I only caught part of the pre-race show and from what little I saw, I wasn’t very impressed. The bulk of the pre-race show was focused on the Buschwackers. Being able to compare ESPN’s coverage to Fox coverage this season is somewhat easy as the two are broadcasting the Cup and Cup Lite series on a normal weekend. Both coverage’s stink. Both follow King Brian’s coverage guidelines on what will be covered and who the cheerleading will be for. Fox’s best race so far was Bristol with DW having to keep his yap shut most of the race with an occasional croak here and there. I don’t think ESPN has had good coverage so far. But that’s nothing new.
I’ve got to give it to Bobby Hamilton Jr. for speaking his mind about the whole situation with the Buschwackers. Good to see somebody is stepping up and talking about it.
On Jayski, there was a blurp that ticket sales for Nashville were off by 14%. Well, if all those empty seats were 14%, I’d hate to see what 20% would’ve been like. I don’t know if this is a result of the economy, weather, folks not happy with Cup Lite, folks not happy with NA$CAR, or what. But there sure were a lot of empty seats and there was very little ESPN could do to not show them although they tried not to early on.
Sterling Marlin said his ride in the #1 car is a race by race deal. He doesn’t plan to run and full season as he’s busy with other things but wouldn’t mind running 10 races this season.
When they got around to the Invocation, it once again sounded like a commercial rather than a prayer. The National Anthem was so-so, with the singer trying to make it his own during parts of it. You could see the soldiers and sailors saluting, there was a great shot of Kertus Davis with his hand over his heart, but you didn’t see many other folks rendering the proper respects.
Since they didn’t bother showing qualifying, you had to wait til they gave an actual rundown on who was starting where. Kyle Busch was on the pole, Mike Bliss was beside him, and 7 of the Top 10 qualifiers were Busch regulars. Once the green flag dropped, Kyle Busch did like he’s done in the past and just pulled away to lead the first lap. And no sooner than the race had started than Crusty was cheerleading for his son and his cars. Things settled down quickly into single file racing as there wasn’t a real 2nd groove coming in this early. We were being shown 2-4 cars in the sots except for when they showed cars coming out of the corners. Then we got to see more cars, but couldn’t make out who they were.
Kelly Bires was having a good run early on with one of his best qualifying efforts and he was running in 2nd while Busch continued to pull away. We didn’t get very far into the race when the 1st caution came out on Lap 10. Brett Rowe’s #05 car was pouring out some serious smoke and most of the Network Nitwits jumped on the blown engine bandwagon while one correctly guessed it was an oil line that came loose. Then it was off to commercial programming since we had some racing action that had been shown. They interrupted the commercial programming to show less than a full caution lap and once again went back to commercial programming.
A common trend seems to be NA$CAR trying to promote the new name of the Cup Lite Series and hyping up Joey Logano in their commercials. When they came back on Lap 16, the oil was still being cleaned up from the track. Tim Brewer did a quick explanation on the oil tank saying that there were about 4 gallons of oil in the oil tank and that’s why it was taking so long for them to clean up.
Mike Bliss, who’d started 2nd, scraped the wall early on and was in and out of the pits for repairs and lost a lot of track position. Kertus Davis got the first Lucky Dog. Kyle Busch had led all the laps to this point. Since they were still cleaning up, it was a good time for them to plug the IRL race at Miami and the fact that 26 cars would be starting. When they restarted on Lap 22, Kyle Busch once again got the jump and pulled away. Of course, the cheerleading was turning into another full-blown Kyle Busch Love Fest like on the Atlanta weekend. Hard to believe there’s 43 drivers out there. We had a driver or two go behind the wall, but as usual, no mention of who or why. On Lap 32, it was back to the usual commercials.
While they were away at commercial, Clint Bowyer had gotten around Kelly Bires. Kyle Busch continued to lead as before. On Lap45, they gave a Top 10 run down. While that was great, I wanted to see where some of the underdogs were running, so I had to wait for the full-blown ticker to run. Sterling was running in 14th, Jason Keller was in 22nd, and Morgan Shepherd was in 33rd. Pretty good for Morgan. After having gone back to 42nd place for all the repairs on his car, Mike Bliss had moved up to 17th place. By Lap 50, only 29 cars were on the lead lap.
We got to see Kenny Wallace in his new ride getting lapped. They played some radio traffic from Sterling and he wasn’t real fond of the bump stops or coil binding. This lead to a very brief discussion on suspension set-ups. On Lap 59, the Booth Buffoons were talking about green flag pit stops with 25 cars on the lead lap. Kyle was definitely fast.
On Lap 60, The Tasmanian Devil decided to duck into the pits to start off the green flag pit stops when suddenly, out of the blue, Ms. Terry DeBris appeared causing Marcos to go a lap down. When they finally got into the pits, Bowyer got the lad off of pit road and then it was back to commercial. Luckily for Marcos, he got the Lucky Dog. They came back from commercial and restarted on Lap 64. It was a double file restart and both Bowyer and Busch lined up nose to tail and pulled away. Two laps latter, Busch got by Bowyer to once again take the lead. The Network Nitwits were going on about the great battle for 6th between Bires, Leicht, and Stremme and showed Bires and Leicht getting by Stremme.
On Lap 71, Bowyer once again got by Busch and took the lead. They didn’t bother showing the laps and cut away to more commercials. While they were at their usual commercial programming, Scott Wimmer got past The Beak. They showed it after they came back from commercial. By Lap 87, Bliss was back in the Top 10. Then it was off to commercial yet again. When they returned on Lap 94, they gave a very strange driver rundown on drivers who were in cars other than the normal Cup Lite drivers who drive them.
On Lap 10, Busch was once again back in the lead. Then it was off to commercial again and they returned on Lap 108 with Busch still leading. Up to this point, ESPN was doing a good job of not showing the empty grandstands. Hamlin hadn’t been mentioned much up to this point and then he finally got mentioned as he was part of King Brian’s Toyota cheerleading policy and running in 5th. We heard from the Network Nitwits that the track was getting tighter as more rubber was being laid down on the concrete and there were 19 cars on the lead lap.
Lap 122 saw the first of the green flag pit stops with The Beak, Hamlin, and Leffler pitting. One of the few good things about the broadcast were hearing the pit reporters saying they had taken 4 tires and 2 cans of fuel. Not the long, drawn-out, commercial plugs we hear from Jabber Jaws and Larry Mac every week. On Lap 125, Busch and Bowyer both hit the pits. On Lap 128, Mike Bliss spun at the entrance to pit road. No real reason why he pun and no follow ups on why either. Kyle Busch was back in the lead yet again. Brad Baker in the #37 car hit the Commitment Cone entering pit road and was penalized for it. Bliss was also penalized for a Commitment Cone violation. Then it returned to normal commercial programming around Lap 130. As many times as they showed the Teryx commercial, it got real old.
When they finally returned from commercial, we got an explanation why Bliss spun. Since Baker had knocked down the Commitment Cone, Bliss didn’t see where t was until the last second resulting in him spinning. On Lap 139, Bires car was running hot. It seems that on his last pit stop, they had placed some tape on the nose but in the wrong location. On the next lap, the oohing and awing over Kyle continued.
On Lap 145, they revealed that Cousin Carl was having a tough time adjusting to driving the cars with the restrictor plates. It takes him about 1/3 of the race to figure the car out. Good news for some of the Busch regulars, maybe. 3 laps later, it was back to commercial once more with Kyle still leading. On Lap 155, Caution #2 came out for some brake duct hose pieces that were on the track. Stremme got the Lucky Dog on this one and Denny Hamlin was having some radio problems, so the team gave him a new radio on the pit stop. No major position changes coming off of pit road and it was back to commercials. When they came back from commercial, the race restarted on Lap 159 with Busch leading, Bowyer in 2nd, and Wimmer in 3rd. On Lap 162, Kyle Busch spun down into the infield going on a wild cross country ride but no caution came out despite him carrying pieces on the infield with him. You could hear the wind being taken out of the sails of the Network Nitwits and their Kyle Busch Love Fest. Busch went into the pits on Lap 165 and ended up going 2 laps down. Wimmer was doing a good job of staying with Bowyer. By Lap 172, Bowyer had come up on Kyle Busch although Busch was racing him hard for being 2 laps down. Bowyer got around Busch and then it was off to commercials one more time. When they came back on Lap 180, the Booth Buffoons began speculating on gas mileage. Who could make it and who couldn’t and this led to the usual pit reporters asking who could and couldn’t among the leaders. Then even more commercial came at Lap 184. When they came back on Lap 190, Scott Wimmer was having a tough time getting around Busch and they played a radio transmission with Wimmer asking why wasn’t NA$CAR giving Busch the “move over” flag since he was 2 laps down and holding Wimmer up.
Once again, on Lap 195, it was back to commercials and they returned on Lap 200. Sometime while they were at commercial, Busch was given the “move over” flag and Wimmer had caught Bowyer. On Lap 204, Wimmer got around Bowyer and got the lead. The pit reporters were reporting that Bowyer was 3 laps short on fuel and The Beak was 8 laps short. You could hear Wimmer being told by his crew chief to save some fuel. On Lap 208, The Beak pitted for a splash and go and lost a lap. Leffler came in on Lap 209 for a splash and go.
On Lap 215, they were showing a shot with several cars in it and Marty Reid says “That’s David Wimmer on the left side of your screen”. David Wimmer? You mean we have another Wimmer racing? Wow!
There was a lot of speculation as to whether or not Bowyer and Wimmer were going to run out of fuel based on the earlier radio transmissions. But when it came down to Lap 225, the final lap, all doubts were removed when Wimmer crossed the finish line winning him that nice guitar and getting his first win in the #29 car. They showed shots of the crew jumping around then went off to commercials. When they came back, the car was in Victory Lane waiting for Wimmer to climb out per the TV contract. During the post race interview, Wimmer said that his dad had wanted one of those guitars and that the guitar would be going to his dad’s house. He also mentioned fellow Wisconsin driver Dick Trickle and wished him a speedy recovery from his heart surgery.
What had to be one of the dumber moves on ESPN’s part was having one of their reporters trying to get a comment out of Kyle Busch about the spin after the race. Kyle said “Stupid mistake on the driver’s part and that’s about it”. That obviously didn’t satisfy the reporter so when he asked again, Kyle said “That’s about it” and walked away. Either that reporter wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer or he hasn’t had many dealing with upset drivers in the past. I can’t wait for this same reporter to catch Smoke when he’s upset.
Bobby Hamilton Jr. was pretty happy with his
10th place finish. When they interviewed The
Beak, he definitely wasn’t happy with the poor
gas mileage and said so even though he was
trying to be nice about it. You could tell he was
disappointed. Brad Keselowski, Kelly Bires, and
Cale Gale were pretty pleased with their finishes.
5 of the Top 10 in points are Busch regulars and
Kyle Busch drops to 11th in the points.
The Busch regular drivers are off next weekend
and then head to Texas, while the Cup and
Truck drivers head to the “pretty paperclip“,
Martinsville. This should be a good test of the
tires since there will be a lot more stress on them trying to corner on a flat track in the Uni-Car.
And to the folks of HSV-2 Swift who are operating in Liberia with their Liberian counterparts and also training medical personnel and treating civilians there, thanks to you all for being ambassadors of good will. Compassion goes with being a good warrior.
Motherhood, Apple Pie, & John Wayne
Mad Mikie
Curmudgeon at Large
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