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........
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