So much for NASCAR racing as family-time entertainment; the race didn't finish until after midnight on the East Coast.
NASCAR finally started the race without waiting for Fox to close out the Sox-Yankees game, so TV fans missed the start of the race as well as the last out of the ballgame.
- Hometown hero J.J. Yeley likewise got double-burned when he got caught up in the crash and finished 39th. His team owners also own the Arizona Diamondbacks, and Yeley had been part of the Diamondbacks' pre-race cross-promotion. Yeley dropped out of the top 35 after his finish.
- For the third straight week Kyle Petty's team failed to make the field. He missed Martinsville; substitute driver Chad McCumbee failed to put the No. 45 car in the field at Texas.
- Carl Edwards, the hottest driver on the tour, with three wins going into the Subway Fit Fresh 500, had one of the best cars at the Arizona track until a pit-road penalty put him in a difficult position. He did salvage a fourth.
- And Ryan Newman just can't buy a break. Newman, the Daytona 500 winner, whose fourth at Texas was marred by a post-race inspection violation, rallied to win the Subway Fit Fresh 500 pole - only to trigger a five-car crash and wind up last.
- Elliott Sadler had similar heartburn: His ailing back seems to have healed, he put Ray Evernham's Dodge on the front row, but his motor broke less than halfway through the race and he crashed.
- And there was more bad luck for Matt Kenseth, with a blown right-front tire. He limped home 38th and fell to 15th in the standings.
-That dandy duel between Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Mark Martin, the man who has taken his place at DEI, fizzled in the final miles when they both had to stop for gas.
is winless next? Hope not!
Earnhardt is winless in his last 70 races. On the plus side, he's moved up to third in the standings.
And, while teammate Jimmie Johnson finally got car owner Rick Hendrick on the board for the first time this season with the win - by stretching his gas mileage better than everyone else - Jeff Gordon appears to be legitimately in a slump. Gordon was a zero at Texas, in one of the worst performances of his career, and he was never in the game at Phoenix. He finished 13th, a lap down.
For the year Gordon's average finish is a painful 18.9, though he's led 183 laps. Maybe Gordon can bounce back at Talladega, where he's won six times. He swept both Talladega races last year.
And if the Hendrick bunch doesn't pick things up in the next few weeks, well, the questions may become even more pointed, because Hendrick drivers have done exceptionally well at Talladega (10 wins), Richmond (nine wins), Darlington (12 wins) and Concord's Lowe's Motor Speedway (15 wins), the next four tour stops.
And then perhaps it's a bit too tough to question the Hendrick camp that hard. After all, this season Hendrick Chevys have led 949 laps, more than any other team owner. Joe Gibbs' Toyotas are second, with 887 laps led. Jack Roush's Fords have led 468 laps, and Richard Childress' Chevys have led 230.
Nevertheless, Hendrick conceded that Johnson's win was a relief: "It feels good, and I think it's a sign of things to come.
"But we know there's still work to do. When you're a little behind, it's real easy to get down on yourself, but no one has had that attitude. Everyone has approached it the right way and pushed forward.
"We've been working hard, testing and doing all the things we need to be doing. One win doesn't change that. The big focus is making the (playoff) chase and competing for the championship. We want to be in position to make a push in those last 10 races."
The slump?
"Well, I don't think we went anywhere," Hendrick said. "But it's difficult to come off a season like we had last year, and live up to all the hype and expectations. It's not like we finished up 2007 and said 'OK, we won 18 races ... so now we've got to win 19.' You can't set goals that way.
"We know we won some races last season we shouldn't have. And we knew coming into this year it would be nearly impossible to continue that pace. We had a horseshoe - and held onto it as long as we could ... I'm really proud of our restrictor-plate program and everything our guys have accomplished on that side, so we're looking forward to Talladega. Richmond and Darlington are great tracks. And we always love running at Lowe's.
"We have more testing to do, and more gains to make, with this new car. But we'll be ready."
No comments:
Post a Comment