Last Stop in the West

I did not post a blog last weekend because I was vacationing.  A few of us escaped the midwest March blahs for the sunshine of Las Vegas.  Yes, I know, my timing was off.  I enthusiastically pushed for the previous week so I could go early and catch the races.  But I was traveling with non-NASCAR folks who did not understand my passion, and the second week was going to save us a good number of dollars.

We did arrive in time on Sunday to check into our hotel room so I could catch the last 35 laps of the Phoenix race.   Carl and Kevin's thrilling finish was one exciting way to kick off my vacation!  My roommate pronounced NASCAR as something she would rather watch than golf.  I am not sure how to take that.

While in Vegas, I did find track down a sports book so I could place two bets.  One on my beloved Green  Bay Packers to win the Super Bowl next February, and the other on Carl to win the Cup Championship in November.  If both come true many months from now, I am going to be thrilled beyond words as well as a bit richer than I am right now.  Wish me luck.

Carl's visit to Fontana did not start out spectacularly.  In the first practice, his car was 25th fastest.  His teammates did not fair much better, with positions ranging between 15th and 24th.  Not what we have come to expect from the Gibbs camp.  I wondered what was off, but only until qualifying rolled around.  Then Carl snagged the 5th spot on the starting grid.  And in the two remaining practices, he was 1st and 2nd, showing very promising speed for the race.

 

And he did show speed in the race, too.  He spent a good portion of the first part of the race in the top 3, even leading a couple times.  It sure does feel good to see that 19 car at the head of the parade.  Even when a pit road speeding penalty buried him deep in the field, his car still had the power to get him back up to the front and into contention.  Unfortunately he did not have any tires left so he slid into the back of the top ten.  A late race restart got him back up with the leaders, and for a moment I thought he was going to grab the victory that eluded him last week.  But it was not to be; he finished the race in 7th place, another top ten finish.

 

It does seem that the broadcasters are giving him a bit more attention.  Fox even had Jamie Little assigned to his team on pit road.  He is having a marvelous start to his season.  Currently he sits fifth on the Chase grid, the highest positioned driver without a win.  And because he has more points than some of this season's winners, he moved up two positions to sit 3rd in the drivers' standings, behind only Harvick and Johnson.  When you consistently run as good as he has been, it is only a matter of time before he will be driving that #19 into the winner's circle.  I am confident.

And one if-the-Chase-were-to-start-right-now observation:  Roush would have Stenhouse #17 car in the Chase.  He has been having a fairly nice start to his season.  I would also mention that Chase Elliott is having a nice rookie season, but I am sure you have heard Jeff Gordon say that quite enough already.

In the midst of a lovely Fontana weekend, there was a hiccup of sorts at the end of the Xfinity race.  What looked to be a certain victory for Kyle Busch was snatched away when he blew a tire on the final lap.  For one fleeting moment it looked like Daniel Suarez would claim his first Xfinity victory, but then he ran out of fuel.  (I so hate fuel mileage races.)  Instead Austin Dillon drove through the melee to win the race.

For several weeks now, Kyle has been beating up on the youngsters and taking all of their trophies.  But this tiny bit of back luck . . . which really does not matter much in the grand scheme of things for a reigning Cup champion . . . brought out the old, petulant, crybaby Kyle.  Just when it seemed that he had achieved a certain level of decorum, he blew it away by whining that NASCAR did not throw a caution, then stomped off without fulfilling his media obligations.  When NASCAR's work week gets started and they review the weekend's problems, I hope they decide to slap him around by making him sit out of the Xfinity series for a while.  Cup drivers who participate in the lower series should set a positive example for the up-and-comers, not model embarrassing behavior.

I hope you enjoy the Easter weekend off.  When we come back, it will be short track time!

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.

Atlanta Welcomes the Reduced Downforce Package

I do not think anybody really knew what to expect once we put Daytona in the rearview mirror and turned our attention to the new reduced-downforce package in Atlanta.  But I am going to go out on a limb and guess that nobody was wagering that the first 208 laps would run without a caution.  I thought the cars would be more difficult to handle, making it more challenging for the less-experienced drivers, resulting in more spin-outs and crashes.  It will be interesting to see if this repeats itself at upcoming races.  If it does become a season-long pattern, I expect NASCAR is likely to consider the 20-minute caution clock that has just been introduced in the Truck series this season. 

Once the race was over, the drivers talked enthusiastically about the fun they had driving these new cars.  The most frequently heard comments referred to the old-school fun of having to work at it throughout the race.  Happy drivers make for happy fans.

Carl had another good race.  Other than green flag pit stop sequences, he spent the race in the top ten, and the majority of that time in the top five.  Did you seem him on that last restart?  Restarts have never been Carl's strong suit, but he was ducking and weaving, splitting cars to move up from 8th to 5th.  But why is it always Kevin Harvick whose car gets in the way during an end-of-the-race restart? 

So after the first two races, can you guess which drivers have had top-five finishes?  Carl, of course.  And Kyle Busch.  It is good to be doing as well as the reigning Cup champion, especially when he is your teammate.  When you run up front consistently, it is only a matter of time before you find yourself driving into the winner's circle.

That luck was not shared by his other teammates.  Denny Hamlin ended up in 16th place 2 laps down, but at least he can think back to his glorious win last weekend in Daytona.  But so far poor Matt Kenseth has not be having a good go at 2016.  NASCAR tagged his gasman for handling a wrench while he was fueling the car.  Apparently it has been something they have done before, but this time NASCAR noticed and called them on it.  This infraction requires a pass-through penalty.  Apparently they spent a bit too much time and attention arguing their case, because while nobody was paying attention NASCAR black-flagged the car.  Instead of going one lap down, they found themselves two laps down.  And in a race that had so few cautions, that was a death sentence.  After they dominated the beginning laps of the race, they finished the race in 19th place.  And all of this after his unfortunate Daytona finish. 

Although it is far to early to worry about such statistics, let's take a peek at the Chase standings just for fun.  Carl fell from 5th to 6th, but that is no big deal because he is sitting pretty high on the chart.  And just in case those pesky points come into play in September, it is good to see that he moved up in the drivers' standings.  He climbed from 5th, 9 points back, to 4th, 5 points back. 

After Carl's many years with Roush, I still keep a fond eye on them.  It was heartwarming to see that they finally seem to be moving out of the funk they have been in lately.  They qualified 3rd, 5th, and 14th; and they finished 10th, 13th, and 22nd.  Good job, Jack! 

And finally, a shout out to Jimmie Johnson on his 76th victory, tying Dale Earnhardt, Sr.  Considering the man's considerable skills, it is not an unexpected accomplishment.  There are sure to be many more milestones in his future.

The JGR Boys Dominate in Daytona

What an amazing Speedweeks!  Carl's #19 Arris Toyota showed speed throughout.  He usually logged practice times in the top ten.  Last weekend he started the Unlimited in 19th place, but that was not a reflection of his car.  For that race, starting positions are determined by a random draw.  He raced near the front for most of the race, but then his impatience got the best of him.  He tried to push just a little too hard and ended up in the wall, finishing the race in 16th place.  Well, if you are going to take risks, this race is a safe place to do it, from the standpoint of the championship hunt.

In his Duel, he finished 4th, placing him in the 10th spot for the Daytona starting grid.  Once the race got underway, he and his teammates worked their way to the front and ran up there together at the beginning of the afternoon.  Unfortunately he got caught up in a couple of spinouts from his competitors.  The first was the result of Chase Elliott spinning out and sliding across his nose.  That damage was minimal compared to what was coming next.

When Brian Vickers tapped the back of Joey Logano's car and spun out, he started a chain reaction of cars trying to avoid the incident.  Trevor Bayne, running up near the wall behind Carl, did not whoa up as quickly as Carl did and tagged the back of the Arris Toyota, pushing Carl into the outside wall.  Carl's crew, led by his new crew chief Dave Rogers, got the car patched up and back onto the track only one lap down.  He spent a good portion of the race running between 36th and 39th.

Finally on lap 118 he was in position to take advantage of the lucky dog and get back onto the lead lap.  He was eventually able to work his way back up to his teammates in the front.  With the right front corner of his car flapping in the air, the four Gibbs cars lead the charge toward the finish line.

Matt Kenseth held the lead and looked to be in control of the race.  On the last lap, though, Denny Hamlin jumped to the upper lane, and with a push from Kevin Harvick began to close the distance.  Matt tried to block, a move that seldom goes well at 200 miles per hour.  Kenseth had to check up, leaving Hamlin alongside Martin Truex dueling for the lead.  The Toyotas crossed the line in a photo finish.  Denny was victorious by only a few inches, winning his first Daytona 500 by the closest margin of victory in the history of the Daytona 500.  Kenseth finished in 14th.

And Carl?  With his car that no longer had a right front corner, except for the pieces flapping and waving in the air?  He came home in 5th place!  With Kyle Busch finishing in 3rd place, three of the four Gibbs cars finished in the top five.

This is a special year for JGR as they celebrate 25 years of racing.  Plus it has been 23 years since they won the Daytona 500.  This was a perfect time to do it again.  This was Toyota's first victory in the Daytona 500.  And a specially timed birthday present for JD Gibbs, too.

Ironically the Fox announcers claimed that the dominant race teams were from the Hendrick and Gibbs stables.  But during the first half of the race, most of their attention was focused on the Hendrick drivers.  While understandable given the situation, Jeff Gordon's obvious bias toward his former teammates was both annoying and unprofessional.  But as the race wore on, the Hendrick drivers were one by one running into problems.

First, Chase Elliott's spin on lap 18 put him in the garage for a good chunk of the race.  He finished in 37th place.  Then on lap 169, Junior spun out and found the inside wall.  His day was over with a 36th place finish.  Jimmie Johnson struggled through a pit road penalty when his crew went over the wall too soon, ending up in 16th.  Before the race began, nobody would have guessed that the best Hendrick finish would have come from Kasey Kahne in 13th.

I hope that this might open the eyes of the sportscasters as the season moves forward, but I fear it will not.  Thank goodness we get good updates from Boris at JGR and Randy Fuller, Carl's right-hand PR man.  If not for them, there are times when I am left wondering if Carl has left the track and gone home.

So it was a "good points day."  Just in case that becomes significant months from now, it is good to maintain a spot near the top of the drivers' points standings.  And Atlanta is next.  Atlanta, where Carl won his first Cup race.  And with the new lower-downforce package on the cars this year, I see next week as the real start of the 2106 NASCAR season.  I am looking forward to Atlanta far more than I was Daytona.

Congratulations to Denny Hamlin, the 11 crew, and the entire JGR organization.  I hope this win is just the beginning of a magnificent 2016 season.