Bowles-Eye View: Mother Nature Plays Racing God – Victors & Victims From Pocono’s Sunny Ending
What a nice little assist Brad Keselowski got from Mother Nature, right?
What a nice little assist Brad Keselowski got from Mother Nature, right?
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.
Carl Edwards has finally broken his silence. After months of giving no indication whether he was staying with Roush Fenway Racing in 2012, he has re-signed with the team that brought him up onto the Sprint Cup scene in 2004. This doesn’t just affect Edwards, however; it has left an impact on many other figures across the Sprint Cup garage. With that said, here are the winners and losers of his contract extension.
*Winners*
*Jack Roush* – Undoubtedly the biggest winner in all of this. He has seen his team enjoy a renaissance year, with two of his drivers having legitimate shots at the title after enduring a couple of seasons of mediocrity. One of those drivers is Edwards, but had he decided to leave, it would have completely demoralized the superb season the Roush camp has been enjoying thus far. More importantly, he can feel better about sponsorship. He has been struggling to find full-time and even part-time sponsors for next year. While sponsor details have yet to be announced with the signing, there is no doubt it will attract sponsors that this will help him big time.
Did Menard make it into the Power Rankings after his unlikely Brickyard 400 win for himself and his family at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway?
Let this officially be the end of all the talk of Paul Menard, according to detractors, only being in NASCAR on account of his father’s money.
The Brickyard 400 sits behind only the Daytona 500 on most driver wish lists.
We’ve all heard about lame-duck drivers this season – but what about lame-duck crew chiefs?
Did You Notice? The wonderful decision by NASCAR Cup sponsor Sprint to bring back some type of million-dollar bonus competition for winning?
Read this week’s Power Rankings and see if your driver was eating lobster or wondering why his tire bead melted in Loudon.
Once again the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race came down to fuel mileage, Kyle Busch won the Nationwide race and the Truck race was the best.
Yep. Seems like just another day at the office for NASCAR Nation.
However, Busch would be too obvious of a choice for a “hot” driver, as would his fellow NASCAR winners this weekend, Ryan Newman and Matt Crafton. Congratulations to all three of them, but we’re going to take a look at some of the less obvious choices in this edition of Who’s Hot/Who’s Not.
Ryan Newman managed to clear Clint Bowyer on fresher tires following a lap 229 restart and never looked back, scoring his third career victory at Loudon.
Did the strength of Kyle Busch’s victory, pushing him ahead of Kevin Harvick in points, have him climbing to the top in our weekly Power Rankings?
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