Saturday, April 30, 2011

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly -- Crown Royal presents the Matthew & Daniel Hansen 400

This week, the Crappafoni Pictures crew is in Richmond to bring you this week's The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, mid-South style, complete with BBQ and washed down with NOS Energy drink. Enjoy!

THE GOOD

Kyle Busch: he gets first billing as the race winner. He was stout, leading 235 laps and was stellar on the restarts. With the win, he puts himself in position to make the Chase, as he won his second race of the season. Good job Kyle!

Denny Hamlin: he sorely needed this good run. He led 33 laps en route to the runner up finish. Home cooking is what he needed and it tasted sweet.

Kasey Kahne: like Hamlin, he sorely needed a good run, and he got it. Now if he can put together a couple of wins, he could make the Chase as a wild-card.

David Ragan: great run by the UPS Ford tonight. The fourth place finish was his first top 5 finish in 2 1/2 years. I think he's putting together a very good season and a win isn't too far away.

Carl Edwards: he leaves Richmond still in the points lead as a result of his top 5 finish.

Honorable Mention: the rest of the lead lap finishers.

THE BAD

JJ Yeley: he was the first start and parker, running 38 laps and declaring himself done for the day.

THE UGLY

Juan Pablo Montoya/Ryan Newman: they met up on more than one occasion. Newman got loose and got into him the first time, and Montoya got payback.

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

10 comments:

CR_Racing said...

Well, Jon, I don't know what you saw. But i didn't see Newman "getting loose". I saw JPM moving up into Ryan's lane without a "clear" from Juan's spotter. Then the 2nd incident was pure unadulterated intent to wreck, on JPM's part. I Like Juan, but I thought it was uncalled for.

CR_Racing said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
CR_Racing said...

That's odd... two posts for the price of one! lol

Gene Haddock said...

I think Juan did get loose because he was going a lot slower than Newman when he pulled up in front of Newman. I doubt his spotter (or Ryan) expected him to do that and wasn't even thinking of clearing him.
Just a racing deal until JPM overreacted. Probably pissed because he won the pole and expected a great finish.

jon_464 said...

CR, I just know they made contact. It appeared Newman went up the track and Montoya was there. Purely UNINTENTIONAL on Newman's part. But I agree with you re Montoya. He wrecked Newman with bad intentions.

Gene, I've noticed since Watkins Glen 2007 that, if Montoya is wrecked, he'll get payback later.

jmayer1843 said...

The Newman/Montoya battle is an intriguing one. These are two of the drivers you would least expect to back down at any time, and now they get to go at each other... until someone ends up on probation.

tezgm99 said...

bad - NASCAR for not pinging Kenseth after he clearly changed lanes before the line on a restart....considering they robbed David Ragan at Daytona, this was the most ridiculous non-call this year and makes a complete mockery of the rules, in any sport.

Dwindy1 said...

jon I just don't get the feeling that you're too excited about the outcome of this race (Like you're not hyper-ventilating! lol)...

Sorry I couldn't watch the whole race but from what I'm seeing and hearing it was pretty mellow with the exception of the JPM / Newman magic moments...

I'd give Montoya an ugly for skipping out after the race while Newman was saying on the radio he would be looking for Juan after the checkered flew... I guess it was just racin' in the eyes of NASCAR... No fines or probationary action.

Thanks jon!

jon_464 said...

JM, it's like two alpha male elephants going for the same territory; neither one will back down. I see it continuing this year, and payback's coming.

Tez, Kenseth should have been black-flagged for that. Just goes to show that the rules were written on an Etch-a-Sketch.

Dwindy--the only thing that was interesting about the race was the Newman/Montoya skirmish. When you have a guy leading 3/4 of the laps in the race and checking out each time he leads, it's a snoozer. Only a handful of cars finished on the lead lap. You didn't miss too much, other than Newman/Montoya.

klvalus said...

Kurt and Truex were in fine form on the radio too. Not surprising for Kurt but to hear Martin lose it and fire everyone was kinda amusing.

Race was a snoozer for sure...ah well, cant win em all!