Holding a Pretty Wheel: Wildcard Doesn’t Make Chase Exciting, It Makes it Worse
The Chase was contrived before. With the addition of the wildcard, it’s contrived and cheap.
The Chase was contrived before. With the addition of the wildcard, it’s contrived and cheap.
Joey Logano was so close to victory he could smell it, and it smelled a lot like rain on a humid summer day. Unfortunately for Logano, who had grabbed his third career pole on Saturday, the rains let up, the race ran its complete distance, and the third-year driver faded to a disappointing 26th. For Logano, who is breathing a sigh of relief now that Edwards is no longer a threat for his ride, Silly Season isn’t quite over until other potential replacements like Clint Bowyer, Brian Vickers and Mark Martin have contracts somewhere else. Good finishes still have extra importance for the No. 20 right now.
Racing is a sport of emotion. Passion runs deep, emotion often runs deeper, feelings get hurt, egos get bruised. That’s as old as the sport, and hopefully it will never change.
However, there is a fine line between racing passionately and racing without scruples. It’s a line that drivers will sometimes cross unintentionally in the heat of battle, and when they apologize and move on, can occasionally be forgiven for. But it seems like that line is being crossed quite often lately, without remorse or consequence. And NASCAR not only allows it, it seems that at times, when it suits their purposes, they condone it.
The line has a name. It’s called sportsmanship.
Paul Menard’s Brickyard win means that Brad Keselowski will likely be left in the cold unless he can catch another win.
Somehow, the fall of the Southern 500 and the ride of the Brickyard 400 manage to encapsulate all that is wrong with today’s NASCAR in one package.
Sonoma was actually planned to be a start-and-park, so we were going there with intentions of qualifying the best we could, running a few laps …
When NASCAR stripped the win from Ryan Newman after an illegal carburetor spacer was found on his modified, my first reaction was, wait, WTF?
For Paul Wolfe, the transition to crew chief started behind the wheel.
Frontstretch’s Amy Henderson sat down with Trevor Bayne to talk racing and how a 15-year-old on his own has turned into a champion at age 20.
Jimmie Johnson finished fifth, wondering what might have been if he’d had the closing laps to race for the win instead of to recover at Loudon.
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