This week, Crappafoni Pictures brings you an Independence Day celebration of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, grilled BBQ style and served with all the fixin's and the beverage of your choice. Enjoy!
THE GOOD
Kyle Busch: as the race winner, he gets first billing. An extra good for him for coming back from 37th to win. While he had a strong car all race, his car was the best at the end.
Carl Edwards: almost became first billing in this blog. Narrowly lost a drag race with Kyle Busch on the final lap.
Dale Earnhardt, Jr.: had a very strong car throughout the race, and between he and teammate Jeff Gordon, led 96 of the 162 laps in the race.
Mark Martin: his signing with Hendrick Motorsports must have buoyed his confidence, as he finished solidly in the top 5.
Patrick Carpentier: came out of nowhere to finish in the top 10, his first career top 10 on a superspeedway. Of the open wheelers, he seems to be adapting to NASCAR the best.
Joe Nemechek: Front Row Joe scored a HUGE top 5 finish, finishing fifth. It was huge not only for himself, but his team, as they were outside the top 35 in points and had to race their way in.
Honorable Mention: Johnny Sauter, David Ragan, Regan Smith.
THE BAD
Greg Biffle: as the 43rd place finisher, he gets the dubious first billing.
Jon Wood: had to race his way in and very early took his #21 Ford to the garage for major repairs. He returned to finish 7 laps down. He was actually running with the main pack after the major repairs and setup. Could the Wood Brothers go under in NASCAR's ever changing economic landscape?
THE UGLY
The Big One: this happened when Jimmie Johnson spun on the backstretch and collected several cars, among them David Reutimann, who tied a NASCAR record with FIVE free passes, eventually getting back on the lead lap. The cruel irony: Reutimann was back on the lead lap at the time of the accident.
The Big One, Part II: THIS one happened on Lap 162 and it involved Michael Waltrip, Travis Kvapil, Sam Hornish Jr., and Dave Blaney. TBO, Part II ended the race with Kyle Busch being declared the winner.
TNT's "coverage": while I liked the split screen, there were several instances that they could have cut away from the commercials to report events on the track. One such instance involved Kyle Busch dropping off the pace to 37th at one point.
Kyle's last two wins you've dismissed as him simply having the best car at the end. Maybe he has finally found that maturity and patience that all the bashers have been chirping about all year.
Also don't use the Fox Race Trax for your final results. It's way off. Martin was 10th, Carpentier was 14th, and Nemechek was 18th.
Sadly poor Mikey has a good showing till the last wreck on the last lap. However he was consistent in the 27th position as of now. They got Dale jr. in 3rd place now. He was in 10th. Now he is in 8th
You guys are right. In a race like this, it's going to take NASCAR a day or two to get the official results. I may have to repost this.
Hanahan, it's because he had the best car the past two wins. While he's earned every win, this one was special. When you can come back from 37th to the win, it's awesome. It's his year. You might as well engrave the champion's trophy with his name on it. Labonte brothers, you'll have company later on in the year.
And here I was thinking that his mistake free driving and unbelievable car control was responsible for those wins.
I'd add Jeff Burton to the Bad list. He has a bad habit of standing on the brakes when there's a wreck in front of him. He got away with it once, not twice though. He might want to go back and look at tape of Kyle drive through at least two wrecks that happened right in front of him as he was working his way back to the front.
I thought Kyle showed alot of maturity in his patience tonight. Even the race announcers were commenting on it. Good clean race regardless of how the bashers put their spins on it.
Hanahan, a good choice. Burton didn't need the result he had, especially with KB winning. He needed a good finish to stay close to KB.
GOKYLE!, he sure did. He was patiently aggressive. He took the opportunities to pass when they were there. When they weren't, he waited for those opportunities.
Tez, he got some of it back near the end when he was shuffled back. The Roush drivers in particular bullied him near the end.
Anyone notice that near the end of the race the Hendrick cars running up front got shoved out of the way? Johnson was shoved back, then he got loose and took out several drivers. Jeff Gordon tried to block too late and Carl Edwards bumped him out of the way. And of course, Dale Jr was shuffled back several spots.
Did you see how Kyle Busch Drove back up to the front with that extra 50 H.P.
Without the 50 H.P. Busch wouldn't be there and you can spin that anyway you want!!!
Big Dfan, Chevy has had a higher horsepower engine available to them all along. Teams like your beloved HMS opted for fuel economy over the added horsepower and, according to Rick Hendrick, they are now considering using that engine in the chase. Don't go blaming Toyota like they are cheating with NASCAR's approval, it doesn't hold water.
Could it be that Kyle Busch is a very good driver? He won last night without a team effort. That doesn't mean anything? Of course not... There has got to be some clandestine reason your favorite drivers are losing.
Seems to me all the drivers would be carrying on about the "unfair" special treatment that NASCAR is giving Toyota if what you say is true, but the other drivers aren't harping because they know it isn't true. I only hear certain fans complaining about it. Could it be a non-issue contrived as an excuse to gloss over why certain drivers have developed an inability to win?
I believe that is closer to home than your rant...
Hanahan- Don't you realize? Kyle Busch only uses that extra HP when he needs it, but when he's out front he lets off the gas so it LOOKS like he has the same HP. It's TOTALLY not his driving ability that allows him to win these races. lol
I hated that last restart though... if it hadn't been for that I would have written a race review but now I'm just too po'd to do it, lol.
Jon-gallant effort getting this out so soon after the race with the results so jumbled! Kyle was impressive, Carl came outta no where and HMS fizzled when they shouldda sizzled. Good stuff!
Athens, the #20 finished 20th. JJ Yeley did a great job filling in for Smoke, who had flu-like symptoms. It was unfortunate he got caught up in that final crash.
Dwindy, thanks. My take on Kyle Busch has always been that he's got loads of talent, but is mercurial. This year, he's harnessed that talent for one thing: winning races. He's won six now, and at this pace he'll win 12.
Hanahan, I don't buy the conspiracy that NASCAR has given Toyota 50 extra HP. This year, KB is just so much better than everyone else. He's like Jeff Gordon in his heyday, when Gordon was winning every third week.
Tyler, when you stand that argument on its ear, it's actually quite funny! Good job of doing that!
Kristen, thanks! I almost waited until this morning to write this. The results were all jumbled. And I noticed the Fords, particularly the Roush Fords, were bullying everyone else. One instance was one of the Roush Fords (Ragan, I think) was on Harvick's #### and I thought Harvick and the wall were going to have a little meeting.
I think everyone else got caught off guard a little bit. Could a little payback be in order as it gets closer to the Chase? Stay tuned.
You should have added Jeff Gordon in as the ugly. He was in a position to win but got tapped by Carl Edwards, accidentally.
At least we got to see more racing with TNT's "Wide Open Coverage."
Gonger, it appeared that Jeff Gordon reacted too late to block Edwards and got tapped. If he reacts a split second sooner, he blocks Edwards successfully. Good choice for the Ugly.
The bad My favorite driver Jeff "blind in the left eye" Gordon. What the HeII was he thinking. He gave up a top five finish to try to block Carl..That sucked. Now if more broadcasting companys woould do what TNT did it would be awsome. So what they didn't break from the comercial to say what Kyle was doing moving to the back. We didn't miss watching it. The Good TNT.. Remove TNT from ugly. Thats the best covrage of the year..
Noahspop, while TNT's coverage was better than in recent races, I wish they could have cut away from the ads to explain the goings on in a major event like Kyle Busch falling off the pace. I DID like the local commercials DURING the caution. But the best I saw was the 2000 season finale on NBC when they had the split screen so that the viewer was always watching the racing.
What Gordon did was inexplicable. He dropped from a top 5 to 30th.
I agree Dale Jr did some ramming on that last lap as if it was going to push the outside line and then cut of his team mate for next year Mark Martin. I am sure we had a few things being said in the pits after about this and that by many drivers.
I throw NASCAR and flag man under the bus for bringging out the yellow, they could have let the top 12 cars race back to the checkers and back them off way before getting near the crash site.IMO. Cheers
I am from Central California. I am passionate about sports, particularly the NFL and NASCAR. My favorite teams are: Panthers (NFL), Lakers (NBA), Flyers (NHL), and Dodgers (MLB). I am also a Kevin Harvick fan in NASCAR. I am a Fresno State honk. (I'll admit it!) And I am also a fan of MMA. Jackie Robinson to this day represents what is right about baseball. I also enjoy discussing the relevant (and sometimes irrelevant) issues of the day pertaining to sports. I will never understand why televised poker is so popular. Who wants to see a bunch of people sitting around a table, muttering to themselves? I do my best to keep politics out of my sports discussions. That is why I recently created a nonsports blog, cencalscribe. blogspot.com. That is where I post my nonsports topics.
