Sunday, February 27, 2011

The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly -- 2011 Subway Fresh Fit 500

This week's edition of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly comes right at you from the Valley of the Sun. GBU is served up desert-style, with plenty of southwestern spicy flavor, washed down with plenty of Pepsi and Pepsi Max. Enjoy!

THE GOOD

Jeff Gordon: he gets first slot as this week's race winner. What a way to break a 66-race winless streak! Gordon led the most laps, even after suffering damage due to a wreck on lap 60. He passed Kyle Busch with eight laps to go and cruised to his 83rd career win, tying Cale Yarborough on the all-time wins list. With Alan Gustafson as his crew chief, I can see a few more wins in Gordon's season, maybe another championship before he retires. Good job Jeff!

Kyle Busch: he had a GREAT weekend. Winner of the truck race on Friday night. Led EVERY lap in the Nationwide Series race last night. Finished second today. He leaves Phoenix with a three-point lead over older brother Kurt. It's the first time family has been 1-2 in the points standings since after the 1988 Daytona 500, when Davey (son) and Bobby Allison (father) were in the top 2 in the points.

Jimmie Johnson: he basically made chicken salad out of chicken(bleep). He had a HORRIBLE car all throughout the weekend. He struggled to get any speed in qualifying, struggled with it in practice, and struggled at the beginning of the race. But what helped is that he was able to escape two major crashes that affected over half the field. Today, he was more lucky than good, but his car got better as the race went on. After crashing at Daytona and leaving there with a bad finish, he gets a much-needed top 3 finish. Phoenix was the medicine the 48 team needed.

Kevin Harvick: he got affected by the first big wreck on lap 60 when Carl Edwards and Kyle Busch made contact. Harvick checked up to avoid the carnage when he was bumped from behind by Mark Martin, sending Harvick spinning. There was some damage to Harvick's rear bumpers, but not enough to adversely affect the car and he was able to stay on the lead lap. Then right after the restart, The Big One hit when Matt Kenseth flat-out wrecked Brian Vickers, sending him sideways. (Ya think there's going to be payback down the road? I think so.) Harvick avoided the carnage by stopping while the carnage was taking place. (He was at the rear of the field at the time.) Happy rallied to a fourth-place finish, a MUCH needed top 5 after the worst showing of his career last week.

Ryan Newman: he was strong in the Tornados paint scheme again at Phoenix. (Yaaay Dinuba, CA--where the parent company of Tornados is located!) Newman led seven laps en route to a fifth-place finish.

Tony Stewart: Smoke was stout for most of the race, and for awhile, he was the car to beat. But on the final pit stop he took on two tires and gambled on track position. Two tires wasn't the way to go, unlike last year, when Newman gambled and won. Smoke went backwards in a hurry. It's easy to second guess him now, but it's better to roll the dice now and fail than to roll the dice at Richmond and miss out on the Chase entirely as a result of a failed gamble. I thought it was a gutsy call myself. He gambled and lost. Simple as that. Still, a top 10 is good.

Kurt Busch: like Smoke, the Double Deuce was stout, particularly in the first half of the race. He was on the point for 31 laps total. Although he fell off a bit late, he was still strong enough to finish in the top 10.

Honorable Mention: Kasey Kahne, AJ Allmendinger, and Dale Earnhardt Jr.

THE BAD

Joe Nemechek: he was the first start and parker, declaring himself done after running just 22 laps.

Dave Blaney: he was the second start and parker, turning five more laps than Nemechek.

Matt Kenseth: it isn't often that I put a lead lap car in this category. But he goes here because he caused the Big One by wrecking Brian Vickers and cutting his tire in the process. As soon as he did his damage to Vickers' #83 Red Bull Toyota, he drove off while cars were wrecking behind him. Understandably, Vickers wasn't too happy with Kenseth and hinted at payback down the road.

THE UGLY

The two wrecks: these two wrecks affected more than half the field, with the Big One causing a red flag to be thrown for 15 minutes for track cleanup. Carl Edwards was affected the most, because he had to go behind the wall for a whole new front end. A sub-Good goes to Edwards for returning to the track in 39th position and gaining 11 positions to finish 28th. (IF Edwards does win the championship, he can point to this race where he won it by gaining all those positions.)

Those are my nominees for the week. Feel free to come in with yours!

7 comments:

Dwindy1 said...

Hey jon!

I think you pretty much nailed it although I got the impression Kyle was trying to payback Ryan Newman, missed and nailed Edwards! I know he was sure sorry all over the place after the fact and didn't want to get near Carl late in the race... Maybe that's reinforcement for your "Good" rating... Maybe not! LOL

Thanks jon!

jon_464 said...

Hey Dwindy! Kyle had a great weekend, and I probably would have put him in the Good category anyway or at the very least, honorable mention. I don't blame him for wanting to get near Carl because it would have been payback time!

Gene Haddock said...

Hey, send us some of those free Tornados samples you're pushing. LOL

I'll give Kenseth the benefit of the doubt. A lot of drivers were running out of room at PIR. Just saw the view from behind Matt and B Vick and it looked like just hard racing. Matt's built up enough good will to get a mully on this one.

jon_464 said...

Gene, LOL re the Tornados samples! As far as Kenseth, yes he has built up a lot of good will over the years. My take is that he caused the accident, but it was unintentional--just a "racing incident." Kenseth doesn't go out of his way to wreck someone. He's one of the cleanest drivers on the circuit. He might get a mully on this one from Vickers. At the very least, Vickers was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

klvalus said...

Gotta say those Tornados are a little spicy! They were giving out free samples at Daytona and I grabbed a few. Yum!

The only ugly I'd add is DW in the broadcast booth - Gene is right he is the master of the obvious yet almost always wrong about what he says. Has he gotten worse lately? I dont remember him being this annoying...

storkjrc said...

Nice rundown jon. I don't think Kyle was trying to hit Newman. In my opinion, he ran up too high when Newman went underneath. You could see just before the lurch move that Kyle's Rt rear brush the outside wall. I think if Carl would not have been there, Kyle would have spun and got collected. As it was, the 99 kept the 18 from spinning and the rest is history. I got from the post race that Kyle really was apologetic that it happened, especially after he and Carl ran so clean on Sat.

jon_464 said...

Hey Kristen! Glad you enjoyed those Tornados samples! They're made by Ruiz Foods out of Dinuba, CA (about 45 minutes from me). As far as DW, hopefully he'll at least tone down the bleating! I think Fox needs someone that has some gutsy views that is not afraid to call out NASCAR when and if it's necessary.

storkjc, thanks. Kyle was profusely apologetic--it was entirely an accident. Unfortunately for Carl, it cost him a chance to win.