It is sunny in Dover for the first elimination race of the Chase. At the end of this race four Chase drivers will be eliminated from the Chase for the Cup. I’m still not digging this format. To a large degree nothing matters until Homestead. That puts luck way too much at the forefront. With the usual suspects in every field leaving it all to one race doesn’t seem fair to me. It might work out fine, but the format and the qualifying format has seriously put a damper on my season. I’ve not been to a race this season and it doesn’t look like I’ll get to one. I was going to try to make Homestead, then I realized, if the Champion is determined by a fluke I would be so disgusted and disappointed it might completely kill my NASCAR love.<\/p>\n
I fell hard for the sport in 2007 and grew to love it more and more until I began to feel like an unimportant fan. I began to feel like my love, my devotion to the sport wasn’t so important, because I’m not a male 18-35, the only demographic that matters to marketing people, especially in television. I believed that NASCAR valued its history, tradition and fans. These days it seems only marketing counts. I thought marketing was about selling products, but they’re losing my support and dollars with the focus on youth and the twitterverse.<\/p>\n
What do I want as a fan? Less talk about doing what the sponsors want. NASCAR can make those moves as needed, I just don’t need to hear about it. I want racing, good, exciting, quality racing. I want to feel valued as a fan who enjoys watching racing, watching practice, enjoyed watching traditional qualifying. I want value for money. If I’m going to take time off work and lay out for an overpriced hotel rooms, I want it to be a three days of NASCAR racing vacation. I want more variety in apparel sizes at NASCAR.com. I’d buy more if everything came in a large variety of sizes. I want to be able to watch the race online if I races occur during business hours (or I have to work during race time). I want quality race reporting and calling. The quality of race coverage has been steadily declining. NASCAR seems to constantly compare itself to the NFL. Take some notes from the NFL, keep sponsors in their place – they shouldn’t be front and center in every conversation in the media. I was well aware that the NFL has sponsors, but until this domestic abuse issue arose we didn’t hear about what the sponsors wanted, we just heard about football – the game, the players, the plays. The reporting is, has been, handled by media professionals and the bimbos have been kept to the fringes, though that’s beginning to change as Erin Andrews continues to keep her mouth shut about the bodies while ascending the ranks of ESPN. That seems to be the one area NASCAR is ahead of the NFL and needs to back off that particular area. Get a network like NFL network that allows you provide quality in-depth coverage of the sport. Also get quality deals with the networks. NASCAR should be on the broadcast networks. NASCAR should have fewer bimbos and himbos on their desks. NASCAR should rule that owners can’t be announcers\/analysts for their series. Phil Parsons, Sprint Cup car owner, can call the Truck series race – he doesn’t have a dog in that fight. Brad Daugherty\/Michael Waltrip, Sprint Cup owners, shouldn’t be allowed to be on the desk for Cup races. It’s an obvious conflict of interest. I want to feel like a valued member of the NASCAR family, a valued fan, a listened-to fan. I want to have races to attend and a champion I can be proud of. I want lots of quality NASCAR coverage.<\/p>\n
Okay, soapbox is history for the moment.<\/p>\n
Lap 252, after leading almost all of the laps Kevin Harvick is off the pace, eventually bringing out the caution. His left front tire is down. He was complaining throughout the race that something was broken in the left front. The splitter is dragging the ground on the left front. It’s come apart. When he’s in the pit its in two pieces. They changed his tire and sent him back out. The caution came out for debris from his car. Seems like that would be a problem for NASCAR. His staying on the track with an obvious issue until they throw the caution.<\/p>\n
Looks like while we were in the commercial break they pulled the rest of the left side splitter off or bondo’ed in on. The inner valve stem is knocked out of the left front tire. Same thing happened with the valve stem going in the Spring race. Petree has a theory about what happened after looking at the replay of the pit stop. Its nice to have him or Bestwick explain things and give my ears a break from babbling DJ. It seriously seems like Dale is getting paid by the word. He babbles incessantly and is so often wrong, repetitive or irrelevant.<\/p>\n
The one good thing about the caution was that Kasey Kahne got a chance to pick up one of his laps down. He pitted off sequence earlier and a caution came out shortly thereafter and on another pit stop someone else got the free pass. Things have not been working out for Kasey and Kenny this week – actually for most of the season.<\/p>\n
One of the MRN announcers said, before the end of the race “the victory’s not going to mean anything at all because he’s safely in the top ten, but…” – my point exactly.<\/p>\n
Jeff Gordon wins! Kasey Kahne is the final car in the Chase. Out: AJ Allmendinger, Aric Almirola, Greg Biffle, Kurt Busch.<\/p>\n
AJ is throwing a bit of a hissy fit about not moving forward.<\/p>\n
Jeff’s kids were standing at the car waiting for him to get out in Victory Lane. Leo is kinda crazy today, more active than usual.<\/p>\n
Jimmie finished 3rd.<\/p>\n
This is Jeff Gordon’s 92nd win, putting him just behind David Pearson on the all-time win list.<\/p>\n
Kurt Busch is bummed about moving forward and he says he chalks it up to him not getting the job done.<\/p>\n
Kasey is happy that he “barely advanced”. Jamie said there was some discussion about the people on the pit crew. He said he knows they work hard, but they’ve struggled with that all season.<\/p>\n
Denny says he was a little bit on the defensive at the end. He sounds defeated even while saying the tracks just keep getting better for them.<\/p>\n
Aric Almirola said “sad. disappointed.” when asked to describe the emotions of missing moving on (yes, Jamie Little’s sad question).<\/p>\n
The Challenger round of the Chase is done, now comes the Contender round. The points reset and we start again. So the wins in these races meant nothing, making these races mean little. Only this one had any meaning since four drivers were eliminated.<\/p>\n
Kevin Harvick is frustrated and snappy, but still not feeling out of it. He says they just need some good luck. He believes they can beat every car on the track, they just need the luck. He said they could “beat ’em with three shocks, but they can’t beat ’em with three wheels” when asked about the earlier shock issue he was complaining about.<\/p>\n
Dale Jr is concerned. He said that was the best they could run, but its not good enough to win a championship. He says they have to find something in a hurry.<\/p>\n
Joey Logano is a little bummed, but basically pleased with his fourth place finish. He said he had a bad restart and lost all of the spots he’d gained and then some so he had to fight hard to get a good finish.<\/p>\n
There were no problems with post-race inspections. The 24, 2, 5, and the 47 will be taken to the R & D Center.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It is sunny in Dover for the first elimination race of the Chase. At the end of this race four Chase drivers will be eliminated from the Chase for the Cup. I’m still not digging this format. To a large degree nothing matters until Homestead. That puts luck way too much at the forefront. With … <\/p>\n