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Double J and The Luck of A Golden Horseshoe

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by Clance' McClannahan, Special To NASCAR commentary and pictures,2010 NASCAR schedule,NASCAR video, Bench Racing With Steve and Charlie

Clance' McClannahan, famous author behind The Church of The Great Oval and also one of the much appreciated Contributing Authors at Thunder Lounge.

February 27, 2010 12:04 am CST 1 Comment

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How much does luck really have to play in NASCAR? Auto Club Speedway was a perfect example of both good luck, bad luck, skill and strategy.

Race Day at ACS started out cloudy, with the threat of rain looming overhead in in the future. Lovely Katharine McPhee, Season 5 American Idol runner-up, performed the National Anthem, after stating “I’ve never watched a NASCAR game before.” Personally, I am really glad she said that prior to the first inning, or it might have been embarrassing for her later.

Andy Garcia was able to give the command. “ Gentlemen, start your engines!” and still be politically correct.

Pole sitter Jamie Mac led the race for about 5 seconds, and then Juan Pablo Montoya politely said “Excuse me?”, and took the lead. If you would reach far back into your memory…(I mean, it’s a stretch for me),  you will remember that JPM led 60 laps at ACS in October, and in one truly horrendous moment, lost that race. Juan Pablo Montoya meant serious business and opened up a lead of more than 3 seconds by Lap 12. By Lap 29, Jimmie Johnson’s good luck began to show, and the 42 car’s not so good 30th lap, gave him a brush with the wall.  Soon after…it was Good vs. Bad for JPM, Kasey Kahne and a few others. Namely Dale (**NOTE to Jr. Nation: Dale doesn’t want to be called Jr. or June Bug, anymore).

In the meantime, a war was beginning to rage. Kevin Harvick and Jimmie Johnson had begun the battle that would continue throughout the race, which culminated in one of the finest moments in NASCAR History.

Lap 97 began to get a little more interesting. Now we will get into the good luck, bad luck, strategy (?) syndrome that happenedthat day.

Martin Truex Jr. loses power. Later, Martin Truex Jr’s engine blows.
JPM begins to battle with Jeff Gordon for 5th position. Harvick and Johnson continue to dance the Flamenco (to impress Juan Pablo Montoya) for 1st and 2nd, not being able to decide who would lead and who would follow.

In one of the most endearing and heart breaking moments of the race, Kasey Kahne, being conscientious of the bleak economy, decided he would help out some poor souls, who needed to make some money to feed their kids, by making sure they had jobs replacing the sod he tore up.
Ryan Newman’s engine blew up. DNF. Again.  JPM, looking very competitive, was out of contention once again, after a great 140 laps. It also, was due to another kaboom of a large quantity of moving parts, critical to the car continuing to run..

Kevin Harvick discovered that one of Jamie Mac’s pit crew has a part time job with Cirque du Soleil. Scary.

Then there was Dale Earnhardt Jr. It seems like the last few years, if it’s going to happen to someone it will be Dale Jr. Personally, I don’t think he has any better or worse luck than many driver’s. I think his worst luck is the scrutiny he is constantly under. Much more than other driver’s. Broken Axle. Axle Broken. Race over for the 88.

Jimmie Johnson seemed to be going backwards for a small moment in time. Then… From out of the blue…comes JJ again. Jamie Mac, startled, said “”How can he be leading? “He was on pit road, wasn’t he?!!”
Why yes, he was. Double J won. 48/48.
Luck? Strategy? All of the above?

Kevin Harvick , at the end of the race, summed it all up, in one sentence. Possibly one of the finest quotes in NASCAR History. I am honored to have been able to do small tribute to that little quip at The Church.
“They have a golden horseshoe stuck up their ass.”
…And that, Dear Fans, was the finest finish to a race I have seen since the Daytona 500.

*What wondrous events shall LVMS bring us this weekend? Aw…the suspense is killing me!

Filed under: Auto Club Speedway, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Danica Patrick, Diversity and NASCAR, Jamie McMurray, Jeff Gordon, Juan Pablo Montoya, Kasey Kahne, Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Martin Truex Jr., NASCAR, NASCAR Conspiracies, Ryan Newman, jimmie johnson 

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Like a broken record…

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by Clance' McClannahan, Special To NASCAR commentary and pictures,2010 NASCAR schedule,NASCAR video, Bench Racing With Steve and Charlie

Clance' McClannahan, famous author behind The Church of The Great Oval and also one of the much appreciated Contributing Authors at Thunder Lounge.

February 26, 2010 8:40 pm CST 1 Comment

Dear Bruton Smith,

You have more money than God. Please fix the traffic coming in and out of the track. In fact, could you just fix it in all of Las Vegas? The wait at the airport sucks too. Wayne Newton would do it for his fans, I bet.

Love,

All of us that make you have more money than God.

P.S. Good job with the track. It’s really fast! The traffic may be worth it, if the race is as good as qualifying was. Too bad we missed 10 driver’s attempts, including Kurt Busch beating Jeff Gordon who beat out Dale Earnhardt Jr. for the pole.

But that wasn’t your fault.

Filed under: Bruton Smith, Dale Earnhardt Jr., How to fix NASCAR, Jeff Gordon, Kurt Busch, Las Vegas Motor Speedway, NASCAR, NASCAR & the Media 

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Fantasy Pick’Em: 2010 Shelby American

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by Chris Leone, Special To NASCAR commentary and pictures,2010 NASCAR schedule,NASCAR video, Bench Racing With Steve and Charlie

I do weekly Fantasy Pick'Em columns here at OPR, as well as the occasional opinion and analysis piece. I also provide the IZOD IndyCar Series coverage. For more on that, head to my site, OpenWheelAmerica.com. My Twitter handle is @christopherlion.

February 25, 2010 1:55 am CST 2 Comments

Two races down, 34 to go as the Sprint Cup Series heads to Las Vegas Motor Speedway for this year’s Shelby American. Kyle Busch will attempt to defend his 2009 race win after two consecutive 14th place finishes to start the year.

Jimmie Johnson won three consecutive Vegas races from 2005-07, and won last week in California. He was the best of my five suggestions last week. My lead pick, Matt Kenseth, had a seventh-place run, while my dark horse, David Ragan, was 23rd. Of my other picks, Busch was 14th, and polesitter Jamie McMurray wound up 17th. All in all, it was a much better day than Daytona, and everybody was in the top 25, so the day wasn’t a disaster.

I know it’s an easy pick, but can you fault me for taking Johnson this weekend? It somehow feels okay to me because of his off and on nature at Vegas. In eight starts at the track, he has three wins, but only one other top-10. The past two years he hasn’t finished in the top 20, although he led the most laps in last year’s event before a pit road mistake took him off the lead lap.

It’s hard to come up with a true dark horse for Vegas. The top drivers in the series usually do well, and the lesser teams don’t, according to the record books. But Bobby Labonte may be as close as it gets. He was fifth last year for the Hall of Fame Racing team that no longer runs, and he may be able to pull some similar magic for TRG Motorsports this weekend. He’s got a decent Vegas record, with an average finish of 15.7 in 12 starts, two poles, and five top-10s, with four of those finishes fifth or better.

The other three drivers I’m picking, as per tradition:

Jeff Burton has the best average finish of anybody at Vegas, and even the fact that he’s started every race at the track hasn’t weighed that down. He’s the only driver with an average finish in the single digits (9.8), and he won this race in 1999 and 2000. Save a disaster in 2001, he’s never finished worse than 17th.

Kyle Busch runs at a torrid pace at his home track. His average start of 7.7 is only second to brother Kurt, at least for drivers with multiple Vegas starts, but Rowdy is significantly better than his big brother in average finish, by more than nine places. As I’ve already mentioned, he won this race last year. Since joining Sprint Cup full-time, his worst Vegas finish is 11th. Talk about stepping up for the home crowd.

Finally, Denny Hamlin completes my horrible cop-out of picking the drivers with the top four average finishes at Vegas. I know, I know. But Hamlin is outside the top 20 in points – I feel like I should get some leeway there. He also hasn’t led any laps at Vegas in his career, which would make a victory somewhat of an upset, right? He qualifies mid-pack (average start 23.5), but has an average finish of 11.0, the biggest positive difference for any active driver, meaning if he wins, he’ll have earned it by passing a lot of cars and maintaining the lead.

Filed under: Bobby Labonte, Denny Hamlin, Jeff Burton, Kyle Busch, Las Vegas Motor Speedway, jimmie johnson 

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NASCAR at Auto Club Speedway: Dudes, Dames and Delayed Dominance

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by Charlie Turner

Thanks for stopping by OnPitRow.com and the Bench Racing with Steve and Charlie blog. The best NASCAR and IndyCar news and opinion, exclusive pictures and video. I'm Charlie Turner. Follow me on Twitter @onpitrow

February 22, 2010 11:23 pm CST No Comments

The Auto Club 500 was vintage Jimmie Johnson. To the chagrin of those fans who had hoped that J J’s Daytona 500 performance might be a sign. Sorry haters. Lowes no. 48 crew chief Chad Knaus still makes the perfect pit call more often than anybody else and, like Albert Pujols,  Jimmie Johnson knows what to do with a fat pitch. He doesn’t miss it.

The Sprint Cup Series race almost seemed like the undercard of this second round of 2010 NASCAR schedule. Most of the buzz early in the weekend was about Danica Patrick’s second run in her limited 2010 NASCAR Nationwide Series schedule.  Patrick wasn’t a factor in the actual Nationwide Series race. She may not worry the leaders at all this year. But she did OK. She’s learning. It adds interest.

On Pit Row was ably represented by Jerry Wilson - the Diecast Dude to many - during the Auto Club Speedway weekend. Read Jerry’s posts and go to the OnPitRow Twitter page if you missed any of Jerry’s observations during the weekend. Thank you my friend. It was a blast following you the past few days and an honor hosting your stories.

Time for Vegas. Who’s betting against the Lowes car?

Photo credit: Round girl Jen by BethAnne Heisler for OnPitRow.com

Filed under: Auto Club Speedway, Danica Patrick, NASCAR, Nationwide Series, On Pit Row on the road, Sprint Cup Series 

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Enjoy The Game… Er, Race More

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by Diecast Dude, Special To NASCAR commentary and pictures,2010 NASCAR schedule,NASCAR video, Bench Racing With Steve and Charlie

February 22, 2010 9:55 pm CST 1 Comment

The flagship station for the San Francisco Giants has a sports talk format. One afternoon a few years back, the show hosts were talking to Jeff Kent. During his career Kent, who is now retired, played for the Giants and won the National League Most Valuable Player award one year during his tenure with the team. At the time of the interview, he had left the Giants and was playing for their archrivals the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Kent never was much of a media favorite, and he freely returned the favor. During the interview, he interrupted the hosts complaining about whatever, most likely how the Giants almost always come up short against the Dodgers, with this comment: “All you guys do is bitch and moan. Enjoy the game more!”

Fast forward to yesterday, when before the Auto Club 500 at Auto Club Speedway Katherine McPhee was shepherded into the media center. Pretty much everyone with a press pass somehow managed to magically appear, especially all the photographers. Go figure. Anyway, someone asked McPhee if she was a NASCAR fan. Her reply? “To be honest, I’ve never been to a NASCAR game before.”

Well alrighty then.

Combine Kent’s snark with McPhee’s silliness and you have a solid base from which to examine yesterdays race. Instead of kvetching about the attendance or whining about the quality of racing, have people thought about, oh, enjoying the whole thing?

You’re not going to get Daytona or Martinsville at Auto Club or any other cookie cutter track. There are going to be periods of cars being spread out. It happens. There are times at Bristol when nothing much is going on. This is the nature of auto racing.

This duly noted, there were several moments where two or more cars were dueling for position. The race ended with multiple laps of Jeff Burton doing his best to run down Kevin Harvick who was doing his best to run down Jimmie Johnson. Good stuff. A couple of restarts late in the race looked like surefire massive pileups looking for a place to happen. There was action in the race; far more than for which it has been given credit.

Next, the obsession with attendance at Auto Club is inane. The weather in the Inland Empire in February is unpredictable at best and is seldom warm sunshine. Also, drive east from Fontana for four hours and you’re in Las Vegas. If you’re a party person and have to choose between the two, where are you going to go? The question isn’t why doesn’t Auto Club fill all 92,000 of its seats. It’s how it manages to fill as many as it does.

Some more thoughts on the weekend that was:

  • Bet there’s more than a few “let us review” sessions taking place at assorted engine builder teams today. Juan Pablo Montoya, Ryan Newman and Jeff Gordon all suffered different degrees of powerplant woes. All Chevys. Could be a connection, but since the issue was different for each driver, probably not.
  • What happened to the Roushketeers? They had owned this race the past few years. Sunday they were barely an afterthought. Cookie cutters have long been a Roush strong suit until last year, when after Matt Kenseth won the February race at Auto Club things went south and stayed there. Difficult to imagine the same thing happening this year, but if yesterday was any indication something’s still awry.
  • On the other side of things, Richard Childress appears to have added via subtraction. Dropping the fourth team certainly hasn’t hurt the remaining three.

A few personal notes; hope you don’t mind.

Deep thanks to Charlie for the opportunity to attend the race as accredited media. An enriching experience in numerous ways. I am indeed grateful.

As to the media I met, Dustin Long is a gentleman in every sense of the world. Thanks also to Nicole Manske and Jorge Mondaca for their kindness. Hope to see you again soon.

Thank you to everyone who offered condolences over the passing of my aunt last Thursday. The past few days have been quite the emotional rollercoaster. I was quite thankful for the distraction provided by the races.

Enjoy the races more, people.

Filed under: Auto Club Speedway 

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And Now, A Few Thoughts About Danica Patrick’s Day At Auto Club Speedway

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by Diecast Dude, Special To NASCAR commentary and pictures,2010 NASCAR schedule,NASCAR video, Bench Racing With Steve and Charlie

February 21, 2010 11:38 am CST No Comments

As those of you who watched the Stater Bros 300 NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Auto Club Speedway yesterday might have noticed, Danica Patrick was in the race. She started 36th and ended 31st, three laps down from the leaders.

Going into the event, Patrick had commented on the difficulties with which she was presented. Having very little seat time in a stock car period, let alone one at a large flatter track such as Auto Club, she noted her unfamiliarity with how the car is supposed to feel and respond, this leading to not being able to provide complete information to her crew chief on what the car was doing so he could make the appropriate adjustments during pit stops. There was also the matter of learning the different lines to run. It was an entirely different environment than the Indy cars in which she has raced at Auto Club and similarly configured tracks numerous times. In essence, the race would be an extended test session, one run for the purpose of learning as opposed to competing. Nothing more, nothing less.

As the race unfolded, Patrick had her expected share of struggles on the track and on pit row, where she was tagged for a couple of speeding violations. That said, she kept herself out of harms way and out of the way of her fellow drivers. Patrick finished the race with all fenders intact, thus accomplishing a large part of what she had set out to achieve.

Patrick is on a both accelerated and steep learning curve. She has inherent challenges in her chosen career path, not the least of which is limited time in NASCAR due to her full-time participation in IRL. She will have to learn, and learn quickly.

Rather than pile on Patrick due to her not immediately taking NASCAR by storm, from this writer there is nothing but respect and admiration for taking on such a massive task. Her peers, such as Juan Pablo Montoya, have noted she is doing this the hard way. Given her other commitments, it’s also the only way. For her sake, and the sake of her fans, I hope she can pull it off and will be cheering her on every step of the way.

Filed under: Danica Patrick 

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