 Photo by Icon Sports Media |
Another great short track Sprint Cup race at Richmond. Although it started off a bit boring things heated up at about mid-way and it turned out to be a darn fine race. |
The Story: Crown Royal presents the Russ Friedman 400 under the lights at Richmond International Raceway’s D shaped oval. Russ Friedman, a two-time Purple Heart recipient from Huntington Station, NY, entered Crown Royal’s “Your Name Here” contest and was chosen from nearly 5000 on-line entries from around the country. Each entrant described an honorable act or achievement worthy of toasting with Crown Royal. Friedman’s entry detailed his experience serving in Iraq. Russ, good job getting those motors running.
Rain, Rain Go Away: My apologies for the bizarre connection between my authoring Track Trash and race day weather. Seems like I bring out the wet stuff. It’s been a while since we’ve seen a Green/Yellow start and it confused the heck out of my 3rd grader. “Dad, is that as fast as they can go on this track? This race is going to be boring!” About the time I finished explaining the process to him the yellow was pulled and DW was screaming “Boogity, Boogity, Boogity, Let’s Go Racin’ Boys” as Gordo and Vickers were diving into turn one.
Da race: The rain definitely made things loose in the early laps due to the lack of rubber along with dirt & debris up high. The first three dozen laps saw several drivers fighting to keep their rear from passing the front. Dave Blaney figured this out the hard way as he got loose in the marbles and backed it into the wall on lap 10.
Richmond has a great short track history filled with lots of bumps and bruises, but half-way into this race it seemed like a day of gentleman’s racing. No flared tempers. No sticking other cars in the wall. Just lots of mellow three-quarter mile laps ticking away. Well……..that certainly changed at about the mid-way mark. Soon we were watching plenty-o three wide restarts, bumper tag, and lots of paint swapping that lasted all the way to the checkered flag. I LOVE Richmond! Beat it, bang it and try not to break it.
Lots-o Green: Typical of Richmond we saw several long green runs which were good for some drivers as their cars improved as laps ticked away and bad for others as handling went to trash the longer they ran. The Fox stats boys indicated the average green run at Richmond goes 95-100 laps. Gordo was a clear victim of the long run gremlins as his car fell back after dominating 51 laps early on. The first series of pit stops hit about lap 93 and many crew chiefs were scrambling to make adjustments to keep their drivers competitive. With continuing pit efforts Gordo was able to drive his way back to an impressive eight place finish.
Brake Blues: I’ve always loved the orange brake glow at nighttime short track races. However, brake blunders are oh so common at Richmond due to the heavy use/abuse they take. If your brakes are working well you can focus on getting in the corner hard, rolling through and hopping back on the gas quickly. If you have brake woes, as did the #48 & #8, you’ll spend your race fighting to keep your car straight and out the wall or infield. Both Johnson and Kahne pirouetted through the infield grass as the result of serious brake imbalance.
Da finish: Congrats to Kid Kyle for his birthday victory and joining Cale Yarborough as the only other driver to win a race on his birthday (Cale has two birthday victories). Kyle’s weekend trifecta included checkered flags at Saturday’s Sprint Cup under the lights, Friday night’s Nationwide Series race and Thursday at Denny Hamlin’s charity race at Southside Speedway. Sweeeeet moves by Kid Kyle on several re-starts.
Kudos: Great race for the Auzzie, Marcos Ambros, who started 21st and picked up a top ten finish in his first start at Richmond. To Sam Hornish for a career best sixth place Sprint Cup finish and his second top ten finish in as many weeks. To Denny Hamlin who once again led the most laps at his home track where he has led at least one lap in all seven starts at Richmond. To Team Stewart Haas for one heck of an effort resulting in both cars finishing in the top five.
Keep on Racin’
Boyd McPherson
