Class Acts

I don't like whiners, so I thought I'd take a few quotes from Talladega to show why I really like some guys and not others.

Now first of all, does anybody know why the drivers collectively have decided to start going 3 wide by 12 deep again at Talladega early in the race? More cars finish the race when they stay a little more spread out. You are still going to have that last 10 lap melee, but at least most cars have a chance to finish, even if it's 3rd like Ryan Neman after Carl tried to park his car in Ryan's engine compartment.

That said, who were the cool guys?

Mark Martin after the crash involving 21 cars about 21 laps in. "Well, I don't know what started it and I'm not going to start complaining because we won last week and these guys will build me a new car that's just as fast, so we'll go get 'em next time." Now that is the epitome of cool and why I have always liked Mark.

Jimmie Johnson after the crash about 3/4 of the way through the race. "It's a shame, I just think there were some guys up there trying to do some things they shouldn't have at that point in the race." Hey Jimmie, weren't you 3 wide about the time it started? Uncool, but you know Jimmie is getting better, at least he's not bring stupid and starting them himself anymore.

Carl Edwards after flipping on the white flag lap coming out of turn 4 for the win was asked if he had any problem with Kesolowski. " Brad was just doing his job trying to win a race, I tried to do my job and block him low and he was there." Pretty good response even though now Carl has done something stupid in the closing laps in the last 2 Talladega races.

My point is, I like the guys who acknowlege mistakes happen, don't blame others and own up to it when they make a mistake.

Drop the rag boys.

Good Day for Old Dogs

Mark Martin WINS!! and.... Harbo after betting on him through 2 blown engines and a blown right front and a wreck and.... finally Mark pays off with a win. Whew!! This reminds me that I was going to write about all the unusal ways a team can lose a race other than just getting beat.

Most unusual that I have seen. A guy running out on the track in the middle of green flag pit stops. Now I was going to use the cauton in the middle of green flag pit stops anyway, but this situation was avoidable. Every team knows that you want to wait as long as possible to pit and this was a perfect example of why. Only 6 cars were still out and the 99 was coming to the pits passed on through so there were only 7 cars on the lead lap. with the lucky dogs for the rest of the race. you only had about 15 teams with any chance at all to win. Don't you hate to see those restarts with all those cars on the end of the lead lap?

Fuel mileage. I hate it when some dog meat car is about to get lapped so he comes in at the end of every caution and tops off. Then the dog meat car has enough gas to finish up when every other team has to stop. I remember Jr amd Jeremy Mayfield benefitting from this scenario in particular.

Or you could be Kyle Busch trying to teach a guy a lesson by slamming him causing your own tire to go flat so you get 2 laps down and you are done. Refer to many episodes with Mr. Smoke for reinforcement of this mindless waste of talent.

How about hot dog wrappers.

And what in the name of additional threading is going on with lug nuts this year?

Speaking of blown engines, I've had a few. Matt Kenseth, Greg Biffle, Carl Edwards, but I seem to have my valve springs straightened out now.

One contributing factor for a teams lack of performance is poor pit stall selection because of poor qualifying, but this isn't to bad because a team has some control over qualifying.

Being in the wrong place at the right time can be real bad. Of course every now and then it is the result a brain fart like last fall at Talladega when the my buddy Carl ran into the Bif and ruined his and several other contenders chance for the championship. How in the hell did Jimmie get through that mess?

So that kind of brings us full circle because we're back at 'Dega this week and you got to wonder what's going to happen.

Speaking of our league. Stotts stay at the top of the heap sure was short lived. If I wanted to bet that he can get back to the top, would I have any takers? I think it would be a better bet that the takers would be unanimous on that deal and I'll withdraw the offer because I don't want that action either. Sorry grasshopper, you've had your 15 minutes.

drop the rag boys.