NASCAR has decided to move race start up 15-20 minutes due to weather in the area. Mike Wheeler is taking over for Darian Grubb today on the FedEx 11 car of Denny Hamlin since Darian has started serving his 6 race suspension for failing post-race tech inspection last week.<\/p>\n
Boring race from Iowa last night for the Nationwide Series.\u00c2\u00a0 Brad Keselowski crossed the finish line first. He had the nerve to say in his post-race interview he “knew a lot of people wanted a Nationwide regular in that car, but it just didn’t work out like that for them”.\u00c2\u00a0 He would’ve been much better served to have kept his mouth shut on the subject, because that statement is just crass.\u00c2\u00a0 Of course that’s frequently the case with him. It often reminds me of the classless year he served as champion and the inappropriate things he said and did during that year. He was not a good representative of the sport – and he’s still not a good representative of the sport. He needs to learn when and where to talk and when and where to keep his ignorance to himself.<\/p>\n
Justin Allison won his first ARCA race Friday night at Pocono continuing a winning family tradition. Congrats Justin and team!<\/p>\n
The King Richard Petty has given the command to start engines.<\/p>\n
Brad K got completely sideways on the first lap, rubber smoking inside Kurt Busch and saved it to continue with Kyle Busch dodging around him.<\/p>\n
As we come back from break on lap 7 going into lap 8 Jimmie Johnson lost a right rear tire. He has a scrape on the right side of the car. Jimmie loses a lap due to them keeping him on the jack stand a bit too long enraging Chad Knaus. Caution is out for debris. Jimmie was apparently penalized for pitting too soon.<\/p>\n
Kurt Busch is coming in to pit, as well as Kyle Busch, but it appears the leaders are staying out. Strategy comes into play as some teams head to pit road while others stay out. The effects of this choice may be seen at the end of the race.<\/p>\n
Danica brings out the second caution on lap 18 as she loses a tire after coming into contact with the wall. Since Jimmie is the only car one lap down he gets the free pass.<\/p>\n
On lap 23 Kyle Busch has smoke in the cockpit. Now there’s smoke coming out from under the car. Kyle says its a piston. He brings the car into the pits at the request of his crew chief. They’re pushing KyBu to the garage. Petree says “as far as I can see they can take their time on that because I don’t think they’re going to fix it.” He agreed with Kyle’s assessment that it’s a piston.<\/p>\n
Joey Logano continues to lead.<\/p>\n
Coming out of commercial break the 40 of Landon Cassill has hit the wall bringing out the caution. He has no steering so he’s sitting across the pit lane, because he can’t make the turn to the garage. NASCAR is keeping the pit lanes closed until the wrecker can pull Landon’s car back to the garage. Jamie Mc and Kasey Kahne both went in from pit stops and were on pit lane before the caution came out so they will stay on the lead lap. KyBu is very disappointed – hard stare Kyle. He’s out of the race after 23 laps. He said something between the frame rails isn’t working correctly.<\/p>\n
Danica Patrick will get the free pass for this caution putting her back on the lead lap.<\/p>\n
Brian Vickers and Smoke are first off pit road. Ten cars stayed on the track.<\/p>\n
As the current leaders pit Jeff Gordon assumes the lead.<\/p>\n
Coming back from break we’re under caution again on lap 51. Joseph hit the wall after coming into contact with Kasey Kahne. Nemechek takes his car back to the garage. Alex Bowman gets the free pass. There are 38 cars on the lead lap.<\/p>\n
Jeff Gordon hops out in front of Joey Logano on the restart.<\/p>\n
According to Bestwick the weather forecast has improved so it looks good to get the full race in. He added that of course we’re in the mountains so anything can happen.<\/p>\n
On lap 71 Jimmie pits from third place.<\/p>\n
Jeff Gordon has become the only driver to lead over 1000 laps at Pocono.<\/p>\n
Things have settled down and the drives are logging laps.<\/p>\n
Caution is out on lap 112 of 160 as Jimmie Johnson hits the wall hard and heads to the garage.<\/p>\n
Jimmie is standing with Chad looking at the car in the garage. He looked like he was trying to get himself together. Jimmie says it didn’t act like a tire went down, it (the car) just went straight. The first one he said was his fault, he got tight, got into the fence bent in a quarter panel and it cut down the tire. He took full responsibility for that one, but this one he said he didn’t hear and explosion and it didn’t act like the tire was going down, it just suddenly went straight. He said he’s clueless.<\/p>\n
The skies are pretty cloudy now. The clouds have been steadily building.<\/p>\n
Denny Hamlin got loose on the restart on lap 117 and was trying to save it and caused a massive pile up. Kenseth, Allmendinger, Almirola, Keselowski, Menard, Vickers, Harvick, Annett, Stenhouse Jr, Truex Jr, Allgaier, and Smoke got a part of that. Smoke’s car is on top of Menards hood. Hamlin saved his car after scraping the wall a little. Clint went on by on the outside of the 11 which sucked Hamlin’s car around and Vickers tried to avoid him and went up in front of Kenseth and the rest of the field piled in after that. Smoke was calling the officials over to help him get his car back on the ground so he can determine if he can drive it away. Once down he finds he can’t. Carl got airborne trying to avoid the wreck and hit something at the bottom of the track which sent he car airborne. He avoided the wreck, but had to take it to the garage for repairs. He’s included in the list of 13 cars involved in that incident.<\/p>\n
Kenseth sounds a bit winded coming out of the care center. Menard and Vickers sound okay, though Vickers looks pale coming out of the care center. Both Vickers and Menard plead need to see the replay. Vickers isn’t sure if someone hit him from behind. Both knew the 11 was sideways in front of them. Smoke is out of the care center and fine. It was far enough ahead of him that he didn’t know exactly what happened. There’s a lot of clean-up after that one.<\/p>\n
The leaders aren’t coming in on this pit stop. There will be 33 laps left when they get back to racing.<\/p>\n
There are 15 cars on the lead lap now. Jeff Gordon and Kurt Busch will battle for the lead on this restart. Gordon got the lead over KuBu in turn two.<\/p>\n
Caution is out on lap 138 for AJ Allmendinger who gets into the wall.<\/p>\n
Caution is out with 6 laps to go for Kurt Busch hitting the wall. Dale Jr had a six second lead on second place which has now been erased.<\/p>\n
There will be three laps to go on the restart.<\/p>\n
Dale Jr will restart alongside Kevin Harvick who is hope for a big push from the 22 of Logano and Bowyer has offered to push Dale Jr.<\/p>\n
Jr is trying, unsuccessfully, to break the draft as they go into turn two.<\/p>\n
Harvick is trying to make a run, catching Dale Jr in the turn.<\/p>\n
Dale Jr WINS!!!! He sweeps the season at Pocono. It is the fifth consecutive win at this track for Hendrick Motorsports. Jeff Gordon comes up beside him to congratulate him, as does Kasey Kahne.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
His teams has run over to the pit wall to high five Dale Jr as he passes slowly. He’s creeping along to make sure he high fives them all. Letarte made it over last. This is is third win of the season and makes him the number one seed.<\/p>\n
Harvick is doing his interview in shades. He’s quite disappointed. He says he made a lot of mistakes today and the team made up for it with a fast race car. Kharv is officially in the Chase now. Big Daddy says he had the dominant car, but didn’t have the track position, nor the restart position. Big Daddy still has the regular season point lead. I think Jr was trying to convince Stevie to ride on the window to pit road – unsuccessfully.<\/p>\n
Dale Jr is on the phone with Mr. Hendrick in Victory Lane. He’s really, really happy!<\/p>\n
He says he was way overdriving the car in one and two and Kevin was getting him, but he was better in the tunnel. He says he’s proud of this team tha tthey didn’t set on wha tthey had last race and went home and made the car better so they didn’t have to depend on luck.<\/p>\n
Dr. Jerry Punch asked Jr what Steve Letarte means to him. He paused a while. He says as great of a guy Steve is the whole crew is that deep. He says he’s just luck to have fallen into this group and gets to race with them.<\/p>\n
ESPN teased more coverage in Sports Center when race coverage went off, but in actually Sports Center is doing extended coverage of Tiger Woods withdrawing from the tournament he was playing in today due to back issues. ESPN is showing how little NASCAR means to them. Sounds like they will follow the letter of their contractual obligations, but certainly not the spirit. I was interested in the story, but this extended coverage is insulting. The live talking heads are followed by graphics of how often Tiger has withdrawn in his career. Finally they’re getting to race coverage.<\/p>\n
They have Dale Jr. on live doing an interview with (unfortunately) Jonathan Coachman and Ricky Craven.<\/p>\n
Dale Jr. says the team is giving him a lot of confidence and he can calm down and do what he needs to do inside the car and not second guess things. Jr says Greg Ives is walking into a great situation and will have a team around him that knows what its doing. He hopes there won’t be any pieces shifting around and that everyone will want to stay. He says they’re going to party tonight. Everybody is coming to the house and they’re gonna get down.<\/p>\n
In NASCAR news this week:<\/b><\/p>\n <\/p>\n NASCAR has decided to move race start up 15-20 minutes due to weather in the area. Mike Wheeler is taking over for Darian Grubb today on the FedEx 11 car of Denny Hamlin since Darian has started serving his 6 race suspension for failing post-race tech inspection last week. Boring race from Iowa last night … <\/p>\n\n
Next Race: Watkins Glen<\/h3>\n
GO 48!!!!<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"