He did join the cars and take the green flag. Kyle Busch led the first lap On Lap 5, the #81 car was running slow down on the apron and there was fear that it would being out a caution. ESPN never did follow-up on why the car was running slow.
While they were at commercial (or returning to commercial which was interrupted by a lap of racing), Kertus Davis hit the wall and brought out the first caution. When they came back, we got to see maybe 30 seconds of pit stops and then they went back to commercials without any sort of follow-up on why Davis spun. By Lap 21, Kyle led every lap. He’d lead a lot of them.
Caution #2 came out while they were running their usual “commercial” programming. Dario Franchitti and Bryan Clauson got together with Dario taking a ride through the grass. We at east got to see a replay of it, so we knew what had happened to bring the caution out. They had a good shot of the #47 car sliding on pit road. On Lap 33, they went back to green flag racing with Busch once again leading. 8 laps later, we were back to the regular “commercial” programming.
There wasn’t a heck of a lot of side by side racing being shown. It looked like the usual single file racing that happens once they settled down after the restart. A puzzling statement was made by the Network Nitwits. “He’s (Jr’s) in his first year of driving these cars so things are a little bit different for him”. Say what? Didn’t Jr. race in the Busch series for several years before moving up to Cup and race off and on in the Busch series since then?
On lap 49, we got Caution #4 when teammates Brian Keselowski and Robert Richardson Jr. got together. Definitely not the kind of team work you want on the track. When they restarted on Lap 53, they were 4 wide going into Turn #1. Mr. Happy had the lead. The Booth Buffoons were quick with the excuse that the only reason Busch didn’t have the lead was because he spun his tires on the restart. Once things settled down a bit, you could see drivers going single file down the straights and spreading out through the corners running different lines. On Lap 57, Busch once again got the lead, but it wasn’t mentioned by the Booth Buffoons. Guess they were busy writing the next excuse in case Kyle messed up.
On Lap 64, it was back to the regular “commercial” programming with Kyle leading. When they came back, they finally mentioned Bobby Labonte and that he was running 10th. By Lap 74, he was up to 7th and the Booth Buffoons gave us a Top 10 rundown before going back to commercials on Lap 75. When they came back, we were up to Lap 82. They were discussing tires and went to Tim Brewer who gave a great explanation on how the teams can adjust both the regular tire and the inner liner and what effects the adjustments make.
On Lap 86, the first of the green flag pit stops came when Kasey Kahne hit the pits. He’d have to return though because of loose lug nuts and lost a lot of track position because of it. On the radio, Clint Bowyer was saying that the race was boring because the car wouldn’t turn. He ended up hitting the commitment cones entering the pits and got a pass through penalty.
We got up to Lap 93 and heard from that Carl Edwards had a possible engine problem. Then off to commercials yet again. While they were at commercial, something happened which involved Brad Coleman which brought out Caution #4. Marcos Ambrose had delayed making a pit stop and it proved to be a good move as he was able to pit under the caution. Since they were running under yellow, the Network Nitwits finally showed what happened to Coleman. He scraped the wall but nobody could figure out if it was because of a bad tire or if he was running in the marbles and got loose. But that’s what happens when you’re not a Buschwacker. No explanations needed or excuses made.
There was no mention of when the #81 car returned to the track and no mentions of when Cope, Chapman, Shepherd, Harmon, or Leik went to the garage. Kevin Lepage had started 33rd and moved up to 28th, but the only way you knew this was from watching the race ticker. There was a quick mention of Jason Keller and the team needing sponsorship and Jason Leffler’s performance and then back to commercials.
When they came back from commercial, it looked like it had settled down to single file racing on the track on Lap 140. Of course, with Faux King Brian’s dictates on what would be covered this season, you’d have thought that Kyle Busch was the only car on the track. On Lap 141, the Booth Buffoons piped in that Kyle might be having battery problems and you could hear the disappointment in their voices.
Caution #5 came out on Lap 142 when Brett Rowe spun and hit the wall. When they interviewed him after he came out of the infield care center, the first thing he did was thank God, the team, and then gave an explanation on what caused his wreck. The tires were worn out and he couldn’t hang onto it. Sometime between Lap 141 and Lap 142, Busch had switched to a back-up battery and you could literally hear the Network Nitwits give a sigh of relief.
With all the commercials that were being run and the score ticker running on the bottom of the screen, you had to wonder why ESPN had to keep running all the shameless promotions of their shows. It was as bad as TNT was last season during their brief hiccup on the racing schedule.
On Lap 170, Caution #6 came out when the right front tire blew on Kyle’s car and he hit the wall. You could almost hear the Booth Buffoons start crying. Something ESPN did that Fox didn’t bother with the week before was showing the damaged tires. After another round of commercials, they restarted with 20 to go. Jeff Burton had the lead with Matt Kenseth in second. Kenseth was slowly moving up and with 12 to go, they were running side by side. With 10 to go, Kenseth got the lead and started to pull away from Burton.
Just when it looked like Kenseth would get an easy win, Caution #7 came out with Jr. getting into Eric McClure causing him to spin and collecting Bryan Clauson. Because of the debris field, the race was red flagged with 5 laps to go.
Once things got cleaned up, they restarted with 3 to go. Apparently David Regan’s car didn’t get enough fuel on the restart and Jamie McMurray got into him trying to go around him. Regan’s tire came apart bringing out Caution #8.
We went to a GWC finish once this mess was cleaned up. Kenseth and Harvick got the jump on the rest of the field and were pulling away from Burton and Edwards. Kenseth was able to keep his lead and got the win. Surprisingly, ESPN must’ve been paying attention to some of the fan complaints and showed most of the cars crossing the finish line.
Bobby Labonte ended up finishing 5th, Brad Keselowski finished 6th, Mike Bliss who’s running full-time as a Busch regular finished 7th, Kahne
managed to recover from the pit stop error and
finished 8th, Leffler finished 9th, the Tasmanian
Devil finished 11th, Jason Keller (who needs
sponsorship) finished 14th, and my favorite
underdog Kevin Lepage finished 27th.
Next week it’s off to Bristol and Danny O’Quinn
will be back driving the #56 car for Mac Hill
Motorsports. Truex Jr., will be driving one of the
JR Motorsports cars. With Rookie laps being
eliminated this season, you can bet that there’s
probably going to be a lot of scrap metal
generated by the end of the race.
A lot of folks may not think of the Navy as having
land-based operations in Iraq, but they have the Sea Bees doing construction work there and Navy medics not only taking care of the Marines in Iraq but also the Iraqi civilians. So to those Navy personnel who are currently land-locked in Iraq, a big thanks for those of us back here for everything you’re doing and the sacrifices you and you’re families and friends are making.
Motherhood, Apple Pie & John Wayne,
Mad Mikie
Curmudgeon at Large
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