I should be happy with sports, especially in my native New England. The Red Sox swept the Angels in the first round of the baseball playoffs and the Patriots are 5-0 in the NFL. But my sport is not baseball or football, it’s NASCAR racing.
I’m a Dale Earnhardt Jr fan. Junor just lost his 6th engine this year. At the time he lost his engine, he was running up front. But this time the disappointment spread. Junior drives for Dale Earnhardt Inc., who merged engine programs with Richard Childress Racing. Of the 4 DEI cars, the Budweiser #8 and the Bass Pro Shops #1 had engine failures. The Menards #15 had an accident and the US Army #01 had problems also. At RCR, the AT&T #31 had engine failure and the Shell #29 dropped a valve. Only the Jack Daniels #07 finished without problems, 11th place. Good engine program DEI. Now you can blame someonelse.
Talladega was a crash fest. It looked more like a demo derby than a stockcar race. Drivers complained they couldn’t see past that rear wing, either out the rear window or see through the car in front to see further problems ahead.
The Jacques Villenueve problem didn’t happen. After qualifying 6th, he dropped to the back at the start of the race so he wouldn’t cause any problems. Jeff Gordon was still right in his assessment that this rookie shouldn’t start his career at this track. San Hornish Jr didn’t qualify for the race.
Tony Eury Jr’s last race at DEI. He leaves for Hendrick Motorsports early. Per his agreement, he can take four members of the #8 crew with him. Tony Jr will be missed for the rest of the season.
NASCAR signed Nationwide Insurance as the new title sponsor of the Busch Series. The series will now be called the NASCAR Nationwide Series. Signing Nationwide puts Geico Insurance sponsorship of the #7 Mike Wallace car out of their series in two years. Geico can sponsor cars in the Cup or truck series, but not in the Nationwide Series. This is another case of a title sponsor weeding out it’s competitors. It’s Nextel vs AT&T again. Geico is the only sponsor to promote the Busch Series with the Lauren Wallace commercials that even the race broadcasters talk about.
This weekend was great for speed fans and bad because of stupidity. NASCAR needs to tweak the COT and tighten up certain rules. Last weekends “reasonable speed” at the end of the race needs to be nailed down to a specific speed. At the discretion of NASCAR doesn’t work anymore.
