{"id":765,"date":"2013-09-01T15:12:00","date_gmt":"2013-09-01T19:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/briari.net\/blog\/?p=765"},"modified":"2013-10-13T22:18:44","modified_gmt":"2013-10-14T02:18:44","slug":"nascar-sprint-cup-race-twenty-five-atlanta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/briari.net\/blog\/2013\/09\/nascar-sprint-cup-race-twenty-five-atlanta\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR Sprint Cup Race Twenty-Five Atlanta"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"201309012225807065576\"<\/a>Atlanta Race Weekend is finally here!!! WooooHooooo!!! What a wonderful thing to hear and see the race without the interference of noise pollution generated by Larry Mc and Petty Kyle! Racing under the stars. The rumble as the cars roll past. Life is good when you’re sitting at the track.<\/p>\n

Friday night. NO TRUCKS!!! Booooooooooo!!! Last year the truck race was the best of the weekend. Winged Sprint Car racing. It was a great race. Lots of action and the novelty of the first of witnessing the first Tim Smith\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s CLIMAX Moonshine Sprint Car Shootout<\/a> at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Great fun. The #1 car driven by Brian Gingras led until 5 to go. The 7 car driven by JoJo Helberg made a pass between turns three and four to take the top spot and never relinquished the lead. Quite an enjoyable 50 lap race.<\/p>\n

We headed to the track for the Legends Race during the middle of the day. It was so miserably hot we never actually got inside to see the race. We wandered around the Fan Zone for a while, but the heat got overwhelming, so we headed back to the hotel for a while. It rained during Nationwide qualifying and afterward the weather was much cooler and the humidity seemed a little lower.<\/p>\n

Saturday night Nationwide race. Sitting in the stands, under the stars, with a cool breeze blowing, watching the cars go round and round. A good evening by my standards, but, the race was boring. There was very little racing overall. Restarts gave a boost to the action. There just weren’t enough of them to keep down the boredom. Listening to Kyle Busch and Travis Pastrana’s scanner channels great decreased my boredom. Jeff Green, subbing for Eric McClure, hit the wall late in the race resulting in a late race restart. Kevin Harvick held off Kyle Busch who finished second in a mildly damaged car. Travis Pastrana finished the race sliding sideways through the infield grass.<\/p>\n

Sunday morning is cloudy. Sunday afternoon is stormy. The forecast is for the rest of the afternoon and early evening is for storms, but they’re supposed to clean out by 8pm. Fingers crossed. We have a significant weather advisory for pea sized hail and 50 mph winds until 430 pm edt in effect right now. Fun. The forecast is improving a bit though.<\/p>\n

Late Afternoon
\nShowers and thunderstorms likely. Partly sunny, with a high near 88. West wind around 5 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%.<\/p>\n

Tonight
\nShowers and thunderstorms likely, mainly before 7pm. Patchy fog after 3am. Otherwise, mostly cloudy, with a low around 71. Calm wind. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New rainfall amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms.<\/p>\n

The storms are expected to end earlier than previously predicted.<\/p>\n

So, we headed to the racetrack after it stopped raining at the hotel. It began raining the closer we got to the track. We were listening to Clare B. Lang on SiriusXM and she was saying over and over again that it was raining at the track. After parking, the longest distance we’ve ever parked from the track, we began walking in the rain. It was quite warm and muggy and the raindrops were cold, so it was not particularly comfortable. By the time the shuttle bus arrived the rain had stopped. We hopped on the bus and shuddered around the track. It was a lovely ride until a group of very sloppy drunks came onboard. Many passengers bailed at the next stop – several commented on how early they’d started drinking. They weren’t happy\/fun drunks. Much to my chagrin we approached the grandstands just as Billy Currington finished his concert. Luckily I was at least able to hear part of my favorite Billy Currington song “Good Directions”. Billy is the best pre-race concert artist AMS has had in years.<\/p>\n

We arrived at our wet seats just before driver introductions. Driver intros are one of my favorite parts of the pre-race ceremonies, especially the time just before when the drivers are walking across the grass to the stage. The crowd was pretty vocal about some drivers and thoroughly dismissive of many others. As expected KyBu was heavily booed. Surprisingly Danica Patrick and Brad Keselowski received a lot of boos. The boo brigade was heavier for Jimmie Johnson than it was last year. That lame group with their lame recorded song (I Pledge My Allegiance) were there again. I wish, again, AMS had gotten the anthem singer from the night before to sing the National Anthem for the Cup race. Last year Von Grey did a great anthem for the Nationwide race. Saturday night the woman who sang the anthem did a good job. Those guys with the pre-recorded songs are tacky and tawdry. They’re like a bad Vegas lounge act.<\/p>\n

The crowd was light. I believe the rain contributed to the less-than-sellout audience. Also the race has been really boring the past couple years. Basically since the new car arrived the race at AMS has been a string of single-file green flag runs. The new tire seemed to allow a bit of racing within the first five laps of a restart, but after that there were a lot of single-file laps. There was a wreck early that damaged a few of the better cars, including the 48 and the 5. For a while there were a few cars blowing up while leading the race. The 11 of Denny Hamlin was a menace throughout the evening. He’s out of Chase contention, but kept running around the track long after his car had proven to be too slow.<\/p>\n

Carl Edwards led a lot of laps, then lost position when he didn’t pit and everyone behind him did. Joey Logano kept making good runs throughout and seemed to have the strongest car. KyBu kept working on his car and made a good run. Martin Truex Jr. also had a really strong run toward the end. I would’ve been pleased if either Joey, KyBu or Martin won. When it went bad for Carl, it really went bad and he was pretty much useless the rest of the night. It was kinda weird. Harvick on the other hand crossed the finish line first, but the way he got that win was appalling. I guess he doesn’t mind winning by any means necessary, but I don’t respect him as a driver, because of the way he gets the trophy. I love to see a guy just out drive the field. He only seems to do that with the Truck series or the Nationwide series. With the Cup drivers he always seems to resort to dirty tactics & ‘stealing the win’. Like Keselowski, I believe Kevin is a better driver than that.<\/p>\n

Race Weekend is great because I get to spend days at the track enjoying one of my favorite sports. I had a blast and it was over too soon. That said, they need to do something to help that race. There was talk about gas mileage. Gas mileage races are boring, boring, boring. Even if you manage to luck up with a timely caution, fuel mileage races are boring. Since drivers are advised to conserve by the crew chiefs the racing looks and feels 1\/2 throttle (and half-baked). Rarely are the points affected severely. I think that’s due to the conservative racing. Sitting at the track on a warm summer night is wonderful. Watching an exciting, action-packed race would make it even better. I don’t know how to make it better, though I thought changing the tire was a bad move. Michigan used to be one of my favorite races. Then it became a fuel-mileage race and extraordinarily boring. The most recent Michigan race was better than the last few due to the tire issues resulting in random occurrences. Various people have advocated scheduled cautions, but the drivers will simply race to the caution and the crew-chief will plan around the caution. Randomness is necessary for cautions to pump up the action. As a matter of fact that’s the real problem with the race in Atlanta. There are very few unexpected occurrences which actually affect the race or make significant changes.<\/p>\n

Though it may be boring, it’s still the best thing happening in Atlanta Labor Day Weekend. I can hardly wait until next year!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In NASCAR news this week:<\/b><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The Phoenix Racing sale is finally announced<\/a>. The Scott of Turner-Scott Motorsports bought James Finch’s team. Finch has been dying to talk about it, it seems. Everytime I hear him in NASCAR radio he says something about hoping the new owner will announce the deal. The good news is that the new team will participate in three Cup races this season so Justin Allgaier will finally make his Cup debut.<\/li>\n
  2. Allmendinger has a full time ride for 2014<\/a>. AJ Allmendinger took the bait and signed with JTG Daugherty Racing. I know desperate times call for desperate measures, but after watching them do business over the past few years, I wouldn’t want to be next year’s Marcos Ambrose or Bobby Labonte. Just saying. Their deals seem to be guarantees they will screw you over soon. But, then again, under the circumstances, AJ will deserve what he gets.<\/li>\n
  3. Bobby Labonte will miss the Atlanta race with an injury<\/a>. Bobby was set to drive the 51 car this weekend in one of the final Phoenix Racing Sprint Cup Series appearances, until a cycling accident put him in the hospital with broken ribs. Mike Bliss will pinch hit.<\/li>\n
  4. Martin Truex Jr. has a broken wrist<\/a>. Truex could be seen last Saturday night holding his wrist after a violent wreck in Bristol. Turns out he got it caught in the steering wheel and cracked it. He’s going to drive with a cast going forward.<\/li>\n
  5. Denny Hamlin injures wrist<\/a>. Hamlin also suffered a wrist injury in the Bristol crash which injured Martin Truex Jr.<\/li>\n
  6. It’s official. Kurt Busch is going to Stewart-Haas Racing<\/a>. The simmering internal issues between the owners were on display during the press conference with Gene Haas, Greg Zippadelli and Kurt Busch. The NASCAR radio talking heads keep assuring us they’ll work everything out, because of how much money is involved and how much they’ve accomplished. That argument doesn’t make sense to me. They have the amount of money they have and they’ve accomplished what they have due to their extensive egos. Ego can drive a man to forgo reason for satisfaction.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Nationwide Series Headlines:<\/b><\/p>\n