Jimmie Johnson Wins the Pepsi 500 - A terse Recap

It was Jimmie Johnson's race to lose. That's all there was to it. He had the pole, he owned the lead, and his team made all the right adjustments through all the changes of the race that turned from day to night.

Impressive or expected? Does it matter? Nope. He pulled it off.

Here's a quick recap of the race:

Jimmie Johnson led them to the green flag, but by the end of the lap, A.J. Almendinger had led himself a lap, but quickly lost it back to Johnson. The first few laps had the usual side-by-side rows of high octane burst of acceleration that slowly whittled down to a single file line of cars that was interrupted by a flat tire on lap 3 for Jamie McMurray.

Lap 8 Restart: 48, 84, 24, 9, 1, 18, 2, 19, 22 & 44 lead the pack across the line! Go 'Dinger!!

Lap 13 we see J Gordon's splitter smokin off the ground. ( We presume it's splitter smoke right now )

Lap 20 Caution for a BIG piece of debris - the caution light got blown off it's post by the wind of the cars flying by at 205+ mph at the end of the front stretch! McMurray gets the lucky dog and now all cars are on the lead lap.
-Lap 25 Restart: 48, 9, 84,83, 88, 16, 18, 44, 24 & 1

Lap 43 Caution for Kurt Busch losing a LR tire.
-Lap 47 Restart: 48, 16, 84, 83, 88, 9, 29, 11, 17 & 99

Lap 69 Caution: Nemechek hard in the wall out of turn 2. Knocked his drive shaft out of the car. He be done!
-lap 73 Restart: 48, 16, 11, 29, 17, 99, 44, 9, 84 & 88

Lap 100 48, 16, 11, 29, 83, 9, 44, 42, 17 & 07

Jimmie Johnson clinches a spot in the chase.

Lap 137: 48, 16, 83, 11, 29, 44, 9, 17, 99 & 42
21 cars on the lead lap

Caution for debris. Ryan Newman is the lucky dog, putting 19 cars on the lead lap.
-Restart with 98 laps to go: 48, 16, 11, 29, 83, 44, 99, 9, 17 & 20

Caution lap 160: Debris. Another piece of track light came down!! Wow!
The track is falling apart!
-Restart with 85 laps to go: 16, 99, 84, 83, 12, 48, 29, 11, 9 & 17
2 tire gambles on some of the cars.

A few laps later, the 48 car was hunting the 16 car down and with 82 to go, took the lead back.

70 Laps to go Robby Gordon Spins... one more caution!
The 48 team had an issue in the pits.
Restart with 65 laps to go: 44, 16, 99, 48, 11, 29, 12, 17, 9 & 18.
(uh ho, here comes the 18 car.)

Is this the final restart of then night?
Restart with 28 to go 16, 48, 11, 99, 29, 17, 18, 9, 07 &, 44
by the end of the lap, the 48 car was leading the way.


We're watching 3 and 4 wide in mid pack. It's pretty exciting.
There's a lot of dancing between the 83, 84, 12 and 88 for 11th spot.
With 20 to go, we have 48, 16, 11, 29 & 17 lead the pack.

15 to go: 48, 16, 11, 29, 17, 99 & 18 !!??!!

10 to go: 48, 16, 11, 29 & 17

The winner of the Pepsi 500 at CA is Jimmie Johnson!
He led oodles of laps and was followed across the line by
16, 11, 29, 17, 99, 18, 9, 44 & 07 cars.

Check out the details over at NASCAR:
Cup Series Results
Cup Series Standings

I'll break things down later!

But I'll tell you what, back in June I said David Ragan is my favorite dark horse driver in this whole bunch because he's quietly there, lurking just outside the top 12. Not screwing around too much. He doesn't have a top performing car, but the No. 6 team is quietly getting it together.

Next year, he is either going to be a contender or will fade to black.

ESPN Disses The NASCAR Fan One More Time

Opinion by Bruce Simmons

Tick Tock, Tick Tock: (It's the 24 clock, but no Jack Bauer - sorry)
5:00 PM
According to my cable schedule, the Nationwide pre-race coverage on ESPN2 started at 6:45 pm Saturday night.


Tick Tock:
6:47 PM
I was running a few minutes late and scurried to get my race on the tube. Huh?

Turning on ESPN2 I discover that the score of a college football game is:

Miss St 14, LA Tech 19. 4th Quarter, with 8 minutes, 19 seconds left in the game.

So I turned on SPEED Channel and watched Tradin' Paint because at least there I am getting NASCAR news and opinion that covers for pre-race coverage to some degree while ESPN disses the NASCAR fan yet again, in favor of college football.


Tick Tock:
7:00 PM
There's 4 minutes and 22 seconds left in the game, but a player is on the ground.

Scrolling across the bottom of the screen it says: That Nationwide coverage is on ESPN classic and their espn360 website.

So now I'm scrambling to figure out if I even have ESPN Classic and what channel it might be on.

For a little bit I scuttle around my channel guide but initially I'm not finding it, so I head over the the ESPN360 website.

On ESPN360, it looks like I need to sign up to see this anything on this service site.

I fill out the on-line form. For my efforts, all I get is that ESPN will tell my cable provider that I have requested this. The little link button that says "NASCAR Nationwide at California Pt 1" still does nothing.

So ESPN just got my personal marketing information and I got nothing for it. Oh well, that's why I've got an email address specifically set up for all the junk / crap I sometimes find I have to sign up for. Thanks AOL. At least it's good for something.


Tick Tock:
7:08 PM
I finally find ESPN Classic, sitting way way up the channel listing up in a range of channels that I normally don't even look at. I came into the program just in time to

A: Hear Ron Perlman fill in the title of his new show for the announcer who draws a complete blank on possibly one of the biggest cool shows to come to the airwaves, Sons of Anarchy, then

B: Perlman calls out for gentlemen... start... your... engineeeeessssssss!


Tick Tock:
7:30 PM
I look away for a moment and suddenly I'm watching an older boxing match. What? Where'd this old show come from? Oh yea, ESPN Classic.

It's 17 laps into the race and the Nationwide race is now where it belongs. Where it's supposed to be, per my channel guide.

After this is all said and done:
I know it's not all about us, the NASCAR fan. But it is about something that continues to happen over and over again.

I preface this by saying that the college football fan is happy to have had their show finish up and see the end of the game. It's a different demographic that probably doesn't care about NASCAR.

The classic boxing fan is probably not happy to see NASCAR in place of the show they were expecting to see. I understand that completely.

Another issue is what happens if cable subscribers don't get the right channel package and don't get the classic channel? It's probable, being how cable providers are these days, with all the special sets or tiers of programming they make available for a few $$ more for each one.

That is, for those who get or subscribe to cable, if they can. Otherwise, those folks are just plain S out of Luck.

Otherwise, I've just gone through another disregard for the NASCAR coverage, thus a disregard for the NASCAR fan. This is Disney / ABC / ESPN. This is what we have to deal with. Never expect to get timely coverage if Football or Tennis or Golf is still in progress.

Now if the College Cheerleader Competition runs over a little, I might not grumble too much. Would I?

Well, regardless - I have to get back to my Kyle Busch demonstration of how to do laps around the Fontana track.

Thanks for reading one of Bruce's Rants.

Update 9/3/08: There's a bit over on The Daly Planet that puts some links out there to other opinion articles on ESPN and a few great reader comments to boot. Go enjoy! (Thanks to Kenny for pointing me that way!)

Related Older Posts:
ESPN and Yellow Flag Restarts
Yellow Flag Restarts
ESPN Apologizes for The Lapse of Coverage
ESPN Race Coverage
ABC ESPN Coverage Nit Pick

Fontana Pepsi 500 Lineup

Sunday Nites Pepsi 500 at Fontana will be fun.

Here's the top 10 starting spots for the race:

Pos.	Driver	Make
1	Jimmie Johnson	Chevrolet
2	A.J. Allmendinger	Toyota
3	Jeff Gordon	Chevrolet
4	Kasey Kahne	Dodge
5	Patrick Carpentier	Dodge
6	Elliott Sadler	Dodge
7	Martin Truex Jr.	Chevrolet
8	Dave Blaney	Toyota
9	Kurt Busch	Dodge
10	Aric Almirola	Chevrolet

rest of the line up is at NASCAR.

Jeff Burton Milestone

This is cool news for the safety advocate of NASCAR, Jeff Burton.

When he starts on Sunday, Jeff Burton will be making his 500th start after 16 years of competition.

source

Carl Edwards and Kyle Busch ARE NOT Tight In Turn Two!

Despite statements NASCAR made earlier this year to let the boys handle themselves and not get involved, NASCAR has indeed stepped in and gotten involved in a feud.

It announced probations on Wednesday for our new spatting frenemies, Kyle Busch and Carl Edwards. There's been no wrist slap, but they are being watched for the next six races by Big Brother - NASCAR, starting with the Fontana, CA race. It's been declared that they violated Section 12-4-A (actions detrimental to stock car racing; hitting another competitor's car after the race had concluded) of the 2008 NASCAR rule book.

As I see it, Carl did no wrong in my book and did what NASCAR competitors do best: Police themselves. Or at least they used to be able to do that.

Kyle got out of hand after the race with his tantrum and Carl punted him. Deed done. Of course Kyle (The Child) Busch has to whine about how the win was taken from him and vent his frustration "kicking the trash can". If he had the win in hand, why wasn't he pulling away? How'd Carl catch him? Gimme a break Busch. Accept your fate now that you are at the other end of your very own medicine. Now, you know how Johnny Benson felt in a previous truck event! Or better yet, do we remember when we pushed Dale Earnhardt Jr out of the way at Richmond? Or more precisely, put Jr right into the wall, yanking a win away from Jr..

With that said, I thought to myself, "Self? This sounds like the makings of a great question for that other guy I have to fly Tight in Turn 2 with, Charlie Turner of OnPitRow." With that in mind, I showed Charlie my premise, then tossed him this question to follow up on my Edwards vs. Busch tirade:

So Is This Probation on Busch and Edwards Warranted?

Bruce: Up until the announcement, I was in anticipation of the next few races and wondering what was going to happen between these two. With the probation now in place, this takes the wind out of my anticipatory sails. For just one moment, everyone was looking at the feud with a certain amount of anticipation. The kind of media attention that NASCAR needs. It keeps things interesting and on edge, and it certainly helps with ratings and media attention. But now, it's just become a one week spat. For that, thanks NASCAR.

BUT: I think that where NASCAR is coming from is concern for innocent victims in this fray, so they're pretty sure the probation is warranted. If anything, they probably think they are looking out to protect the other Chase contenders from getting caught up in the aftermath of what Kyle may be planning, or at the very least, has proven what he's capable of when he's in one of his snits. Oh wait, Kyle planning? Is that even part of his vocabulary?


Charlie: Warranted? If all NASCAR wants to do is castrate its competitors, then yeah, its warranted. I don't think it's smart. I don't think that the probation is in the best interest of interesting, compelling, ultra-competitive auto racing.

What happened the the early season commitment to letting these guys express themselves more honestly?

Just when you get a couple drivers talking honestly about what happened on the track and how they saw it- who were still fresh from the heat of the action and about as worked up as you can get, by the way - NASCAR wants to do something that will create more mealy mouthed apologists and corporate sock puppets. If Kyle and Carl had talked more like Jeff Gordon or Kasey Kahne, there would be no probation.


Related posts to Carl vs Kyle:
Ding Ding: Carl Edwards Vs. Kyle Busch

~~~

Of course with that said, Charlie fired back a question, per the norm, that he had in his mind:

Do I like the new format of the Budweiser Shootout?

35th Spot, Owners Bubble - Going to Fontana

It's a snug affair going on around that 35th spot.
Can the 84 car make it in, or will the No. 77 car fall out and allow the No. 84 in?
I think Hornish is gonna let this one slip right out of his fingers.
What do you think?

RANK	+/-	CAR	OWNER	POINTS	AROUND BUBBLE
29	--	#01	Teresa Earnhardt	1981	158
30	--	#41	Chip Ganassi	1904	81
31	--	#7	Robby Gordon	1868	45
32	1	#55	Michael Waltrip	1861	38
33	-1	#22	Bill Davis	1856	33
34	1	#66	Joe Custer	1843	20
35	-1	#77	Roger Penske	1823	0
36	--	#84	Dietrich Mateschitz	1809	-14
37	--	#00	Rob Kauffman	1798	-25
38	2	#96	Jeffrey Moorad	1582	-241
39	-1	#10	George Gillett, Jr	1570	-253
40	-1	#45	Kyle Petty	1563	-260

Roush Fenway Management Team Has New Player

As I am sure you all remember, back in Feb of 2007, Fenway Sports Group (FSG) bought into a 50% stake of Roush Racing, making it Roush-Fenway Racing.

On Monday, the 25th of August, FSG announced the appointment of the ex Managing Director of Corporate Marketing for NASCAR, Brian Corcoran. He will assume the position of Executive Vice President, Business Development & Motorsports.

Corcoran will be overseeing the operations for FSG's NASCAR division which includes Roush Fenway Racing and Yates Racing and will be identifying and developing new sponsor and revenue opportunities for both teams. (Heck, I even forgot they had a piece of Yates.)

It seems they're bringing in the big guns to start bringing more money into the Cup teams.

I call him a big gun because it's he's credited with bringing Nextel to Cup and Nationwide Insurance to, well, the Nationwide Series. The premiere part of NASCAR is called Cup. Can't we call the Nationwide the series Bowl, or Fork or something? Then we distinguish that league, regardless of who sponsors it.

Most fascinating, indeed.

source

Bubble Spot Headed Into Fontana

And this is how things are shaping up for the Chase Bubble.

6th through 14th are all looking at each other through the glass maze walls, wondering who's gonna git to the spot first!!

RANK	+/-	DRIVER	POINTS	AWAY FROM BUBBLE
1	--	Kyle Busch	3609	754
2	--	Carl Edwards	3397	542
3	1	Dale Earnhardt Jr.	3193	338
4	-1	Jimmie Johnson	3191	336
5	--	Jeff Burton	3117	262
6	--	Tony Stewart	3013	158
7	--	Greg Biffle	2984	129
8	--	Kevin Harvick	2972	117
9	--	Jeff Gordon	2951	96
10	--	Matt Kenseth	2921	66
11	1	Denny Hamlin	2900	45
12	1	Clint Bowyer	2855	0
		CHASE FOR THE SPRINT CUP - CURRENT CONTENDERS
13	1	David Ragan	2843	-12
14	-3	Kasey Kahne	2799	-56
15	2	Ryan Newman	2674	-181
16	-1	Brian Vickers	2672	-183
17	-1	Martin Truex Jr.	2592	-263
18	--	Jamie McMurray	2492	-363
19	--	Kurt Busch	2442	-413
20	--	Elliott Sadler	2364	-491

TV Times for Fontana

NASCAR Nationwide Series Fontana | 9:45 p.m. ET Sat. | ESPN2
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Fontana | 7 p.m. ET Sun. | ESPN

(Not sure why they're eliminating some of the fan base by shoveling NASCAR over to ESPN, but so be it I guess. That's ABC for ya.)

Keselowski Reported to Turn Down the No. 12 Ride

I've always said that the No. 12 team under the Penske roof is the tolerated bastard child of the Penkse Racing garage, with no one ever really ever doing as well as they could in that car, if indeed, they were capable.

Now, it seems that Brad Keselowski is reportedly turning down an offer to jump in the No. 12 Dodge seat for next year.

He does have planned the return to drive the No. 88 Nationwide ride, owned by Dale Jr and Hendrick.

At this point, does this mean that Keselowski has plans already in place for the Cup league, or is that No. 12 ride just not that compelling of an offer? There's two ways to look at it and I'm not sure which it is.

Drivers don't want to just take a ride when offered. They want to be competitive when they get in a car, or they run the risk of a getting a label that arises from not being able to just get the job done. I think Kenny Wallace is an example where I think if given the consistent, long term chance in a good car, he'd prove himself. And the list can go on.

On the other hand, the word on the front stretch is that Keselowski is lined up for a Hendrick ride once Mark Martin is done with the No. 5 Chevy and I am sure he would not want to have anything interfere with that opportunity if indeed, it is there.

Meanwhile, on the back burner, you have to wonder how David Stremme feels. It was thought that he was the front runner for the No. 12 seat, but now is he 2nd string pick? That should really set a wonderful mindset headed into the 2009 season if he does indeed get the green light for the No. 12 seat.

source