Motor Sports Weekly News

By: Drew Hierwarter

For someone who loves auto racing, there’s no such thing as a bad race. Just some that are better than others. Sunday’s NASCAR Nextel Cup event in Kansas was one of those that many of us, both on and off the track, would like to forget. Two rain delays totaling more than three hours, desperate drivers that caused several sloppy wrecks, and impending darkness, turned the “Lifelock 400” into the “Please, Can We Just Get This Over With 315”! I hope no first time race watchers were tuned in. They’ll never come back.

Things started to slide away from reality after the second rain delay just past the halfway point in the race. The track at Kansas has no lights and NASCAR officials were worried about going the entire race distance before it got too dark for safety. With the pressure of the Chase in everybody’s mind, and the drivers knowing that the race was shortened, they took chances that they otherwise would not. The resulting wrecks left 7 of the 12 drivers in the “Chase for the Championship” finishing lower than 29^th. Tony Stewart finished 33^rd and dropped from second to fourth, 117 points behind. Kyle Busch is now 136 points behind in 6^th. Matt Kenseth and Denny Hamlin fell to 11^th and 12^th in the standings, respectively, and more than 200 points behind leaders Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon. It was a long, tough day for championship contenders.

Oh yes, the finish. With four laps to go and the light rapidly fading, Juan Montoya’s car shredded a tire and scattered debris all over the track. Rather than try to clean it up and attempt a green-white-checkered finish, something that almost surely would’ve resulted in more wrecks. NASCAR decided enough was enough, threw the yellow flag and called it a race. As the cars slowly approached the finish line behind the pace car, leader Greg Biffle’s car began to slow and drop down onto the apron. Seemingly out of fuel, Biffle was passed by first Clint Bowyer and then Jimmie Johnson, and Casey Mears. The 16 car then pulled into the grass just past the finish line and Greg Biffle was, officially, declared the winner. Many people disagreed, but NASCAR’s decision was final. The policy NASCAR has always used is that the field is frozen the moment the yellow flag is displayed. Greg Biffle was the leader at the time the yellow was waved. Also, there is no passing under yellow flag conditions. Bowyer, Johnson, and Mears all violated the “no passing” rule. Greg Biffle is your winner, end of story. And thankfully, the end of the race.

Several times in this space I have talked about going out to your local short track. I would be remiss if I didn’t include some drag racing in that line of thinking. I spent this past weekend at the MoPar Thunder event at Bristol Dragway. MoPar Thunder, sponsored by Hensley Performance out of Knoxville, TN is, as the name implies, all for Chrysler products. Along with the expected Super Stock style Dusters, Darts, and Barracudas, one could also see every manner of street/strip Dodge, Plymouth, and Chrysler you can imagine. From stock PT Cruisers to a blown alcohol Pro Mod Barracuda. But the most unusual, and interesting just might have been the 1937 Simca with a turbocharged, electronically fuel injected, slant six engine. Many thanks to Wes Ramey and the crew at Bristol Dragway for making my experience thoroughly enjoyable and if you get the opportunity to go to a drag strip near you, I hope you take advantage of it.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 1st, 2007 at 8:23 am and is filed under Nextel Cup, NASCAR. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.