had to start from the back of the field due to a transmission change.
When the green flag dropped, Jr. got the drop on his Hendrick teammate and lead the first lap. And like all the other races we’ve seen so far this season, whoever got the lead was able to pull away from everyone else. By Lap 21, Jr. was starting to lap the slower cars on the track. If there was any side by side racing going on, we sure didn’t see it at home. The “wonderful” Fox coverage was only showing shots of 1-3 cars at a time. One of the stranger sites on the track was seeing Robby Gordon’s car in Valvoline colors. I guess his being a satellite of GEM has some advantages.
By Lap 38, 23 cars had been lapped. And of course, old Jabber Jaws was up in the booth moaning and groaning in ecstasy as his Junebug was doing so well. Things were going too smoothly and too fast on the track. Caution #1 came out when Ms Terry DeBris made an appearance over in Turn #2. Apparently since it was Atlanta, she was dressed up as Scarlett O’Hara, but we didn’t get to see her. Funny how she keeps appearing in Turn #2 at different tracks.
Most everyone on the lead lap pitted. Kasey Kahne stayed out and led a lap by accident. His car jerked near the entrance to pit road and rather than hit the commitment cone, he dove back out onto the track. When Kasey did pit, he got nailed for driving too fast on pit road.
The green flag dropped again on Lap 43 and things went back to how they’d been before. Everything was going nice and smooth and they cut to their usual “commercial programming”, interrupted by a few laps of racing. When they came back, everything had settled down after the restart and from what they showed, it appeared like there was nothing but single file racing going on. Kyle Busch had slowly been working his way up and on Lap 60, he got the lead. When he did, old Jabber Jaws went into full blown cheerleading mode.
We finally got to see a split screen shot of some racing with Kyle Busch on one side and a battle for 13th showing Montoya per King Brian’s dictates regarding the race coverage. We also heard from the Booth Buffoons that Jr. had a 65 race winless streak. They should’ve said 65 points races winless streak as he did get a win during Speed Weeks in a non-points event.
On Lap 78, we got to see a good example of just how aero dependent the Uni-Car is when Jr. got behind Cousin Carl and took the air off of Carl’s rear end. His car was slipping and sliding around. This was also the start of green flag pit stops with Jamie McMurray hitting the pits first. Things once again were going too smooth and too fast and you knew something was going to happen and it did on Lap 85 when there was debris found in Turn #3 which they showed. It looked like some sort of bracket. We were down to 18 cars on the lead lap.
Once again, they cut to commercials and we got to see a full dose of the Allstate “cougars” chasing and fantasizing about Kasey Kahne. They back, dangerous, and more demented than ever. Thank God their fantasies didn’t include Kasey dancing in a thong. That would’ve been too much. But the season is still young.
They restarted on Lap 90 with a double file restart and once again, the lead car pulled away from the rest of the field. That clean air seems to be more important with this car than the old one. They were going 3-4 wide back in the pack.
By Lap 97, DW was cheerleading not only for Kyle, but also the rest of the Gibbs cars. By Lap 99, Bobby Labonte and moved up to 15th and Scott Riggs was in 17th, but you wouldn’t have known it because of the cheerleading that was going on. You had to watch the ticker to find that out. On the next lap, we got a split screen shot of the lead car and two cars racing nose to tail. You’d never know there were 43 cars on the track. They went to commercial once again showing the new AFLAC commercial. It was somewhat funny with the duck doing Cousin Carl’s back-flip and landing in the helmet. By Lap 110, the Network Nitwits made a “master of the obvious” observation that Jeff Gordon’s car wasn’t good on long runs. The cars being shown were running single file down the straights and fanning out to different grooves in the turns.
Caution #3 came out when Kahne lost traction, spun, and went into the grass on the front dogleg. Kenseth was the recipient of the Lucky Dog. Kyle Busch was still in the lead with Jr. running second. We heard some radio traffic from the #48 crew that there was no tire problems with their car. During the pit stops, Jeremy Mayfield was penalized for pitting outside the box. That and one other time would be the only time Jeremy would get mentioned during the race despite his performance last week. Tony Stewart was gaining positions thanks to the pit stops.
Once things got rolling again, on Lap 125 we heard the Network Nitwits saying how Kurt Busch was putting on some moves with Jeff Gordon and yet the shot they showed had Gordon passing Busch and slowly getting away from him. On Lap 129, Mr. Happy got by Jr. for 2nd. There were still 43 cars on the track at this point. On Lap 130, DW was showing some signs of fear in his voice when they said that Jr. might have a tire problem and was slowing down.
They cut to commercial once again and while at commercial, Clint Bowyer had gotten around Mr. Happy. When they came back, you could see that a lot of cars were extremely loose as they were slipping and sliding around the turns. On Lap 147, you could see Bowyer was slowly reeling in Kyle Busch. The next lap, we heard from the Booth Buffoons there as a great battle going on for 4th. Too bad we didn’t get to see the battle. On Lap 149, DW went into full panic mode as Kyle Busch hit the wall with the rear end of his car. Three laps later, Bowyer got the lead from Busch. We got to hear the Booth Buffoons give their interpretation of the radio traffic between Busch and his crew chief about the possibility that Kyle may have damaged the rear end housing and the crew chief calming him down.
Lap 163 would be the start of another round of green flag stops with Jimmie Johnson being the first one in. Mark Martin hit the pits and lost a lot of positions because of the long pit stop. Once everyone had pitted, Bowyer was still in the lead. On Lap 180, we got another master of the obvious statement from the Booth Buffoons that Johnson’s car was extremely loose when they showed his car sliding around coming out of the turn. On Lap 181, there were the first indications something was wrong with Denny Hamlin’s car when we heard he’d lost his power steering. The Booth Buffoons had to second guess it as a tire going down.
They showed Bowyer lapping Johnson and then went to commercial. I guess that didn’t follow Faux King Brian’s dictates too well as it didn’t show a Hendrick car in a very good light. Once they got back from commercial, they finally mentioned Bobby Labonte on Lap 197. I guess if you’re not a Chosen One, you’re lucky to get mentioned at all, even if you’re in the Top 10 or 15. The next lap, we got Caution #4 for debris in Turn #4 which they showed.
During the pit stops and caution laps, they mentioned that Robby Reiser was filling in as crew chief for Cousin Carl while Bob Osborne was on his 6 week “hiatus”. The radio traffic between the two was funny as they were calling each other Matt and Bob. Bobby Labonte picked up a spot on pit road moving him into 10th. When they restarted on Lap 204, the Network Nitwits decided to give Kasey Kahne the “Good Hands Award” since he brought out the only car related caution to that point. Kasey was 3 laps down when they awarded him. Reid Sorensen’s car was handling so badly they decided to write off the race and use it as a test session and changed out the shocks on it.
Kyle Busch was still leading the field and it looked like a repeat of the Busch race the day before. But would it finish the same? On Lap 210, Cousin Carl got around Bowyer for 2nd and by Lap 214, Cousin Carl was starting to run down Busch. At this point, good old Jabber Jaws was trying to so some damage control for the remarks made by TRD about Edwards getting “200 lbs of down force” because of the oil container lid being gone. DW said it was only 40-50 lbs. This raises two good questions though. Why is TRD testing cars in an illegal configuration and how does DW know the actual amount of down force generated by the oil container lid being removed?
Caution #5 came out while they were showing commercials. Elliott Sadler had hit the wall, but the Booth Buffoons couldn’t figure out why he did and didn’t bother showing a replay of it. When they restarted on Lap 100, Newman had some contact with Montoya and developed a bad tire rub causing him to pit and lose a lap. Back on the track, Jeff Gordon seemed to be using his short run configuration to move up and Larry Mac screamed “Here comes Big Daddy”. There’s only one Big Daddy. His first name is Ed and his last name is Roth. RIP Big Daddy. There were only 12 cars on the lead lap which says something about the speed of the race and handling problems a lot of teams were having. On Lap 232, we got Caution #6 when Elliott Sadler once again hit the wall. The car was way too loose in Turn #2. NA$CAR determined it was a Quickie Yellow since there was no debris.
They restarted on Lap 235 and we got the Hollyweird Motel putting in their 2 cents worth saying the Hendrick cars were struggling today with Gordon in 2nd and Johnson in 13th. Say What? Obviously they were snoozing when another Hendrick car was leading the race earlier. 2 laps later, Cousin Carl got by Jeff for 2nd and was going after Kyle Busch. On Lap 240, Cousin Carl got by Kyle and started pulling away from him.
One thing they showed was Gordon having to get by Montoya and Montoya fighting him even though Montoya was a lap down. It’s funny how in the past, DW has said that cars not on the lead lap should allow the lead lap cars to go by them and not hold them up and yet he remained surprisingly quiet on this occasion. I guess he can’t say anything bad about the Diversity Program’s poster boy per Faux King Brian’s race coverage dictates.
On Lap 246, they returned to their “commercial programming” and returned on Lap 252 with Cousin Carl holding a 5 second lead. There were only 13 cars on the lead lap and we got another mention of Bobby Labonte. On Lap 259, Cousin Carl lapped Jimmie Johnson. Two laps later, Caution #7 came out when Elliott Sadler once again spun, went down the track, and hit the inside retaining wall. That was 3 cautions in a row brought out by Elliott. Luckily, they decided to put an end to their bad day and parked the car. This was the first car out of the race.
They went off to commercial once again and restarted on Lap 268 with Cousin Carl and Kyle Busch fighting for the lead. The next lap, Cousin Carl started to pull away once again. The Booth Buffoons did some speculating and checked in with the pit road reporters and found out that none of the Top 5 cars could make it to the end on fuel.
On Lap 274, Cousin Carl’s car started smoking really bad and he went into the pits. His day was over as his engine “lunched out“. The Network Nitwits were speculating that it was oil leaking from a valve cover. On Lap 278, we got to hear some radio traffic between Tony Eury Jr. and Dale Jr. Larry Mac said Eury Jr, was being a little bit of a cheerleader for Jr. Uh Larry, what do you call what you and DW do in the booth every race weekend?
Caution #8 came out while they were at yet again more commercials. It was for fluid on the track that had been dropped by Cousin Carl. We got to see a few pit stops. Biffle moved up to 3rd and Stewart moved up to 2nd. Then back to commercials. When they got back from commercials, the race restarted on Lap 288. Busch still had the lead and pulled away from his teammate. I’m not sure why they played it, but we heard a radio transmission that said “The 11 just got the finger”. We never got to see what caused that but according to the Booth Buffoons, Hamlin had cut across the nose of Johnson.
We got a split screen of Biffle and Gordon battling and Kenseth and Johnson battling then suddenly it went single screen went back to the leader. This coverage of 1-3 cars is great isn’t it? On Lap 302, Biffle passed Jr. for 3rd. 4 laps later, Biffle caught Stewart and got by him on Lap 309. The Network Nitwits mentioned a battle between Gordon and Bowyer but we were lucky if we saw about 2 seconds of it. Kyle had been pulling away until he got slowed down by 2 of the slowest Toyotas on the track, both belonging to Mikey. Matter of fact, one was Mikey and the other was DJ.
On Lap 324, Stewart passed Biffle to get 2nd from him. We’d find out after the race that Biffle used up his tires battling with Stewart so he couldn’t catch Busch. It was a 1-2 finish for Joe Gibbs Racing, but we didn’t really get to see it as Fox pulled an ESPN and showed the pit crew of the #18 car celebrating.
You’d think the cheerleading was over, but it continued on as the Booth Buffoons went into overdrive saying that Kyle was the youngest Sprint Cup driver to win at Atlanta, Toyota‘s first win, etc etc etc. This is true. The youngest Winston Cup driver to win at Atlanta will always be Jeff Gordon. Kyle will be the youngest Sprint Cup driver to win there unless Joey Logano wins there soon. Kyle now has two first in his career. He won the very first race with the Uni-Car and got the very first win for Toyota.
It was a bit funny how they showed a picture of
the last foreign car to win a NA$CAR race before
the race was over. Somehow, you get the feeling
they knew who was going to win before the finish
even though a blown tire, engine, or wreck
could’ve happened. Toyota has won it’s first Cup
race and you can bet that DW will be shilling and
cheerleading worse than he ever has. Last year
and early this year, the Network Nitwits kept
saying that Toyota was a foreign owned
manufacturer and after the win, they said it was
a foreign manufacturer. Which is it fellows?
During a post-race interview right after Tony had
gotten out of the car, Tony blasted the tires and
Badyear. And he wasn’t the only one who would either. But Larry Mac and Jeff Hambone were quick to play the “excuse makers” and made excuses for the tires’ poor performance.
Next race is Bristol and the weather doesn’t look too bad so far, but you know how fast the weather can change. Hopefully, it won’t be a repeat of last Fall’s race which was judged to be one heck of a snooze-fest by fans at the track and at home. I’ll be heading to Bristol Saturday for the wedding of my race buddy Tracy. Hopefully, that won’t be the only exciting event of the weekend.
And I want to send a big thank you to the reservist, their families, and friends of the 815th Airlift Squadron who recently deployed from Keesler AFB to Southwest Asia in support of the operations of the 403rd Wing’s C-130’s. Military reservists make a sacrifice that not many folks can appreciate, but we do appreciate them doing what they do.
Motherhood, Apple Pie, & John Wayne
Mad Mikie
Curmudgeon at Large
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