by Mike Maruska
4/27/2008
Halfway through Sunday’s race, Tony Stewart and Denny Hamlin were leading the pack, pulling away with ease from everyone else. Kyle Busch, a lap down from an earlier pit road problem, was hanging with the lead pack, displaying an obviously fast car. At that point, it would have been easy to pick one of the three Joe Gibbs Racing cars out of a hat because they were all so strong. In the end it was Busch who found himself on the point at the right time. It took a few hairy moments to get there, including an audacious, yet successful block on Jeff Gordon as Gordon attempted to plow by on the outside. It’s not a total surprise that Busch won, he’s capable of winning on any weekend. Given the race he had and his Cup history at the track, it wasn’t the most obvious win.
In his six previous Cup starts at Talladega, Busch had four DNF’s and only one finish (11th in 2006) that was better than 32nd. He also has two DNF’s in the Busch/Nationwide Series. His 90.8 driver rating is the lowest of any winner this year. In fact no winning driver had a rating lower than 100 until Sunday. When things are going your way, and Busch is living a charmed life right now, everything just falls into place (usually first place).
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Race fans, it’s time to recognize that April and May represent the best stretch of racing there is on the Sprint Cup tour. Phoenix, Talladega, Richmond, Darlington and Lowe’s represent five completely different tracks with one common tie: great racing. Tight, competitive racing, incredible finishes, historic venues, night races, and aside from a road course, a pretty good cross-section of the circuit.
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I listened to part of the race on the radio in my truck. Listening to a restrictor plate race made me want to get behind another car and draft. Does that happen to anyone else?
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Some notable runs for David Stremme, Paul Menard and Joe Nemechek. Stremme subbed for the injured Dario Franchitti and nearly pulled off a top five result for the fledging #40 car. It wasn’t just a nice run for Stremme, but a professional move to accept driving for the team that let him go last year.
It’s disappointing, but I had fun today. We ran well. There’s not much we can do. I ended up in a bad position at the end; I was left hanging out of the draft. When everything started, I had no place to go. Considering everything, we were there at the end with a chance for a good finish.
Menard ran in the top ten for the majority of the day, leading 3 laps before getting bumped out of the way by Juan Pablo Montoya. Menard made an impressive save to not hit anything while sliding through the infield and actually rallied to finish 12th.
We ran up front for most of the day and even thought we got turned by Montoya near the end, we still managed to fight our way back to 12th, which is awesome.
The surprise of the weekend may have been Nemechek winning the pole for Furniture Row Racing. He was also in a nice position near the end before getting collected in the final lap crash.
After taking the white flag, I was looking for a top-10 finish. But then came the wreck. I thought I had it missed, but at the last second the No. 48 (Jimmie Johnson) came across my hood. Yeah, we’re a little frustrated right now, but looking at the big picture it was a solid weekend for the Furniture Row Racing team. We qualified on the pole and had a solid performance in the race.
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Dale Earnhardt Jr had another strong run, but no win. Now he goes to the site of his last win 71 races ago. He has won the last two spring Richmond races in even years which means, nothing aside from he usually runs well at the track.
A few questions to ponder this week: Is there a better two month stretch of racing? How good could Juan Pablo Montoya be with better cars? Matt Kenseth sits 19th in the points, will he make the Chase? Who will win a race first among Dale Earnhardt Jr, Tony Stewart or Jeff Gordon? Have you entered the 50 years of Daytona 500 DVD contest yet? Why not?
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