Monday, September 27, 2010

View From The Flagstand

In week two of the Chase most of the on-track fireworks were viewed during a practice session. Practice? Practice? We talking about practice? Yes, A.I., we are.

CHECKERED FLAG

Did you miss him? Wishful thinking was not enough to keep Jimmie Johnson out of the winner's circle. JJ took the pole, led the most laps, and won going away on Sunday. The Champ is back! Damn!

GREEN FLAGS

AJ Allmendinger started second, led over 100 laps, then had tire troubles mid-race. He kept his composure in route to a 10th place finish. Joey Logano was 2nd on Saturday, 3rd on Sunday. Is Paul Menard the most improved driver this year? He was top-10 all day, and wound up 7th. Nice to see Bobby Labonte lead some laps before finishing 27th.

YELLOW FLAG

NASCAR threw a yellow for a loose caution light shroud at Dover. Loose. Not on the track. Just loose. You have two races a year, perhaps a check list would be useful? Make sure the pace car has gas, too.

RED FLAG

Kevin Harvick, once again, has to use his 3,700 pound car to do his talking for him. He couldn't walk the ten feet over to Denny Hamlin in the garage, and let the Hampster know that he wasn't Happy about Denny's unforked tongue?

Does Harvick think that he intimidated Hamlin, even a little, by bumping the #11 as they went on the track to practice? Judging by where he finished (15), Harvick should have worried a little more about setting his car up.

BLACK FLAG

Richard Childress, you've done so much for the sport, but keep the loose change in your pocket. If you've said sixty thousandths once, you've said it a hundred times. He keeps harping that the rear of the car was only 1/16" too high. Now, let's measure across the rear spoiler since its 1/16" higher ALL the way across.

I don't have my handy-dandy NASCAR template set close by, so I'll guess the rear spoiler may be 80" wide. 80" x 1/16" = FIVE square inches of extra downforce. How many quarters is that, Richard?

Little help, Tez? I don't have a calculator, either. LOL

13 comments:

  1. I heard that it was the left rear quarter that was high. If that's the case, you'll have to modify your equation by some factor of percent in, vs percent out. At any rate, it seems like Denny has figured out the answer to your question. He must be a smart....... ass?

    The good news for Richard is, Pemberton said specifically that NASCAR has had no issues with the RCR cars driven by Kevin Harvick and Jeff Burton.

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  2. Here's a quick question. How many times do you recall guys hitting the wall during their victory celebrations? I know it doesn't happen often, but it does happen, and when it does, how's NASCAR to know if it was intentional tampering with the evidence?

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  3. Sigh - I knew they couldn't keep the on track excitement high but to be fair - a number of Chasers were completely out of it so that in itself was drama enough I guess.

    Is it just me or does it seem that every driver hates Dover except JJ?

    Oh and don't look now but Lee has another love-fest article up this time about the last "Cowboy" (RC) and of course had to evoke the spirit of what Dale Sr would think about all this...

    (my eyes! my eyes! why did I read such drivel!)

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  4. I don't know how much it cost to repair the 11 car after the 29 had at it but it seems to me Gibbs ought to present the bill to NASCAR and they in turn should march right over to RCR and hand it to Childress and call in the media to record every step of the way. It might only be a couple a hundred bucks, but NASCAR needs to come down on this obviously intentional attack (I don't know what else to call it) on one driver by another... We'll see what they do or, more likely, don't do...

    The other shoe that WILL fall comes Wednesday when NASCAR rules on RCR's appeal to the ruling on Bowyer. I suspect this one's a done deal and RCR won't like it.

    I'm seeing many comments about the lack of cautions once JJ took the lead late in the race... Maybe we needed Junior to be first up on the lucky dog...

    Enough on the conspiracy front?

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  5. CR.... didn't I see something about "unapproved parts" among the three rules that NASCAR nailed them for? Did the wrecker hit the car hard enough to change approved parts to unapproved parts? LOL

    I did see the vid of the wrecker as he eased into Bowyer's back bumper. Bump drafting at Dega is 10 x as hard. And, evidently, it doesn't affect the heights.

    I believe I wrote somewhere that Saint Burton wouldn't do it, so Bowyer got volunteered to R&D for Harvick's title hopes.

    RCR was cheating and got caught. They should move on already.

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  6. KLV.... I won't be visiting Foxsports anytime soon. The idiotic reader comments on NASCAR Yahoo are funnier and not as mean spirited.

    This Chase has turned upside down since last week. And, not in an unfamiliar way. SOS. Same ol' stuff.

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  7. Dwindy.... After seeing the tens of thousands of empty seats at Dover, it's not surprising that NASCAR didn't even issue a public warning to Harvick for his stunt.

    If the appeals board sticks to black and white rules enforcement RCR shouldn't have a snowball's chance. I'd say the public is 90-10 in favor of RCR, but the board should uphold NASCAR's ruling. RCR is hoping to get the points penalty reduced.

    If a football player's foot is 1/16" out of bounds.... he's still out of bounds!

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  8. Is this the NASCAR silly season or what?

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  9. Photogr... just when you think you've seen it all... someone uses a practice session to make a point. Maybe not such a bad idea?

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  11. Gene; the comments on yahoo tend to be funnier during the live race chat :P

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  12. Tez... I have yet to make it over there during a race. I'll have to check it. The comments after the stories are usually better than the stories are.

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