The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

This weekend's Cup race in Vegas would have made Clint Eastwood proud.  The various adventures reminded me of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, as 39 teams sought to claim the treasure in the desert.

The bad:  The 19 Arris Toyota Camry unloaded without a lot of speed, finishing the first practice in 14th place.  There was a time when we would have expected that, but thankfully those days are behind us.  Now we expect top tens if not top fives.

The good:  The team must have figured something out, because when qualifying got underway Carl was sitting in a rocketship.  At the end of the first round of qualifying, he was in 4th.

The ugly:  During the second round of qualifying, that beautiful orange rocketship smacked the wall, leaving them with a 24th place starting position.  Unfortunately the damage was bad enough that the team pulled out the backup car, so at the start of the race Carl had to move to the back of the field.

The good:  The backup car had more speed than the original, as evidenced by finishing the next two practice sessions in 1st and 2nd.

The bad:  Las Vegas must have angered Mother Nature, because just about every weather problem imaginable was thrown at the track.  The wind was so strong that car covers were flying off of cars and laptops were blown out of pit boxes.  The clouds tried to rain on the party but only managed to spit a bit.  And then a dust storm blew in, threatening to obscure the drivers' views.

The good:  And then the weather problems cleared up and left a lovely sunshiny afternoon behind for the crowd to enjoy.

More good:  Carl was able to systematically pick off one car at a time until he cracked the top ten on lap 105.

The bad:  Once he found the top ten he struggled to stay there.  He spent a good portion of time just out of the top ten.  A good pit stop would move him forward, but then he would again slip back a few positions.

The really really ugly:  And then, Matt Kenseth spun out, hit the wall, and collected Chase Elliott.  As the other drivers scattered to avoid it, Carl got a piece of it.  His crew managed to get him fixed up and back on the track without losing a lap, but the car was never really the same.  He finished the race in 18th place.

Our teammate's ugly continued:  After ending yet another race in the garage, Matt Kenseth might be having the worse three-race stretch of his career.

The bad:   With today's poor finish, Carl slipped to 8th in the Chase standings and 7th in the drivers standings.

The good:  That really is not a problem so early in the season.  Heck, that is not a problem later in the season, either.  If this were cut-off time, poor Matt would not even make the Chase.  Perspective is a wonderful thing.