Right, I’m back (sort of…still need to find a job as well as a more permanent place of residence before I can finally relax) after the busiest month in my life having packed up and moved across the Pacific Ocean; hence the new blog title. The race for the QC has closed up dramatically from four weeks ago (though only three points weekends as Michigan qualifying was rained out of course).
Kyle Busch maintains his lead but in those three sessions, he’s managed to score just 24 points while Jimmie Johnson went on a tear and accumulated a whopping 120 points to slash the gap down to just 15 points.
Rocketing into the top 20 due to his pole at Loudon is Patrick Carpentier. Others include Bobby Labonte and AJ Allmendinger at the expense of Brian Vickers, Jamie McMurray and Ken Schrader. Among the frontrunners, Kasey Kahne went from sixth to fourth and Jeff Gordon drops one spot to fifth. David Ragan hasn’t scored any points at all since my last update but hangs tough in 14th while there is a bit o####ap starting to form between the top four and the rest as we approach halfway through the season.
Tez's NASCAR Qualifying Championship - top 20 standings after 17 rounds:
The races have seen Kyle keep his 'plus one race' margin mainly due to picking up another win while the other three races were shared between Kasey Kahne, Dale Earnhardt Jr and Kurt Busch. Just the solitary change in the top 20 as Elliott Sadler squeezes out Travis Kvapil. Kahne has risen to seventh from 14th while Biffle lost four places and now sits tenth.
Tez's NASCAR Race Championship - top 20 standings after 17 rounds:
To Daytona under lights then, where we’ll see if we can get another cracking finish like last year when Jamie McMurray broke a five year drought by pipping Kyle at the line. The smart money (assuming it doesn’t rain for qualifying) will be on a GOGH driver nabbing the pole position and if recent progress is anything to go by, the Dodge camp seem to have gotten over their early season troubles which could be an ominous sign since Penske went 1-2 here in February with what basically everyone said were the ‘slowest’ cars.
Well, after the busiest weekend in motorsport with a fourteen hour drool-fest for us…uh, those channel surfers, not me, I had to go to work since everything happened on Monday morning for me…as attentions turned from the streets of Monte Carlo to the Brickyard before coming to a bleary-eyed stop in Concord, things stayed pretty much the same in both the QC and the RC.
Qualifying had Kyle Busch start from the pole with Kasey Kahne alongside…which meant that Kyle further extended his lead over the rest and is just 16 points away from having enough points that he could take a race off and still retain the lead. The others will hope Kyle has done exactly what the All Blacks do in rugby union; peak too early.
Dropping out of the top 20 this time are Bobby Labonte and Joe Nemechek, making way for Kurt Busch and Brian Vickers. Among the frontrunners, Kahne was the biggest gainer going from tenth to sixth while Denny Hamlin went the other way; sixth to eighth. All up, 46 drivers have scored at least one point in qualifying as the season kicks off its middle third.
Tez's NASCAR Qualifying Championship - top 20 standings after 12 rounds:
The race saw, predictably, Kyle shoot off into the sunset and, but for losing voltage, he would most likely have backed up his win in the Nationwide race the night before. But, thankfully for the rest of the field, he did have issues and the lead was mainly traded between Kyle, Dale Earnhardt Jr (hmm, I probably shouldn’t have put those two together like that, there could be some trouble there), Jimmie Johnson, Brian Vickers, Kurt Busch (ta muchly for reminding me about him, klv), Kahne and Tony Stewart.
Kyle, despite his problems finished in third while Jr had an eventful night blowing a tyre and getting whacked up the back by JJ Yeley before rebounding to wind up fifth. Kurt also whacked the wall a couple times but still managed to finish in the top 20. Vickers and Johnson didn’t last the distance as Brian lost a wheel and Jimmie grenaded an engine…first time in nearly 100 races that’s happened to the #48. However, all that paled into insignificance as Stewart easily had the roughest time.
Having closed down the gap to Kahne, he then passed Kasey in the pits and was cruising to victory having over a five second lead with three laps to go…before his tyre let go. Tony did an amazing job to keep his Camry off the wall but his dream of a win on Memorial day vanished as Kasey went by to take the win, becoming the sixth driver to win the All-star race and the Coke 600 in the same year. Greg Biffle followed him home, just like he did last week as well (not the first time that’s happened as tyler did a bit of scouting around). Kudos to Elliott Sadler, David Reutimann and Sam Hornish Jr who all wound up with great finishes too.
No changes in the top 20, just a bit of shuffling around. Biffle’s up four spots to eighth and Johnson dropped two spots to ninth. Due to Carl Edwards running out of fuel on the final lap, Kyle’s lead now exceeds 100 points…but remember, Jeff Gordon was on fire in last years TNRC around this time of the year and Jimmie managed to nip past him at the end (and that was without the Chase I’m using this year) so there’s still hope for the rest. At one third through the season, we have 37 guys who have scored points.
Tez's NASCAR Race Championship - top 20 standings after 12 rounds:
To Dover then where Martin Truex Jr dominated this time last year…but he’ll have to contend with all three JGR cars as well as Roush-Fenway, Dale Jr and, after the last week and a bit, a resurgent Kasey Kahne.
On a side note, it took a full year after williamwilman put the idea out there, but we finally had someone go three-for-three in the trifecta. Dwindy hosted it this week and not only was it a first 'perfect' score, it was also a first time trifecta winner. But, as Dave pointed out on Dwindy's blog, picking the F1 and/or Indy winner is somewhat easier than Cup...most likely since there's only a handful of cars capable of winning whereas there's at least 10 in Cup. So, I guess that means I need to send Lewis Hamilton, Scott Dixon and Kasey Kahne a card or something…hmm, anyone know their addresses?
No, I didn't forget about doing my TNQC and TNRC for Daytona...I just didn't really see the merit in posting them this week since the top 17 are, funnily enough, the top 17 qualifiers/finishers so I'll wait until after Fontana to put the list up here...congrats to the Penske bunch though.
So what is a Teretonga you may ask? I'll add two more words for you; Ruapuna and Timaru...no idea?
Well then I suggest you do some geography, or at least look to your right and read my profile...yep, those three are names of racetracks in New Zealand, South Island if I want to get picky. To get to Teretonga, you head towards Invercargill and keep going before you get to the sign which states that it is the southern-most FIA sanctioned track in the world...at least, I think that's what it said but the wind was howling and pushing the rain sideways so it was hard to make out at the time. Luckily the weather did clear up (well, the rain stopped at least) around lunchtime so I could confirm that's what it says.
2008 marked the first ever time, apparently, that NZ hosted a few of the CanAm cars...which strikes me as odd considering how much success Kiwis had during the nine seasons it was raced from 1966 to 1974. In fact, the series was often called the 'Bruce and Denny show' as Bruce McLaren (yes, the same McLaren as the F1 team...rather poor they don't play the NZ anthem when they win but you can't have everything I guess) and Denny Hulme (NZ's only F1 World Champion) pretty much thrashed everyone until the Porsches showed up in the last few years of them.
In the 58 events the duo entered, they collected a total of 39 wins...makes HMS effort of 18 from 36 rather poor really. Oh and another four races were won by drivers using McLarens bringing the total percentage of races won in the nine years to 60%.
A familiar scene...the two orange McLarens out front
CanAm managed to attract drivers from the world over including Mark Donohue, A.J. Foyt, Dan Gurney and Jackie Stewart just to name a few. So what made drivers want to race these things? I suppose it would be the tight restrictions on what you could race...anything goes.
Yep, the rules for CanAm were very simple; build anything that has wheel arches and you could race it. That meant turbos, superchargers, four-wheel-drive, ground effects, wings, super-fat racing slicks...basically anything nowdays that you can't use *laugh*
CanAm provided the biggest Ferrari V12 engine ever (though I don't think they actually raced it) as well as the turbocharged Porsche flat-12. By the end of the series, the cars were pushing 1300 hp and well capable of speeds over 240 mph. Probably the funniest story we got told was that in a recent race over in the States, there was a quick flip-flop at the end of a straight which everyone was lifting off for. One driver however told his crew that if they #### more wing on, he'd be able to take it flat...and he did...at over 200 mph...rather him than me *hair rise*
Anyway, just thought I'd share that one here and would recommend going and seeing them if you get a chance (there were just five on display here so I can only imagine what 20 would be like)...I just wish the weather had been better than it was at Teretonga.
Into the West...where, instead of rain, we had a stinking hot track in California. Jeff Gordon was looking to fend off the hard charging (as of recently anyway) Kasey Kahne and keep a strong hold on the title, and also for getting the extra two bonus points going into the Chase as leader (something I decided to do to give the leader a reward for their consistancy).
However, that plan got thrown out the window as Kahne pulled out his Bristol form to plant his #9 Dodge Charger on the second row, cutting a further six points out of Gordon's lead. Ryan Newman also took advantage and stole five points for starting alongside Kahne in fourth. The front row belongs to Kurt Busch (who is making a tear late in the season in the race standings) and Jimmie Johnson. Amaizingly, this was Busch's first pole of the year and the fifth for the Penske boys.
Kurt got his first pole for 2007 and Kasey is closing on Jeff for the lead.
Tez's NASCAR Qualifying Championship - Standings after round 25
With just the one qualifying session remaining, Martin Truex could very well be kissing the single point he scored this weekend since he's now outright 12th. You would think that the final spot will be between Truex, Tony Stewart, Carl Edwards and Clint Bowyer...but we shall see.
The other battle is between Jeff and Kasey; six points...and we head to Richmond where Kahne isn't too shabby at (his first Cup win came from the pole in 2005 remember).
Alrighty then, after a two day delay from the weather we finally got a race in...amazing. Anyway, Carl Edwards wasn't able to repeat his run earlier this year and Kurt Busch waltzed away with the win. Martin Truex Jr pushed hard but there wasn't anyone who could catch the #2 Miller Lite Dodge once Kurt got to the front. Jeff Gordon spun away some points (he blamed Matt Kenseth for it but I don't care; no points for Jeff) to Jimmie Johnson and his lead is now only 15...very catchable with 13 races remaining.
Kurt breaks into the top ten in points after posting his second win in three races
As a result of this, Kurt now is tied with Truex in points (eighth) while the top four guys still have a good break on Kenseth while the top 11 still have a win in hand on Mark Martin in 12th.
Tez's NASCAR Race Championship (TNRC) Standings - after round 23
(* denotes half points only awarded as race did not reach 75% completion)
And there we go, sorry about my own delay of a couple days before posting this up but work has finally become a bit busier so I'm not going to complain. I have an all new idea for next year now actually; might use the V8 Supercar points system instead as they give points to the top 15 drivers (should make it a bit better since eight into 43 is a rather low percentage). The Chase will still be done using the F1 style however so we shall see how that goes (might play around in the offseason to see how the points would have varied if I'd gone with the V8's this year). Either way, I'll let you know before we get to Daytona in February.
Alrighty then, time for another round at Pocono (special thanks go to photo for beating how to spell this track correctly into my head...yes, the bruise is healing nicely, thanks for asking) and we had, possibly, the most dominant performance of the year as Kurt Busch piloted his #2 Miller Lite Che...uh, make that Dodge (sorry, just used to a Chevy winning this season) to lead over 170 of 200 laps. The race behind him was hard fought however with Dale Jr managing to work some strategy to come back from a spin to finish in second with Denny Hamlin just holding off championship leader, Jeff Gordon, for third.
Not surprisingly, the two drivers who jumped up the most were Kurt and Dale, while Jeff was able to eek out another point on Jimmie to stretch his lead to 27 points.
Kurt gave the Penske team that first win in '07 they'd been longing for
A reminder to those reading this for the first time that my system is what they use in F1; top 8 only score points - 10, 8, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1...too bad if you finish in ninth.
Tez's NASCAR Race Championship (TNRC) Standings - after round 21
(* denotes half points only awarded as race did not reach 75% completion)
So there we have it, the race at this stage appears to be for second place as Jeff's consistancy is making it hard for anyone to make a charge on him. But, we still have 15 races to go so one driver can, potentially, make up 150 points so 27 isn't all that big in comparison...but the odds are against someone doing that obviously.
Tez is a rare creature; an Australian who was living in New Zealand before moving to Canada. He's also a Civil Engineer who is hoping to spend his Monday to Friday sitting in front of a computer surfing the inter...uh, working hard for an Engineering Consultant or Contractor when he finds a job. His heart is torn between his two loves; F1 and NASCAR.
Due to his high interest in those, his blogs will likely focus on them with the occasional foray into sports that don't get much (if any) mention on this website. All blogs and/or comments will more than likely have his usual dollop of sarcasm and general Aussie spin on them.
Amazingly, he also managed to score 2 MiB nominations on consecutive days (August 5 & 6, 2007) after announcing he had been keeping track of them...he's considering hiding under his bed as a result.
