This week, the Crappafoni Pictures crew is in the hills of New Hampshire to bring you this week's edition of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. Served with a side of hot, steaming New England clam chowder and iced coffee. Enjoy!
THE GOOD
Joey Logano: as the race winner, he automatically gets first billing. I knew I'd be putting him in this spot sometime! Some will say the win was tainted; I say not. A win is a win, however it comes. At 19, he becomes the youngest winner in Sprint Cup history, eclipsing teammate Kyle Busch's record. He and crew chief Greg Zipadelli took a HUGE gamble by keeping Logano out during the caution for rain. But with a steady and persistent rain, the gamble paid off. Congratulations on that first win!!
Jeff Gordon: he had a strong car throughout the race and led 65 laps. Unfortunately, he got bit by the rain.
Kurt Busch: like Gordon, he had a strong car and hung out in the top 5 for much of the race. He led 27 laps en route to a third place finish.
David Reutimann: although the Franchise didn't lead a lap, he was the beneficiary of the rain. He would have had to pit before the scheduled end of the race. Finishing fourth kept him within striking distance of Juan Pablo Montoya, who is currently 12th in the points.
Tony Stewart: it looked like Smoke was going to get his second win of the season, but a huge mistake by his front tire changer on the final pit stop doomed his chances. He led 40 laps en route to a fifth place finish.
Honorable Mention: Brad Keselowski, Kyle Busch, Sam Hornish Jr., Jimmie Johnson, Kasey Kahne, and Casey Mears.
THE BAD
TNT's Race Coverage: TOO MANY COMMERCIALS! And for too long a time! About half the race was interrupted by commercials! Seemed like every time they went to a commercial, a caution came out.
Start and Parkers: you people know who you are. It's a bane on NASCAR. I've LONG been an advocate of establishing a MINIMUM COMPLETED lap requirement of 25% of the scheduled number of laps. In this case, it's completing 75 laps. If you don't complete the minimum requirements, you don't get paid, and you don't get your points. The exception would be being involved in an accident NOT of your doing.
THE UGLY
The Big One: I thought the Big One was reserved for Talladega and Daytona. Apparently Mr. Big One decided to attend the race at the last minute. On Lap 174, he made his presence felt in the form of a multi-car wreck that took out SEVERAL good cars, among them THREE RCR cars (Kevin Harvick, Jeff Burton, and Casey Mears, although Mears only suffered cosmetic damage. Martin Truex Jr. was another of the casualties and his car suffered severe damage.)
Weather: rain halted the proceedings with 28 laps to go. One good that came out of it: Joey Logano winning his first Cup race.
Those are my nominations for the race. Feel free to come in with yours!
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8 comments:
Katie is imposing a one race voodoo penalty on Kurt. His remarks during his post race press conference concerning Joey were just a bit unsportsman like.
I didn't catch Kurt's remarks in the post-race press conference. But he should have known better--he won this race last year in the same exact way.
What did Kurt say? I'll have to go listen...
Good GBU Jon as usual!
I was impressed with Hornish and Junior (!finally!) today and would have preferred to see this one finish under green just to see those top 5 guys battle it out.
BTW -- I dont think that was JJ's payback...couldda been maybe...
It's up now on NASCAR.com. Here's the link
http://www.nascar.com/video/cup/2009/06/28/cup.new.presspass.busch.nascar/index.html
Yup, just watched it..
I dunno, I think he was disappointed in not being able to race for the win, happier Joey got the 10 points than Gordon and I think he was truly sad Joey took Kyle's youngest win record away but he said many times he was on the other side of the deal before winning a rain race (for which he got blasted for as well...)
More his tone than what he said I guess.
I agree that a lot of it was disappointment but I thought the "Kyle earned his win" comment was a just a tad over the line.
Junior ran well, 2nd once, passed Kasey Kahne, but did his spinning his tires cause the big one?
Kristen, thanks! I'd have loved to see the race go green the rest of the way as well!
Beverly, in my opinion it was the cause of the big wreck. Truex Jr checked up, Kyle Busch plowed into him, and The Big One started from there.
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