to the green with his brother Kurt on inside pole.<\/p>\n

KyBu leads the initial laps as Aric Almirola falls back through the field from his third starting position.<\/p>\n

KyBu lead most of the race, though Jeff Gordon led for a while and mounted an impressive challenge until he went to the garage with a hub issue. Martin Truex Jr led successfully until the final restart with less than 20 laps to go. KyBu took the lead off pit road and Martin was never able to catch him.<\/p>\n

KYLE BUSCH WINS to sweep the Texas weekend!!!<\/p>\n

My tv buddy, Bunny D, suggested (during the race) shortening this race to 400 miles. Texas typically produces a long, boring race and this one was no exception. Making the race a night race makes it seem even longer to me. I find myself wishing it were over so I can go to bed knowing the winner. I don’t advocate shortening any race. I don’t believe a shorter race is fair to the fans attending the event. Ticket prices will not fall as the mileage decreases.<\/p>\n

Darrell Waltrip advised the drivers to ‘pace themselves’ early in the race. The pace of the race and the level of excitement mellowed considerably shortly thereafter. I occasionally read recommendations for shorter races that cite the boring quality of the middle of the race as the reason for the recommendation. The boring quality of a race is due to the racing (or lack thereof), which is determined by the drivers following the orders of the crew chief. Removing laps from a race simply changes the lap numbers of the boring portions. It doesn’t remove the ‘logging laps’ behavior of the drivers.<\/p>\n

I understand that drivers must protect their equipment in order to compete at the end of the race. Teams have unlimited tires, so saving tires isn’t a necessity. Yes the driver may need to take an inconvenient pit stop. A mandatory number of tire change pit stops might allow crew chiefs to play their strategy games while guaranteeing teams have racy tires at the end of races. It seems a bit like micromanagement though. Brakes, one doesn’t want to burn them up, but that’s only an issue at certain races, so not a concern more often than not. Saving the motor – come on guys how about you build it to last longer than the length of the race? I’m sure the argument would be that the performance would be lower with motors build to last longer. I don’t actually buy that, but also if everybody’s performance is a tick lower, it won’t be noticeable. When I watch an ARCA race or a legends car race the motors don’t provide the same performance as the Sprint Cup cars, but the racing is exciting. Yes the races are shorter, but the excitement comes from driver performance as opposed to length. The drivers appear to give their all every lap – no ‘logging laps’. I’m not sure what other parts, other than the bodywork, need to be ‘saved’.<\/p>\n

It would be nice if the emphasis was on racing instead of winning – but no one gets a trophy for racing best only for winning points. Until NASCAR can provide an incentive to race hard (the entire race) to the drivers they will continue to only race when necessary (at the beginning for position and at the end for the trophy).<\/p>\n

Next Race: Kansas<\/h3>\n

GO 48!!!!<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is a beautiful, sunny afternoon in Texas, 77 degrees with a light breeze. John Darby was underneath the 22 and 2 cars checking out the rear-end gear mounts. They did not meet NASCAR approval resulting in major last minute changes for both cars shortly before race time. NASCAR confiscated the rear-end gear mounts for … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “2013 NASCAR Sprint Cup Race Seven Texas”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,8,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily","category-sports","category-things"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/briari.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/briari.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/briari.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briari.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briari.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/briari.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/briari.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briari.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briari.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}