This week, the Crappafoni Pictures crew is in the nation's heartland, Kansas, for this week's steamy The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, Kansas City BBQ-style, complete with ribs and beef as far as the eye can see, all the fixin's you can eat, and washed down with PLENTY of Miller Lite. (Drink responsibly.)
THE GOOD
Brad Keselowski: as this week's winner, he gets this spot. Like last week with Kevin Harvick winning a fuel mileage race, this week's race came down to fuel mileage. Kes began conserving fuel towards the end of the race when his spotter told him Dale Earnhardt Jr's lap times were falling off. He conserved enough to do a burnout! He now sits 21st in the standings. Good job Bad Brad!!!
Dale Earnhardt Jr: THIS time he DIDN'T run out of gas! But he was also in fuel conservation mode. (I'd have LOVED to see a caution come out with three laps to go or so, and have a green-white-checkered finish.) For the second straight week, he finishes second, continuing his streak of solid runs. Had he led a lap, you'd have heard the crowd!
Denny Hamlin: the 11 team is finally starting to put together a series of solid runs. After an early season slump, Hamlin is edging closer to that first win of the season. He'll get a win or two to quiet the doubters. He led 34 laps en route to a solid third place run.
Jeff Gordon: Big Daddy has had good, solid cars this year, like he did today, but only one win to show for it. He was in the top 10 for pretty much the whole race. A very solid, workmanlike run. But IMO he needs at least one more win to lock up a wild-card spot in the Chase.
Carl Edwards: early on, he had a stout car. But midway, he fell back, almost out of the top 20. But towards the end of the race, the 99 car came to life. Kudos also go out to the Aflac crew for consistently good pit stops that gained him track position. He led 29 laps en route to finishing fourth and keeping his points lead. (Could he be this year's Kevin Harvick, where he keeps the points lead all the way through to the Chase but loses it then and doesn't get it back?)
Kurt Busch: the Double Deuce led the most laps in the race but was the victim of a bad pit stop towards the end of the race. On the next to last green flag stop, the gas man did not completely fill up the tank, forcing him to come in earlier than planned, costing him track position. He did have a stout car and I can see him in Victory Lane sooner rather than later.
Tony Stewart: this is the time of year when Smoke heats up. And he's starting to. He led 20 laps in the race en route to finishing 8th. He'll be good for a couple of wins prior to the Chase.
Honorable Mention: Matt Kenseth, Jimmie Johnson, and Greg Biffle.
THE BAD
Joe Nemechek: he is a former winner at Kansas. Unfortunately for Joe, he drew the short stick at the start and parkers' meeting in the Todd Bodine Meeting Room.
AJ Allmendinger: he was running the iconic STP paint scheme for today's race. Where was AJ? He was a lap down for much of the race and got very little face time, considering the strong runs he and teammate Marcos Ambrose had last week.
Jeff Burton: IMO the pressure is growing on the 31 team to perform. With Harvick running like a championship caliber driver, Bowyer being strong, and Menard improving week by week, he's really feeling the pressure. He has good runs but little mistakes or getting caught up in someone else's mess late in races end up costing him. Today, the 31 team missed on the setup and played catch-up the whole race.
NASCAR: for threatening to throw the book at Richard Childress for his altercation with Kyle Busch after the Truck Series race yesterday. Kyle started the whole mess when he bumped RCR driver Joey Coulter (he drives the #22 RCR Chevrolet Silverado) AFTER THE CHECKERED FLAG. Coulter was minding his own business, and since NASCAR won't DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT, except LOOK THE OTHER WAY, RC took matters into his own hands. I am frustrated at the fact NASCAR looked the other way on something as egregious as one driver nearly punting another driver AFTER the checkered flag. Yes, it's "boys have at it" but NOT at the expense of endangering another driver and adding an undue expense of repairing the truck to another team. Should a penalty be imposed on Childress? A minimal one, perhaps a fine but no points taken away.
Fox Sports' coverage: this merits a Bad because they asked Kyle Busch puffball questions. MY first question would have been: WHAT WERE YOU THINKING AFTER THE CHECKERED FLAG IN YESTERDAY'S RACE?
THE UGLY
None this week.
Those are my nominees for the race. Feel free to come in with yours!
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5 comments:
Sorry for the all caps. The injustice of it all frustrates me. Frankly, I'm PISSED.
you can't take points away but I suspect RC will get a rather large fine...we can't have team owners going around thumping the daylights out of drivers not employed by them without penalty.
can I give a 'stupid' to the fool who thought it would be a good idea to run onto the track where an F1 car was doing a demonstration? Youtube 'Buemi fan F1' to see what I'm on about.
Here in the real world, civilized businessmen don't go around "taking matters into their own hands". Find the vid of KB and Joey's 'altercation' on the cool down lap on youtube, because I don't think you saw it. Kyle never touched the 22 truck. He rode alongside of it, gesturing or having a discussion, the 22 jerked down away from the 18 suddenly like he didn't want to hear anymore of it. Now, after RC's overreaction, Coulter can't say anything to make his boss look bad.
Tez, RC was fined $150K and put on probation until December 31. Kyle should have also had his probation extended until the end of the year for that cheap shot on Joey Coulter's truck after the race.
Gene, Kyle was warned REPEATEDLY by RC. Obviously he chose to ignore the warnings and test the man and he failed. RC doesn't just go off without thinking of the consequences. He thought of the consequences and wanted to send his own message. You cannot deny that Kyle's post-race bump on Coulter WASN'T intentional, because it was. And obviously that message resonated because other shops are kicking in and paying the fine for Childress. Even FANS are pitching in. (As an aside, the truck that Coulter ran at Kansas is also scheduled to run at Texas this weekend, but now thanks to Busch's shenanigans, it has to spend a lot more extra time in the fabrication shop and Coulter may have to run a new truck.)
Heartbreak city for me on Sunday with both Kurt and Junyer being so close to wins but glad for my Miller Lite buds despite the weenie that drives it!
Gonna have to agree to disagree on the RC/Kyle incident. Can't really get behind RC sucker punching Kyle when Kyle cannot fight back. RC was opportunistic with his timing me thinks and would probably happily pay 50x the fine to do it again. Just cuz others hate Kyle doesn't make the violent attack right.
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