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Two great races in the same afternoon, and Jr. looks like he’s on a roll. This oughta really, really tick off the 24 and 48 fans, but you know what?? LIVE WITH IT…..

First look: Just from looking at the lineup for each race, Race 1 seemed to have more heavyweights, and Race 2 seemed to have the preponderance of Oyotas. However, due to the valve lifter problem (and other smaller issues), 7 had to drop to the rear in Race 1 and 4 had to drop to the rear in Race 2. Another glance showed Race 2 had most of the open wheelers, and a lot of ‘teams’.

Terrible Tony: Has anyone else recognized that TT is sporting a Little Lord Fauntleroy hairdo, and has regained some poundage in the off-season? Maybe he had to rehire the anger management dude and temporarily dump his trainer.

Race 1:

No sooner did they get up to speed than Boris spun VickersVapoRub and the first flag came out. Seven laps later BadBoyBush dropped like a rock while in the middle lane, but this was chalked up to a bad engine (kerthunk). Nonetheless, this was a great race, and proved again that those in the rear can quickly race to the front if they have good tires.

JJ: He started in the back and soon found himself up front with the other Big Boys. However, with 8 laps remaining, he suddenly ‘smelled smoke’ and elected to drop to pit road. Now, I don’t want to start any bad feelings, but do you possibly think that he elected to bail out, rather than be shown up by his new teammate ?? OK, I can understand that he wanted to preserve his pole position and not damage his car, and perhaps this is like poker….you fold ‘em when you don’t have a good hand.

Kudos: To Jr. for his second W in a row (no points, but a great morale booster…..and a silent kick in the knickers to his ex-CEO). To I’mSore-enson for another great race, and a warning from the AssiGanassi team….. To FlyinRyan for (finally) showing up at the finish. And surprise finishes for CaseOfMears and Blobonte. Super Kudos to YadaYadaWallace and SamboHornish.

Question: Why the heck is Mr.Pigtial still in the seat?? His teammate finished 6th, yet he finished next to last (last of the cars running).

Race 2:

Lessons learned from Race 1 was that you had to move to the front while you had good tires. Stupid mistake 1: Dario missed Drivers Intro, and had to go to the rear. Hey….for what legitimate reason does you miss Drivers Intro?? Are you a racecar driver with corresponding responsibilities, or do you say “Oooops” ??? Stupid mistake 2: DavieRootman was on the outside pole position, jumped the green flag, and was black flagged for his efforts. Duuuh.

Biggie: It was predicted that since Race 1 was essentially wreck free, Race 2 would have one or more Big Ones. With about 14 laps under their belts, AndroidAndretti’s rear bumper nudged JacquieV just enough to finally send him into oblivion (collecting poor Stanton Barrett, JamieMac and Dario in the process). Whereas the number of cars involved was low, the wreck was high impact and proved the necessity for the safety devices.

Red Flags: We had two of ‘em, and both were from single car incidents (DaveBlarney’s engine, then Carpentier’s RF and subsequent wall job). Both required copious amounts of speedy-dry, enough such that a lot of it ended up on the driver’s windshields.

Teams: Race 2 also bunched several teams together, and for perhaps the first time we witnessed ‘team driving’. I don’t know about you, but this begins to smell like what the open wheelers have been doing for years, and it resembles what a skunk would emit. Let’s hope that when we get to points racing, this will become a thing of the past. I say ‘every man for himself’, and sundry other wisecracks.

Kudos: To the Oyotas for finally winning some sort of race. The odds were certainly in your favor. Surprised that KaseOfKahne and Davie Ragan ended up in the Top 10, so this may bode well for them this year. No comments about DJ, cuz I don’t think he coulda done it by himself (Ooops, I think this qualified as a comment).

Heaps of 3’s all over yer next Amp, and yer local FedEx store,
Racing Maniac #3, #88e

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Stock Car Gazette for Friday, February 15, 2008 »