AFTER NEW HAMPSHIRE

   Looks like Matt Kenseth has this seasons championship squarely in his sights. With now 7 wins this season, last 2 in a row and also Matt's 500th start. Only 1 driver has ever won in their 500th start and that was Richard Petty. So Matt is in good company for sure. While teammate Kyle Busch has stepped up his program this time and sits in 2nd after 2 consecutive 2nd place finishes. His normal MO is self exploding and ending in last place. He has surely stepped up his program and has managed to keep his temper under control and starting to show the talent everyone has known he has had. If he does not win this year I would look for him to be the front runner next season, and believe me it isn't easy for me to say that because I really don't like the guy personally. My opinion is he is a big ol whinny cry baby who freaks out when he doesn't get his own way.

    Hey I have to give a shout out to Greg Biffle, where the hell did he come from? That last restart he had some balls to make the moves he did, that was some crazy passing. I don't think he will be a factor in the end and I really don't think he will ever be a factor for the championship, not with Matt, Kyle and Jimmie always finishing in front of him and for sure not while he drives a Ford.
 
    The race this weekend was actually a good race, very short at only 300 laps, more like a Nationwide race then a normal Sprint Cup Series race. Passing as always was hard to do and was at a premium, but that didn't stop a lot of guys from passing a lot of cars on the way to the checkered flag.  With 19 lead changes between 11 drivers with Matt leading 106 laps. The next closest lap leader at 98 was Martin Truex Jr.

    Kasey Kahne had yet another hard start to the chase by ending his day early only finishing 278 of 300 laps, the only bad thing with not finishing all the laps in this race is only 5 cars were out at the end of the race, so Kasey ended up 37th and delegating him down to 13th place, the last place possible in the chase with a 71 point deficit and 8 races to go, he will need everyone in front of him to have multiple bad races for him to catch up. Better luck next year Kasey.

    I do believe the Jimmie/Chad parring has finally met their match. Think about this, Matt is in his first year with Joe Gibbs Racing. New team, new manufacturer, new pit crew, new engineers, new crew chief....New new new and look at them now, 7 races won, first 2 chase race wins, I think he has won all but 2 races that have been at mile and a half tracks (not sure its 2, but I believe that was it at last count.)
    Folks I think Matt is on the proverbial roll and will be very hard to beat this year and maybe several years to come. I will say this, everyone from 4th on down....might at well sit back and relax and get their teams ready for next year because they do not have a chance one in hell to win this championship with Jimmie, Kyle, and Matt running like they are.

    Congratulations to Ryan Blaney for his great win at Kentucky. His first Nationwide win and I am sure not his last by any chance. Austin Dillion is making a slow but steady climb back towards the front of the points. Sam Hornish Jr needs to pick it up and continue getting top 5s or Austin might catch up with him being only 15 points behind him.

    Well folks that's it for today, I will have a race run down for the AAA 400 at Dover International Speedway around friday. Oh one last thing..... you ever hear the old saying "everything is always bigger in Texas? Well Eddie Gossage out did himself on this one, he has a new toy at the track and he has a big name for it, "Big Hoss" its a 218 feet wide, 12 story high, 20,666.64 square foot video board that's 1080p HD, that was buit by Panasonic for the track. It has nearly 4.8 million pixels that can display 281 trillion colors. IN FREAKING SANE!!!!!!


    Until next time........
   
   

SILLY SEASON!!!!!! HOLY CRAP EVEN

    If you are new to NASCAR or have not followed it long, we have what we call "silly season," and what that is, is when drivers and teams decide to part ways at the end of the year and the drivers start looking for another team and teams start looking for another driver. This used to start.....about this time of year, but this year I do believe it started right after the checkered flag flew at the Daytona 500 way back in February. Every week I think I am safe to tackle this subject just to have something else goofy happen. So where exactly do I start? I have been asking myself that very question for the last month and still am really unsure. So I started it like this.

    Kurt Busch decided that getting into the chase with a team that last year could not do anything but stumble over its own feet was not good enough to keep him there and has  taken an offer from only a 50% owner in a team where the other 50% owner has had many of scuffles with on the track as well as off the track... Not only that, the owner that hired him did not even ask the partner if it was ok to hire him, he just put his money where his pen was and said I don't care what my partner says, your hired. The other part of this equation in the team is the second owner is also a driver for the team, Tony Stewart, another equation in this is also a silly season story in his own right, driver of the number 29, Kevin Harvick, who will be getting replaced by Richard Childress's grandson Austin Dillon, who will be driving a car rumored to have the number 3 on the door, (if you don't know the significance of that number, google Dale Earnhardt and start reading) Go back through the last several years and your going to see these two guys, Kevin and Kurt, have had more then their fair share of little skirmishes along the way. Ok so this is where I hope I continue to get this in the right order because from here it gets sticky as fly paper dipped in extra sticky glue then coated with syrup. Ok so when Stewart-Haas racing hired Kevin they had to get rid of a driver because co-owner Tony Stewart said in a press conference that "we don't have room here for a 4th driver right now and if we did Ryan Newman would be who we would put in that car." So by that you can tell Ryan was the guy that got fired. Ryan was only a week into understanding he just got screwed by someone he thought was his friend/owner and that friend/owner found out he got screwed by his partner all in one fail swoop of a reporters pen. Tony was actually still in the hospital for a crash he had in a winged sprint car...that's a whole other story we wont get into today. The screwing part came when he found out, guess what? They did have room for a 4th driver and not only did they have room, Gene Haas, the other owner of the team, is forking over his own money from Haas Automation to sponsor Kurt. Ok so a week later another chip fell in this odd season, Jeff Burton, driver of the 31 said he was safe for another year at Richard Childress racing.....just to learn that once Ryan came available, he was no longer safe and was let out of his contract that ran through the 2014 season and was replaced next season by Ryan Newman. 

   Are we following along ok still? Because it gets even better. Bobby Labonte found out after he was injured from a fall he had while riding a bicycle, he broke 3 ribs, that he was getting replaced by driver A.J. Allmendinger next season in the number 47 JTG-Daugherty Racing Toyota. 

    Then we hear that Juan Montoya will not be back in the Earnhardt-Ganassi  Racing number 42 Chevy and actually we now know that he will be leaving NASCAR all together and headed to Ganassi's rival in the Indy Racing league, Roger Penske Racing. After 7 years of NASCAR and only 2 wins, both on road courses, he has decided to go where he can win......a lot. 

    So far we have covered all the drivers that are going other places.......or have we? Today NAPA Auto parts announced they will be leaving Michael Waltrip Racing at the end of this season, effectively leaving Martin Truex Jr without a sponsor for the next 2 seasons. I feel so sorry for Martin because he, over the last 3 weeks, has been screwed more then any other driver this season. Not only has he been penalized for something he didn't do, not only did he get kicked out of the Chase for something his teammates did, (Martin raced his butt off the last several weeks just to get into the chase, oh and did I forget to tell you that he broke his right arm before the Chase started and has been in a cast for the last couple weeks, the cast he had on in Richmond actually was the wrong kind of cast and he was in a ton of pain to boot) he also lost his sponsor because of it. So without a sponsor for next season and it being long after big money sponsors have decided who they would spend money on, what are the chances that MWR can actually find a sponsor for Martin and if they cant find the money (takes anyplace from 15 to 20 million dollars on average to fund a cup team for a season) will Martin still have a car to drive next season? Michael Watrip says they plan on having 3 teams next season no matter what, but in the sport of big time auto racing, money dictates the final answer to the question I am sure Martin Truex Jr has asked his bosses over the last 24 hours when NAPA decided to move on the bigger and better things, do I have a ride next year? I actually would love to see Martin get back into a Chevy and hop into that 78 Furniture Row car that Kurt decided wasn't good enough. So if we have basically 1 car open, Earnhardt-Ganassi already replaced Juan with an up and coming driver Kyle Larson, and we have Bobby Labonte, Jeff Burton both without a ride and possible Martin Truex Jr, I am sitting here thinking I am missing a driver someplace, but have no idea if I am right or not because my head is spinning right now from all the musical race seats hopping from team to team. Clint Bowyer's sponsor (in my opinion the driver that started the whole fiasco in Richmond and the only one really not hurt by the penalty) 5 hour energy is also looking at what their options for next year might be. If MWR loses yet another sponsor for another of its teams, they could be looking at the begining of the end. Aarons has been really quiet so far also. One could speculate they are doing some sole searching also. 

    Phewww! Just when I think I am done, I remember Mark Martin, who is subbing for Tony Stewart while he mends his multiple breaks from that wreck I said I wouldn't talk about right now lol. We still have no idea what he will be doing and from what I gather neither does he right yet, guess that all might be depending on if Tony actually heals like they think he should or not. Will Mark drive full time next season? I would say no, his distaste for both Daytona and Talladega would lead me to that conclusion. 

    Well.....I am about to spin into turn 4 with a flat tire on the right rear, this is just what normally starts the silly season. 9 races to go, Matt Kenseth firmly in front of the pack, teammate Kyle Busch closely chasing his tail, is this the year of Matt? Or is this finally Kyles year to show his maturity finally out weighs his fast temper? I have not even touched on last weeks race in Chicago.....no time tonight either. So look for a recap of what I think Chicago means for the top 13 drivers, I will even try and put together my very own power rankings, something I have yet to try because it changes every week and I will give my thoughts on race 2 of the chase and what I think we all can look forward too this weekend. 

    So with that being said....

Until next time.....

CRAZY WEEK IN NASCAR

WHAT THE HELL IS UP WITH NASCAR????

    I am pretty sure by now you have all heard about the crazy ass rules changes/added a car to the chase/new spotter rules. I think a lot of teams will be totally confused about if they can help Thieu teammates or not? Team orders? lol that's laughable now because NASCAR quashed any such orders with one fail swoop. They made it abundantly clear... YOU HELP YOUR TEAMMATE IN ANY WAY AND WE ARE GOING TO LEVEL THE GIGANTIC HAMMER WE CONTROL!!!!!!! PERIOD! Oh and today during the drivers meeting, which I am sure will be packed with beat reporters, they will introduce yet another rule on race restarts.
    Ok so here we go, I will try and give my opinion on what I understand happened last weekend and all the fallout that has happened during the week. Bare with me because I am not even sure I get it completely because it was a penalty for something that's been going on since the first race team added a second car.
    Ok as you all know Michale Waltrip Racing was fined an ungodly amount of cash $300,000 to be exact, for 1 thing, for Brian Vickers being told to hit pit road so a teammate could make sure he was in the chase, the real benefit came to a driver from another team, Joey Logano, Who because of Brian and his move he gained the 1 point he needed to be ahead of Jeff Gordon to secure a wild card spot in the chase. Now the car that should of been hit the hardest, Clint Bowyer, for the bogus spin that brought out the caution that actually did change the look of the chase and the race, which Ryan Newman was running away with the lead with 10 laps to go. Because of the bogus pit and the radio communication between Brian Vickers and his spotter Ty Norris, and all that transpired after that,  NASCAR in its infinite wisdom decided to deduct 50 points from all 3 MWR teams...even though they said they couldn't prove that Clint spun himself, they decided to fine him and Martin Truex and Brian Vickers 50 points. Not sure why they fined Martin Truex because he was totally innocent in all that happened, but taking the points pre chase, knocked him out of the chase and dropped him back to 17th in points and because of the wild card spot vacant , Ryan Newman secured the open spot in the chase. Taking the 50 points from Clint Bowyer and Brian Vickers did absolutely nothing, Brian isn't competing for the chase and Clint had secured his spot in the chase a couple weeks before this. Now ask Dale Earnhardt Jr what he thinks of Clints spin and he will tell you it looked totally on purpose to him and he should know, He's done this himself and hey, they see wrecks every weekend and see how they happened and you could call them experts of some sort because of what they do. On top of that every driver that has seen the video and heard the in car audio has pretty much said or thought the same thing. Some have voiced their opinion on TV, radio, twitter, face book and some I am sure have just kept to themselves. Top that off with all the reporters that have given their opinions and poured out the facts in many an article this week, and the fact that NASCAR had a huge sweep of the entire MWR team. I think with the fines and points taken away that this was their way of saying "boys we know you pulled some shit here, and we cant totally prove it, but don't do this crap again"
    And the other day guess who also gets into the chase.....Jeff Gordon????? WTF? This decision to add the 13th car and driver to the chase makes NO SENSE AT ALL to anyone. It only goes to prove that NASCAR makes the rules and those rules can change at any time lending to the idea that NASCAR is getting to be more and more like the WWE. I personally am loosing all respect for Brian France and Mike Helton and the whole NASCAR front office. This week makes me wounder if Brian France isn't hitting the bottle again and ruling NASCAR through the thick glass at the bottom of the scotch bottle. This decision to add a 13th car is unprecedented and unwarranted and if they are going to allow Jeff Gordon into the chase just because he would of been there if the race would of ended like everyone thought it would, then shouldn't all 43 drivers be in the chase because, hey, if they would of had a different finish in all those 25 races before Richmond, they could of been in the chase too. At the very least, why not put Martin Truex back in because HE actually RACED his way into the chase by winning and finishing good all year long and he deserved to actually be in the chase and not kicked out because of something his 2 teammates did. This whole week has been just flat crazy with BS rules changes and hey fans, another rules change today and one we wont know about until after the drivers meeting when all the reporters start tweeting about what Helton is saying in the meeting. @Jeff_Gluck, @bobpockrass, @nateryan, @MartySmithESPN, @JennaFryer, @dusinlong and of course @ClaireBLang. Then and only then will we know the new restart rules. Because its all hush hush for some reason.

    Now my opinion on all of this is this:
1: NASCAR totally screwed the pooch this week by taking Martin Truex Jr out of the chase for something his teammates did.
2: NASCAR totally screwed the pooch making up new rules at the start of the chase
3: NASCAR totally screwed the pooch putting Jeff Gordon in the chase adding a 13th driver because with 10 laps to go he was in position to make the chase and a caution came out changing that
4: NASCAR screwed the pooch not penalizing Clint Bowyer for his spin that was ON purpose not matter what he says, that was as hokie a spin as I've ever seen
5: NASCAR screwed the pooch penalizing Martin Truex at all
6: finally one not of NASCAR's doing....MWR lost a ton of respect among fans, fellow racers, and teams in the garage and I think the media shit storm that came about during the media rush they had after Richmond proves that no matter what they do they will look bad this year and for many years to come.
7: Clint Bowyer is a putz and needs to just come forward and admit what we all know (dude take some advice from AJ Allmendinger and fess up, shit gets easier if you do.) If he should happen to get the championship this year its going to have a great big * mark on the win because it will be tainted (listen to the crowd when they introduce Clint today and every week of the chase...I'm predicting a shit ton of booing going on.)
8: MWR and Michael Waltrip are both a total joke in my book. He has had issues since he started running in the Cup Series, from jet fuel in the engine, to this crap that happened last weekend in Richmond, his team is the Joke of all the teams in the garage. He has to have lost a ton of respect as a team, the person, he obviously has no control over what his team does, could you imagine this sort of thing going on at Penske, or Joe Gibbs? Um I don't think so.

    After the race...probably not today by what @NASCAR_WXMAN said, the chance of getting this in is about 20%, but tomorrow I will give a run down of the race and maybe I will try and add my thoughts on this years silly season run down.



Until later.......

NASCAR HITS MWR HARD

CHEATING IN RICHMOND??????

   Say it isn't so, tell me that MWR (Michael Waltrip Racing) didn't do the obvious, tell me that Clint Boywer didn't spin on purpose, tell me please that Brian Vickers didn't come in and pit for no reason, then start back far enough during a restart that he was behind Joey Logano and gave Joey enough points to keep Jeff Gordon and Ryan Newman out of the chase therefore letting their teammate, Martin Truex Jr, get the position and the points enough to get a tie with Ryan in points (with the points tie and the total number of wins tied at 1 a piece, NASCAR goes to the second place finishes then if thats a tie they go to 3rd place finishes and so on and so forth until they have a tie breaker on how man times they finished in whatever spot they have to get to to declare a winner, in this instance it went to 2nd place finishes) and therefore getting the 12 and final spot in the chase. Consequently Joey Logano finished 1 point ahead of Jeff Gordon, Brian Vickers lined up behind Joey on the final restart when he should of been in front of Joey being that Joey was 1 lap down and Brian was on the lead lap. Not only did he line up behind Joey, on the last lap we slowed down so much that he was only doing 79mph (see picture below and check out the highlighted area) when the leaders were doing over 120mph, and teammate Bowyer also finished behind Joey when 10 laps before he was 2 laps ahead of Joey. From a video I seen posted on YouTube, Brian finished the race going down pit road because he never crossed the finish line on the track. The picture of the cars clearly shows (yellow circles) Joey in front of Brian Vickers on the track, Brian Clearly lined up behind Joey on the final restart when he should of lined up in front of him. Not only did Brian Vickers go into the pits on the final lap, he was told too by Ty Noris, Executive Vice President of Business Development and General Manager of Michael Waltrip Racing, "to pit, pit now" which Brian replied " are you talking to me? why do I need to pit? Do I have a tire going down?" Ty Noris replied " yeah you do" then a second later "we need that 1 point."  Then Ty told Brian that he would talk to him after the race and that he "owed him a kiss." The more you hear and see of what  happened Saturday night, the more you wonder what NASCAR might do. What Michael Waltrip racing did was willfully change the outcome of not only a race, but who got into and was eliminated from the Chase. If NASCAR does nothing in response to what we have now learned took place, what will the black mark on the sport be? let alone the integrity issue that will arise from all thats happened since Saturday. You can bet the WWE references will be never ending if nothing is done. If you follow Twitter you need to check @GeoffreyMiller and read his timeline, he covers the breakdown of events very clearly and is actually where I got both pictures I used here. Watch the YouTube video at www.youtube.com/watch?v=brrgyDs3CFE&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Michael Waltrip Racing isn't new to the whole cheating game either. In 2007, the first race in Sprint Cup Racing for the Michael Waltrip Racing team of which Michael himself was the driver, the team was caught using what turned out to be jet fuel in the engine to help try and gain an advantage during qualifying, of course NASCAR caught onto that it seems a lot faster then they have this time. Sounds like NASCAR will be holding a meeting tonight to discuss what happened at Saturday's race. It has been said that what Clint did was just to get back at Jeff Gordon for the race last fall in Phoenix when Jeff took Clint out of the race and ending any chance Clint had to win the championship. I call bull crap on that because what Jeff did just affected Clint and Clint alone and what Clint did was change the outcome of the chase for 4 teams. In my opinion what NASCAR needs to do is bring the hammer down and very hard on the whole MWR company. This is unexceptable to the highest degree. 

THIS JUST IN NASCAR SLAMS DOWN HARD ON MWR 

Welcome to the chase Ryan Newman. In an unprecidented move NASCAR has come down and come down HARD on the MWR racing team as a whole. With a whopping $300,000 fine and spotter/General Manager/Executive Vice President Ty Norris was suspended indefinitely and Martin Truex's team was docked all 3 teams 50 driver and championship owner points and those points were assessed PRE chase seating, knocking Martin Truex back to 691 points and back to 17th in points therefore eliminating him from the second wild card spot and giving the 12th and final spot back to Ryan Newman. Along with that all 3 crew chiefs - Brian Pattie (15) Scott Miller (55) and Chad Johnston (56) have all been placed on NASCAR probation until December 31st. Clint Bowyer, the whole reason this all happened in the first place, got away with no real penalty for his part in the fiasco except the 50 points which effectively done nothing to hurt him. Which I seriously think is wrong for NASCAR to leave him out of the punishment and more then the 50 points should of been assessed, but I do believe this was a step in the right direction for NASCAR, they had to hit hard and fast on this issue to tell the other teams that actions like this taken by the teams, will be delt with and delt with in a swift and harsh mannor. If they had not come down on this issue hard, they possible would of had the same problem at the season finally in Homested. 

Ok onto bigger and better news for today. It is official, Ryan Newman will be driving the  Richard Childress number 31 with partial sponsorship by CAT, I would be surprised if Quicken Loans and the Outback don't go with him to RCR. Also on related news the entire crew including the Crew Chief of the 31 will stay with the 31 team. Ryan thinks the fact that Richard Childress racing does everything "in house" from engines to hanging the body, will help him be able to compete at a higher level. The team he is currently with, Stewart-Haas racing, gets engines and chasis and technical support from Hendrick Motorsports. With Ryan's engineering degree from Purdue, he will be a great asset for the Richard Childress company. Next year wont be easy for RCR, with grandson Austin Dillon going to the whats now 29 team, word is the 3 will be back on that car when the season starts next year, Paul Menard will be the lead driver on the team, that is if you go by seniority, my guess is Austin will be the top dog in the stable. 

More problems for NASCAR in the Nationwide Series, The final restart had many crying FOUL, specially home town boy Brian Scott. Brian led 339 of 350 laps and on the last restart it was painfully clear that Brad Keselowski jumped the restart and after the race NASCAR came out and admitted as much, but the way NASCAR sees it, when they crown the winner everyone goes home knowing who won the race and not much will change the lineup, including a mistake they agree they made. What should of happened is Brad fall back and give Brian the lead back and if the driver doesn't give the position back they get the black flag, if this all sounds familier it should, this was the case when Jimmie Johnson jumped the restart on Juan Montoya a few months back. Jimmie was black flagged and had to do a pass through down pit lane. Brian handled it very nicely. Hang in there Brian because the wins are coming and soon. 

Folks I wanted to get this published because of the breaking news so I will end this at this time and try to do some more on this story tomorrow after we get some reactions to the penalty. 

Until later.........

AFTER ATLANTA

I Didn't get to do a preview before Atlanta, life gets too busy some times I guess and I get in a slacker mood from time to time and this happened to be one of those times.

I also did not get to watch the racing action this weeked because I was spending much needed time with my wife, it was just the 2 of us this weekend and we calls those opportunity's "date night" but thanks to Sprint and NASCAR I can still keep up with the action using NASCAR Race View Mobile 13 and NASCAR Mobile 13 to watch and listen to the race along with catch updates on whats going on. Last night we actually did catch some great short track racing at our local short track, Meridian Speedway, and I took my phone, portable battery charger, and my ear buds and listened to the race thanks to PRN and the Race View App. When I got home I checked NASCAR.com and YouTube because I heard that there was a slap I had to check out. Only comment on that is, sometimes racing is hard and doesn't always go the way you think it should and if you can't handle it then maybe you should stay home and not come watch your boyfriend race. I think Max handled it just fine by just letting it pass without a slap fest ensuing.

Looks like Kyle Busch is ready to finally make a run at a championship. He has changed quite a bit since being married, usually happens to the best of us when we find the correct woman to support what we do, same goes for women who find the right men....ie my wife finding me lol. With 4 wins this season and the momenum hitting at the right time, I can see him being a honest challenger for the cup. The only thing he needs to figure out is how to be succesful in the chase, because once he gets there his history in the chase is not so great. In the chase Kyle has a best finish of 5th and a 10th, 10th, 8th and a 12th. The trend is not a good one, but with a possible starting spot of 3rd behind Matt and Jimmie, he might finally be ready to challenge for the Holy Grail of NASCAR, the coveted NASCAR Sprint Cup championship. With a dominating performance last night, he is ready to make a statement going into the final race before the chase. He is definitely proven that he will be a force to reckon with.

I did expect a little more last night from Carl Edwards, even to the point where I added him to my NASCAR fantasy league for the first time this season. He was fast in practice, fast in qualifying, but when it came race time, he seemed to do ok at the beginning, but the dismal 18th place finish was not what one could come to expect from Carl, specially at a place like Atlanta where Ford's actually do very well, much like Texas and Michigan. He's now tied with Kevin Harvick at 795 points with only 1 win this season.

Another driver having a bad day, Clint Bowyer, he's not having very good luck just when he needed to pick up the pace and try to score a win or two to get the good vibrations rolling to maintain the good position when they reshuffle the teams going into the Chase. As it stands he'll be down there with Dale Jr fighting over 9th and 10 place trying to gain on the guys with all the extra bonus points. Of course his bad fish of 39th really wasn't his doing, going out early with a blown motor, it's not what you want to be worried about with one race left in the regular season. With him and Toyota teammate Denny Hamlin both scoring blown motors(both JGR and MWR get their motors from Toyota Racing Development) and this not being the first time Toyota has had engine problems this season, one has to wonder what they got going on over at TRD. Denny said they were testing some things, being the guinea pig for their teammates in the Chase, but when Clint blew his motor you have to wonder if they could of been related.

Speaking of bad luck.....Kasey Kahne couldn't have worse luck and the most inopportune time. He's fighting for a chase spot with a wild card fight of his life. He's got the Chase spot wrapped up with the 2 wins, but ultimately will probably start 11 with no bonus points because he's outside the top ten. Would be better to slip into tenth so he could use the bonus points to skip him from 10th to 4th in the points. But hanging onto 12th won't cut it and will give him a long climb if he has any hope of capturing the championship. 10 points behind 10th place Kurt Busch shouldn't be all that hard to overcome, but with 1 race left and Kurt doing so well, it could prove to become a handful, specially if the not so great luck continues.

Jimmie Johnson.....wow! Another bad race, yeah he can afford to try some things before the Chase that might help in the Chase, but with several bad finishes right before the Chase starts? Momentum is definitely not in his corner and one has to wonder what's got them finishing so far back in the pack so many weeks in a row. With a 40th place at Michigan, 36th at Bristol, and now a 28th at Atlanta where he has 13 top 10s in his career with 3 wins is just not how the 5 time champion wants to go into the last race before the Chase starts. Only one time in the 5 consecutive championship years he's had a finish out of the top 15 and that was a 36th place finish in 2009. In the other 4 years 13th was the worst with 2 wins mixed in with 7 top 10's. The pressure is on and he's always dealt with the pressure very well. Could his mind be on the fact that his wife is due any time now with baby number 2? Guess we will see in the next few weeks. Right now after the reshuffle he will be in second behind Matt Kenseth who has 5 wins to Jimmie's 4. That is unless he wins next week at Richmond, the finally stop before the reshuffle.
Jimmie has 3 wins at Richmond with a 12 place finish earlier this year. 5 top 5's, 8 top 10s, with an average start of 12.7 and an average finish of 16.3. It's not a bad track for Jimmie, a win is definitely not out of the question.

Want to say a congratulations to Chase Elliott on his win at the Canadian Tire Motorsports Park, he is now the youngest NASCAR Camping World Truck Series winner at a ripe old age of 17.

Sam Hornish Jr continues to be the points leader in the Nationwide series with a 10 point lead over Austin Dillon. Elliott Sadler, Regan Smith, and Justin Allgaier round out the top 5, with my home town boy Brian Scott in 7th, 67 points out of first place. With yet another "Cup regular" winning the Nationwide race, Kevin Harvick pretty much owned Atlanta on Saturday. It would be fitting to see Sam take the championship, he's having a great season.

Until next time........