|
You win some, and you lose some. Today Smoke tossed the coin and it came up Heads.
But surrounding events may seem to have put a tarnish on the coin. |
|
Meynerd: His announced move to Yates next year (with his daddy’s sponsorship in tow) puts the domino factor back into play. It leaves a huge hole at TEI regarding sponsors, and makes that outfit shakier than ever. They just might go back to 3 teams, and possibly less, if they don’t secure sponsors. TEI will have only one (1) decent driver in ’09, but of course, that’s been the situation in ’08. The Yates teams have had trouble finding sponsors in the past few years (starting off “08 with none). Perhaps having at least one solid sponsor may bring others into the fold. Then again, maybe not. Especially if both organizations don’t ramp it up a notch.
PattiPetty: She let the cat outta the bag that Mr.Pigtail may have one of his last rides in the 45 car. “They haven’t wanted Kyle in the car the last three years. They want a young driver, a 30-year-old, a 20-year-old. But Wells Fargo, our sponsor, says it’s going to stay with Kyle, whatever he does.” Thus, Pigtail just may be jumping to AssiGanassi as a part time driver in ’09 along with Wells Fargo. You know, it’s getting to be that even if a driver is mediocre, if he has a sponsor in tow he will get preferred treatment with a car owner. Thus, sometimes it ain’t how good you are……..it’s if you have a sponsor in your pocket.
Kanassas: They’re getting a casino, and they want a second date. And the NA$CAR honchos have indicated it will happen. So look for one of the other ISC tracks to cough up one of their dates and move it to Kanassas. It may be too late for this to get done in ’09, but it looks like a sure thing for 2010. Hey… maybe there’s hope that they could yank one of the dates outta that stupid Califor-nia track……
Robo: It’s sort of funny to see his Jim Beam ads still running in NA$CAR Scene. They have full page ads showing RoboGordo, but blatantly showing his car as a Ford Fusion even though he’s been running Dodge engines almost all year.
Bradley: JTG Daugherty Racing is teaming up with Mikey next year for Cup assistance. “This way we don’t come out of the box already behind,” said Daugherty. I say……Ha,Ha,Ha,Ha,Ha,Ha,Ha,Ha……..(etc.). This guy cracks me up. If he didn’t want to ‘come out of the box already behind’, he shoulda joined with JGR, Hendrick, RCR, or Roush.
Headlines: “Hall of Fame Racing, JGR decide to remove Logano from #96”. Reading between the lines, I’d say that JGR is afraid that continuing to run poorly in the DLP car will adversely affect Joey’s confidence level. It woulda taken a miracle (like Someone upstairs throwing a thunder bolt) for Joey to be even half way competitive in the DLP car. There is seat time, then there’s quality seat time that would allow the driver to actually learn something about how a car should handle. Sooo, DLP has moved back to KennyShredder for the rest of ’08. Just like a Timex, he just keeps ticking and ticking………
New Look: Well, I’ve taken a gander at Gordo’s new paint job (for 2009 +), and I’m sorry. To me it looks too much like the present ‘Flames’ rendition. What little black they’re trying to put on the car doesn’t look that much different than the dark blue they’ve been running for the past 4 years. Gordo, if you want to change your colors, do like Jr. did……..(sorry but his is uglier than sin).
Da Race: One of the best from start to finish in years. It was soooo good that there was a minimal amount of multi-tasking with the NFL games. And we couldn’t even squeeze in a good snooze, either. There were numerous stories in this one, and some were better than others.
Stupid 1: How utterly embarrassing is it to want to ride safely in the back of the pack…..and lose contact such that you are tooling around the track with no possible means to catch up (unless there’s a Caution)? And how embarrassing might this be if it caused you to go a lap down….and if you happened to be the Points leader? Hey, this is where the best of planning can go awry. But what do we know? Maybe he was smoking gonja weed back there.
Stupid 2: OK, you’ve #2 in the Points, and have had nothing but bad luck at Talladega. So you decide to tool around at the back of the pack for most of the race. You even test the waters to see how easy it is to advance to the front, then you drift back to the rear where it’s safe. Then with 20 to go, you start getting antsy, and move toward the front. You’re near the front, and pushing your teammate for the lead. At this point you have a brain-fart, and forget that you shouldn’t be bump drafting through the turns. So your stupidity enables The Big(est) One to take place, which ultimately collects about 6 or more of the Playoffs contenders, and dashes their hopes for the Championship.
Stupid 3: There were enough violent tire explosions to cause consternation up and down pit road. Many of them happened with about the same number of laps on them, so it was an ominous cloud hovering over the race. Yes, there were probably was a tire test, but it didn’t predict what happened at this race. Will it take having someone getting seriously injured before they take a close look at the problem???
Many lead changes, and a lot of excitement. One could easily get caught up with the give and take, bump drafting and the take and give…..perhaps even if you were a Gordo fan. Oh, I’m sorry. He wasn’t around for most of the race, so your mind may have wandered.
It was predicted that you didn’t want to be in the lead with just a few laps to go, or you’d get your doors blown off by the next available freight train. But TwoTonTony just happened to have Lady Luck as his co-pilot. With just a few to go, JamieMac blew a RR, causing a two-lap dash to the finish. Now, it takes at least one lap to get up to full speed, so Smoke just rode it out and collected the flag…..after a little bit of excitement at the end. Regan Smith, in his barely sponsored TEI car, was in 2nd place and tried to make a move on Smoke. He tried to go high, but was blocked, then went under, only to be bumped below the yellow line. He beat Smoke to the line, but NA$CAR decided he ‘passed below the yellow’, and he was sent to the back of the lead lap (from ‘first’ to 18th). This was a controversial finish, and one I suspect may have been tainted by the choice of his highness Smoke over a fledgling driver. But hey, it’s just my take on this…….what’s yours?
Congrats to Smoke for his first win at ‘dega, and his first win in many moons. Kudos to the whole TEI crew for a great effort. Kudos to Blobonte for a 6th, Robo for a 7th, and JoeNemo for an 11th. Also, special kudos to CaseOfMears for mostly a great race (and we hope you got back to Charlotte in time for the birth of your first).
Heaps of 3’s all over yer Subway sandwich,
Racing Maniac #3, #88e
It looked to me like Regan got pushed below the yellow line. I was listening to Sirius radio this AM, and they were pointing out the difference between the interpretation of the rule by Jim Hunter and Robin Pemberton… something about if you can see the flagstand or not makes it OK or not??? Huh? I expect we’ve not heard the last of this one.
Smith got that one taken away from him. The tape clearly showed Smith had a fender inside of Tony before the yellow line and Tony moved a whole lane down, forcing Smith below the line. Smith should have held his line and let Tony hit him. This is why some series don’t allow blocking!
Side note * I wish someone would teach all the Wallace family how to say Talladega. Every one of them say Tell-a-dega. That’s like fingernails on the blackboard to me! Even some of the announcers were saying “Tell-a-dega”. UGH!!
Wild race but they’ve got to get a hold on these tires. It’s a wonder Denny wasn’t hurt even worse, that was a very hard hit!