This week's View from the Flagstand is the worst view in NASCAR. The only thing you can see is the frontstretch. The rest of the view of the cars is blocked by the infield grandstands for about 45 seconds of a 60 second lap. Yipee!
CHECKERED FLAGS.....Go to race winner Jimmie Johnson who stalked the leaders all day, then finally made his move near the end of the race by passing teammate, Mark Martin for the lead on a restart. Juan Pablo Montoya also gets a checkered flag for leading 116 laps and having the race well in hand until he was popped for speeding during a green flag pit stop.
GREEN FLAGS....... Martin ran second most of the day to Montoya, and he wound up second to Johnson. Greg Biffle brought it home in third. Brian Vickers ran a good race and finished fifth.
YELLOW FLAGS......Montoya lost the race by speeding on pit road. It was a heartbreaker to dominate the race like he did and fall to an 11th place finish. So, I'll give him a pass on all his whining and crying on the radio after being penalized.
RED FLAGS......The race. A snoozefest for the first three quarters and very little action at the end with the pit road penalty and JJ's late pass of Martin being the only drama. I think there were two actual green lap passes for the lead. Meanwhile less than 10 miles from the Brickyard, ORP put on possibly the best Truck and NW series races this year on Friday and Saturday night. Am I the only one who would like see the Cup race taken from Indy and held at ORP?
BLACK FLAGS.....The start and park teams. I don't mind them filling out the fields, but they are getting too much money for doing nothing. Joe Nemecheck ran 21 laps and finished DFL, 43rd. He took home $142,000 for not breaking a sweat. Meanwhile, Bill Elliott qualifies in the top five, runs in the top 15 most of the day, completes all but one lap, and takes home $148,000!
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Well at least we didn't see tires flyig off the cars. I missed most of the race but the last 35 laps. Looks like I didn't miss any thing.
ReplyDeleteCertainly looks like it pays to start and park race.
Nice Gene...
ReplyDeleteI loved it when Montoya swore on the lives of his wife and children...he was serious!
Red flag the race indeed. I dont get the thrill of Indy - its always been a snooze-fest, except of course for last year when it was a parade of cars going only 75%. While they did "race" a pass here or there would be nice...
Montoya was dominant until he got popped for speeding. He could have been very reckless and made it worse, but to his credit, he didn't. There were times that his lead was more than six seconds over Martin. And no green flags for Kevin Harvick? All it was was his first top 10 since March, in Atlanta. I think he's starting to break out of his near season-long slump.
ReplyDeleteUmm, Tony finished 3rd; Biffle finished 4th.
ReplyDelete(Don't make me have to give Katie that stuffed M&M. Then again, Kyle seems to be having enough bad luck without her help.)
A green flag for DJ replacing Rusty but he still doesn't have the enthusiasm his Dad did. Someone needs to use videos of Ned and Benny to train these guys in the booth. Also, a green flag to you on your skill to multi-task while blogging. (Thanks for the energy packs.) lol
ReplyDeletePhoto....It's rididulous for Nemecheck to 'earn' almost as much money as Bill did, whild Bill actually worked. Is this what's called redistributing the wealth?
ReplyDeleteKLV....I've never seen an exciting NASCAR race at Indy. A couple of exciting moments, maybe, but no exciting races.
ReplyDeleteWith that dominant car that Juan had, he should have never pushed it on pit road.
Jon....I'm waiting on Kevin to make the top five before he gets a green flag. LOL
ReplyDeleteSB14....Ooops! Sorry. I looked at my notes, and I have Biffle-4th written down. Wishful drinking I guess.
ReplyDeleteATH....I missed some of the telecast, so I didn't review the ESPN crew. They'll get their's down the road.
ReplyDeleteThe prize money "system" NASCAR runs is ridiculous as it seems to run as much on who you are as where you finished.
ReplyDeleteKyle Busch got 190k for finishing 38th, and you have to go all the way up to Truex in 17th to find someone who took home a bigger check. David Gilliland, who completed all bar two laps only got 2k more than Slow Joe.
Indy unfortunately is going to stay on the schedule .....too many bucks.
ReplyDeleteThey could very easily fix that track with a repave and by adding a lower groove in the turns where the grass is that seperates the pit exit and entrace lanes from the race track.
I knew when they reconfigured the track over 15 years ago that it was going to kill the racing. For the Champ cars and the Stock cars.
IMS saw that the Indy drivers were using all of lower apron creating an angle of attack that was dangerous if the car snapped loose at the apex of the turn.
Montoya is having a very consistent year, too bad what happened.
Over all Nascar is looking the The Rick Hendrick show. On a week to week basis the Hendrick cars the class of the field. Jimmie Johnson could very easily win the title this year. They have a definet advantage in their cars concering chassis.
We will see if someone has an answer to the Hendrick freight train in the last 10 but the way it looks right now .......
I'd have to red flag the press to be honest....saying that Jimmie is the first repeat Brickyard winner is false, he's the first Brickyard *400* repeat winner, but there have been several who have won at the Brickyard in consecutive years before him, lol
ReplyDeleteTo me, the race at Indy by NASCAR is just as exciting as waiting in line at Hartsfield or Logan trying to get my luggage. Actually, there's more action at the airport. I've seen some vicious battles there!
ReplyDeleteatleast the view from the flagstand was the same as the view from my recliner "crappy"
ReplyDeletejbroomy- the bigger the race the bigger the checks. some of the variation depends on different contingency sponsors. thats why cars from the bigger teams get more even with low finishes. they have more contingency sponsors that the S n P cars.
rl- i sure hope something derails that HMS train. if it keeps going like this pretty soon everyone will be buying from HMS.
JB....NASCAR has a performance bonus system in place that rewards winners by paying them extra on top of the race purse winnings.
ReplyDeleteDrivers who have won a race recently enough to be eligible for the All-Star race are at the top rung of that bonus system. One of the few things that NASCAR does that actually rewards winning.
Rick....Montoya is consistent, but he doesn't even have a top-5 finish this year! He finally learned that the first 26 races mean nothing, just make the Chase then go racing. Exciting.
ReplyDeleteI can't believe all the fans that think that this Chase system of only 'racing' 10 races is comparable to the old days when drivers had to 'race' all year.
Tez...Righto. They want it to be classified differently....Until Gordon wins his 5th race there. Then they will gladly claim that he has more wins than anyone else there.
ReplyDeleteVol....very boring race.
ReplyDeleteOne word, or is it two? Carry on.
Stork....I tried to watch the first half through my eyelids. Snoring helped drown out some of the ESPN doofs.
ReplyDeleteGene I agree this Brickyard was a snoozefest. Can't believe I actually stayed for the whole race.
ReplyDeleteBut it was so heartbreaking to see Montoya lose it due to a speeding penalty. Especially by such a meager amount.