| Wow. Another great race at Atlanta…. |
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Still Truckin’?: With Ford pulling out of the Truck series (joining Dodge), this puts the whole series in jeopardy. Hey. One way they could cut costs is to replace the Truck series with a newly invigorated IROC series (but this time have a choice of bodies so it would seem more palatable). The motors and chassis would have to be the same, but the skin could resemble current day cars. Just a thought.
Rumors: GM/Chrysler merger. GEM buying the 22 car from BDR and jumping to Oyota. This certainly smells like Chrysler (and Dodge) is going down the tubes. Yep, someone may be about ready to flush the toilet. The key to this whole thing will be the Petty and AssiGanassi commitment to Dodge. They have long term contracts in place, but with the woes at Chrysler, this could be severed in a hurry.
Trickle Down: The economy woes have gone from Wall Street to Detroit, and finally, may be hitting Charlotte. The car manufacturers are pulling in their horns, the fans are not filling the seats, the sponsors are reducing their ante, and several highly recognized teams are without sponsors in this critical time. Weak teams (or some non-sponsored cars) may fold in the process. It still takes an arm and a leg to allow each car to run on a weekly basis, and the teams may need new guidelines from NA$CAR if they are to survive. But asking NA$CAR to step in and offer corrections is like asking the dimwits in Congress to get off their duff and do something worthwhile for a change.
Fat Lady: Do you hear the Fat Lady singing? It would take several humungous blunders, breakdowns and/or wrecks for the 48 car to fall out of grace. Errr, they would have to do a “KidKyle” for that to happen. Maybe the best thing we can do is assume that JJ will once again be anointed, and if he somehow gets beaten, we’ll be pleasantly surprised.
TEI: The stench is beginning to reach the outside world. This once proud company is just a shell of it’s former self. Four cars, and one sponsor for next year (and next year alone), and they’ll need to hurry to get more sponsors lined up for the big dance at Daytona next Spring.
Ya know, this might be an excellent time for Jr. to offer her 25 cents on the dollar for the hardware, and let her keep the promotional stuff.
Thoughts of Zen: Deep inside you are ten thousand flowers. Each flower blossoms ten thousand times. Each blossom has ten thousand petals. You might want to think about seeing a specialist.
More Zen: Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.
Da Race: A lot of little stories today, and all added up to a great race.
JJ: Caught speeding into the pits early on, as he nearly always does, he managed to work his way to the front. The last pit stop with 13 to go was the clincher, when Das Knaus decided to bring him in for new tires. After that, it was a race to the front, but he just ran out of time. Interestingly, his pit stall was directly in front of Flipsters, and he kept pitting at an odd angle, making Flip make evasive maneuvers in order to get off of pit road. A coincidence?? I don’t think so….
Kahne: Poor Kasey. He had a miserable set-up on his car, and it never got any better. He spun so many times it made your head spin. It was soooo bad that one time he spun, didn’t hit anything, but blew all four of his tires. Bummer, dude.
Pablo: An amazing race for Pablo. He kept hugging the outside wall, moving forward all the while. It looked like he was going to finish in the top 5….until he pitted with 28 to go and got his nose clipped off by Bowowyer coming out of the pits. It went downhill from there, cuz he eventually got collected in The Big One.
TBO: The Big One came with 23 to go, when DaveBlarney wanted to move down to the bottom, and moved into Jburton. Altogether, Blaney, Burton, Sorenson, Pablo and JoeNemo were collected. Burton was able to get back on the track, but his day was already going down the tubes and it never got better.
Jamie: JamieMac finally got a break. He was able to finish a race. For his efforts, he got a 7th out of it, and was the 3rd ranking Roushketeer. He’ll have his ride for ’09, but he’s still gonna get dumped after that, no matter how good he performs next year.
Gordo: Another ‘coulda, woulda, shoulda’ race. DUMP THE WHALE (LeFarte) so you can get on with your life…….
Da Biff (and friends): For a guy that ran good at the start of the race, it sure looked like he was toast in the middle of it. Then, somehow he managed to get racy again and wound up in 10th. Not bad for a Comeback Kid. The same could be said about Happy and AJ. They were both pretty miserable until they showed up for the final run.
Oooops. Gotta run to dinner……..
Heaps of 3’s all over yer local Office Depot,
Racing Maniac #3
Used Honda Accord
