Hello, race fans. Welcome back to Couch Potato Tuesday, where race telecast criticism and praise is our goal. This past weekend, the Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series raced at Richmond International Raceway, and in the case of Sprint Cup, dealt with rain.
Before we start, there are two things I must note. ESPN confirmed Jamie Little will be back on pit road this weekend in Joliet. I’m happy to have Little back on the telecasts.
It’s time for the Chase! Aren’t you thrilled? Oh. Well, actually neither am I. The fact is the haze of summer has given way to …
On lap 313, Clint Bowyer managed to pass Ryan Newman and he never yielded that position the rest of the night.
It was a tough night for pit crews on Saturday. Several misjudged a rain forecast or the importance of fresh tires and left their drivers out under the last caution, while others pitted and hoped they could stretch their fuel to the end, which proved not to be the case for many. Chad Knaus did call his driver in, but unfortunately for Jimmie Johnson, Knaus was on the wrong radio channel and he didn’t get the message in time to get to pit road. But no pit strategy stung more than a costly pit-stop error by Kyle Busch’s team. A loose lugnut on a green-flag pit stop was most likely the deciding factor that kept Busch from the Chase as Jeff Gordon beat Busch by a slim three-point margin for the final Chase slot.
*With his win at Atlanta, Denny Hamlin is guaranteed at least a tie for the top spot in the Chase. Given that Hamlin is currently a distant seventh in points, should this be the case?*
Amy: Um, the words “hell, no” come to mind… it’s a massive slap in the face to the guys who have been the best drivers all year long.
Tom: Hamlin’s pulling a Tony Stewart 2011 as we speak. What an awful summer of being completely irrelevant, but that’s the way this format works — he deserves it based on the rules given to all the teams in February.
It’s Sunday. You flick on the TV and the NASCAR logo flows across the screen, usually with an aerial shot of this week’s location in …
A green-white-checker finish saw Denny Hamlin grab the lead and hold off Jeff Gordon to take his series leading fourth win of the season.
If not for a badly-timed tire problem for Jamie McMurray, Martin Truex Jr. wouldn’t be getting my shoutout — because he’d have won the race. Instead, Truex had to settle for fourth after a wild restart. Adding insult to injury, Truex, who has flown under the media’s radar all year long despite being a fixture in the top 10 in points, garnered relatively little television attention compared with the night’s other race leaders.
So we’re five days following Bristol and everybody is still atwitter about Tony Stewart going hammer-throw with his helmet at Matt Kenseth. While it was …
*After Bristol Motor Speedway made changes to the track over the summer, the track promoted racing closer to what fans saw prior to 2007. But did the track live up to the hype?*
Summer: Oh yeah. The helmet throw was enough for that to be a reality.
Kevin: I think it did. I wasn’t able to look away for both the Cup and Nationwide races, and in that regard I think the races were at least successful.
Mike N.: Closer to racing before the repave? No. Closer to before they put concrete down? Yes. It was different than we’ve seen there in the last 20 years. Prior to the concrete, they used to diamond the corners kind of like they did Saturday night. It was great racing.