The first of two visits to Atlanta in 2008 is in the record books with Kyle Busch picking up his 5th career victory. Busch becomes the first driver to win the Cup & Craftsman Truck series races in the same weekend. There's no doubt the driver of the No. 18 Toyota is the hottest thing going this early in the season.
That being said, it's been awhile since I've seen a race this bad at Atlanta. Sure, there were 26 lead changes, but only 10 of those occurred under green flag conditions. With all due respect to The Rock, with the temperatures in the 50s, tires going away quick, and with the 20th place driver 2 laps down, this reminded me of watching those February North Carolina Speedway races from not so long ago.
Let me present my awards for the race:
Surprising Good Finish: For the 2nd time this season I'm handing this one to Brian Vickers. He finished in the 9th position, and with being just a couple of weeks from using this year's points to determine who's locked into the shows, the #83 has clinched being in such a position going into Martinsville at the end of this month. The #83 is 211 points ahead of the 36th place in owner points. So, even if Vickers would fail to qualify for Bristol next week, he'd still be in the top 35. For this category I'm going to go down to the 18th place finisher for an honorable mention to Scott Riggs.
Perserverance: Again, giving this to Vickers. Vickers started 35th, as the laps clicked off he continued to pick up positions. The first-fourth of the race was running below 25th.....from lap 80 to the crossflags had it in the top 25.....then by the three-fourths mark was in the top 15, and eventually ended up with the aforementioned top 10. Honorable mention to Matt Kenseth
Deserved a Better Finish & Surprisingly Bad Finish: Seems like a pattern here, with everything leaning towards the Roush teams. As this one goes in the direction of Carl Edwards. It appeared Edwards was heading to a 3rd straight checkered flag, but had an engine go sour on him while he was leading the race with about 50 laps remaining.
Should've Stayed in Bed Award: It's hard to find a driver to give this to. Yes, I could give it to Edwards, but it's not like his entire day was bad. As I said, he was leading late in the race. I could give it to Elliott Sadler, but I'm going to go in the direction of Kyle Petty for this. Petty finished in the 41st position. Petty's PEAK position for the race? 38th!!!. At no time in the race was he higher in the running order than 5 competitors! In turn, the #45 is 81 points out of 35th in owner points, and he's undoubtedly facing a go-or-go home situation following Bristol next week.
From Saturday's Nationwide race, my selection for most impressive performance to Dale Jr's driver, Brad Keselowski. Nice 6th place finish. And he didn't fluke his way into that finish. He was running there nearly the entire race.
Next week, not only will I look at Bristol on an individual race basis, with that race marking 1 month point of the season, I'll be putting out my first "through the season" award selections in these various categories.
I'll leave you with this thought: Any chance of Tony Stewart applying for a Goodyear dealership anytime in the near future?
MMR, good post. I have a category for you: Deserved A Bad Finish But Got A Strong Finish. This award goes to Jimmie Johnson. If not for Elliott Sadler's kindness (and the fact he had an AWFUL car that was a piece of ####), JJ would have finished MULTIPLE laps down. TWICE Johnson got the free pass thanks to Sadler. IF Johnson ends up winning his third consecutive championship, he can point to this race in which he finished in the top 15 instead of in the 30s.
Hi Jon.....Thanks for the kind words! I may have to look into that. Actually, to tell you the truth, I was thinking of naming what is my "perserverance" award the "deserved a bad finish" award....because when you get right down to it, they carry pretty much the same meaning. A driver's finish doesn't represent how they ran during the majority of the race. So, before the season began, I contemplated whether that should be looked at as a positive feat, or a negative one. As far as Johnson getting that, I'll respectfully disagree. Johnson was running right around 15th the entire race (even when he went down a lap!), and he finished 14th. Even when Sadler was having his problems, if Johnson had gone down 2 laps, he'd still have been in the top 20 (the 20th place finisher was 2 laps down). Now, when Johnson got up into the top 10 with about 25 laps to go, the award was definitely pointing in his direction! But to tell you the truth, this race was very close to being like the California race, where it was getting close to going down as an incomplete for this category, due to the fact everyone pretty much ran in the same range for most of the race. Again, thanks for posting.
MMR- good stuff! I like all your awards and wondered what had happened to Mr. Petty...they didnt mention him once on the broadcast, my bet is he just cant drive a loose race car.
I also agree with you re: JJ...he drove an undrive-able car pretty darn well IMO.
Klvalus, thanks for the comments. What you said seems to be the case for Petty, at least it was on Sunday. I was really surprised to see he didn't get any higher than 38th at any point in the race. Usually he's able to stay out during pit stops and pick up some bonus points, but that didn't even happen on Sunday. This is what Petty had to say about the race: “We were really looking to have a strong run that would allow us to gain some points. The car was a handful. Adjustments that should have tightened the car up had no effect. We’ve had some malfunctions with the bump rubbers this year. We’ll have to get it back to the shop to see if that was the case again.” When it comes to raceday, there's no team struggling more than the #45.
I seriously doubt if there is any chance of Smoke applying for a Goodyear dealership, ever. He is too much a fan of Hoosier tires. Guess it is in his Hoosier blood. lol
