Casey Mears won his first Nextel Cup race at the Coca-Cola 600 when he stayed out while the leaders came in for a quick splash of fuel. It's no secret Mears didn't have the best car that night, but his team managed the fuel situation better than the others. The question is, should winners be determined because they have nothing to lose and can gamble on fuel?
I don't know about the rest of you, but after five-plus hours of racing in Charlotte, I was actually standing in front of my TV for the final laps of the Coca-Cola 600. Aside from the Daytona 500, I don't think we've had a better finish to a race then what we saw this weekend, and yes that includes Martinsville.
Complaints are at an all-time high about NASCAR staging races, throwing phantom debris cautions to benefit guys like Jeff Gordon and Johnson. Well for once we didn't have that. It was great to see the final 50 laps run under green, not interfered with by the dreaded yellow flag.
Take absolutely nothing away from Casey Mears in Sunday night's Coca-Cola 600. He drove his butt off, the team made some great decisions on pit road and he deserves a trip to Victory Lane more than nearly anyone in Nextel Cup. There's something right about a Mears winning a race on the Memorial Day weekend. Plus, who would have expected names like Yeley, Petty, Sorenson and Vickers to pop up in the top five? All five of those cars ran well all night and deserved to be on the lead lap. But top-five finishes? Get real.
Do you really want to see cars coasting around the track well off race pace, trying to conserve an extra gallon of fuel? Remember Phoenix, when nobody would get out of line because they were so worried about not having enough fuel to make it to the end? I wouldn't call that exciting racing.
I'm with Bill. I love the possibility of gas mileage coming into play. It is a part of motorsport. It is a very big part of racing in other sanctions such as F1 where the whole field is very seldom bunched up by a full course caution. It gives young guns their furst shot and old dogs with good long run set ups another shot at glory.
The question is not who is fastest? If you like that go drag racing. The question is who can cover a set distance in the least amount of time with pit stops, tire wear and gas mileage included?
J.J. Yeley is in the final year of his contract with Joe Gibbs Racing, and team president J.J. Gibbs said this weekend that the driver’s performance will determine whether he’s back with the No. 18 team in 2008 and beyond. So Yeley’s second-place finish in the Coca-Cola 600 would seem to have come at an opportune time.
“I do my best every time we go on the track,” Yeley said. “If I get fired I get fired. …I’m not worried about not having a ride. If I couldn’t find anything in Nextel Cup, I’ll go back to racing sprint cars. That’s all I know how to do. I’m going to drive a race car – regardless of whether it’s here or somewhere else.”
This blog is a copy of two of my responses, one to JayJayDean and one to photographer on JayJay's blog. O.K., I admit it. I am a bit conceited. I think these responses are decent enough to merit their own blog. But more than that I wanted to save the info where I could find it later.
WARNING: THIS IS NOT A BLOG! IT IS MORE OF A FILE FOR SAFE KEEPING. THERE ARE NO PICTURES! READING BELOW THIS LINE MAY BORE AN ADHD BLOGGER TO TEARS AND POSSIBLY DEATH! YOU ARE STRONGLY ADVISED TO GO TO JAYJAYDEANS BLOG VIA THE ABOVE LINK AT THIS TIME! COMMENTS THAT WOULD BE MORE APPROPRIATE ON JAJAYDEANS BLOG ARE SUBJECT TO DELETION AND MAY BE DELETED. COMMENTS MORE APPROPPRIATE ON JAYJAYS BLOG MAY BE COPIED FROM THIS BLOG TO THAT ONE SO DON"T GET PISSED OFF IF YOU POST IT HERE AND I COPY IT THERE AND DELETE IT HERE! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! GOT IT STERLING MARLIN BUDDIES? COMMENTS REGARDING THE SANITY OF THIS BLOGGER (14FALCONS) MAY BE APPROPRIATE ON THIS BLOG.
DAMN IT I CAN"T STAND NO PICTURES ON MY BLOG. FILE OR NOT
1. Ward Burton 2. Kyle Busch 3. David Gilliland 4. Kevin Harvick 5. Matt Kenseth 6. Reed Sorenson
These are Nextel Cup regulars that run only the companion Busch events which in my mind is the pure definition of a Buschwacker. Let's call them Type I wackers.
Then there are those that are at least more honorable in that they are running all Busch Series events so that they could be termed Nextel and Busch regulars. Let's call them Type II wackers.
They include;
1. Greg Biffle 2. Dave Blaney 3. Carl Edwards 4. Juan Pablo Montoya 5. David Ragan 6. David Reuttiman 7. J. J. Yeley
Adding all of the Type I and Type II wackers together gives you 13 Nextel Cup drivers that make up the majority of the wackers by running Busch races roughly 85% of the time.
Then add the 12 Busch regulars and you have the typical 25 cars you normally see in Busch races. The remaining 18 cars are pretty much field fillers whether they are "Mexican" road racers or "American" oval racers.
photo,
The fact that there are 13 wackers discourages decent mid-level racers from running the Busch series, so they go run trucks. That is what leaves approximately 18 local field fillers that run Busch that at best might be qualified to run trucks regularly. You take these 18 to Bristol and you get a wreckfest.
This is why NASCAR needs to
1) Allow the top 35 from the previous season to run a full Nextel Cup Season. 2) Have a qualifying school in January for the other 8 positions and you are in all year. 3) Do not allow Nextel Cup drivers to run Busch. 4) Increase Busch Purses to add more incentive for regular truck drivers to run Busch.
Then and only then will we have a healthy Busch series.
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