This week, the Crappafoni Pictures crew is somewhere between Louisville and The Natti aka Cincinnati for this week's The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, thoroughbred-style, complete with all the food you can eat, and mint juleps to wash them down. (Be responsible when partaking of the juleps.) Enjoy the inaugural GBU from Kentucky!
THE GOOD
Kyle Busch: stout. That's one way to describe him. Dominant. The BEST way to describe him. The 18 crew NAILED the setup and I got the feeling about 30 laps in that everyone else was running for second place. I remember reading a piece by Larry McReynolds and he stated that the team that hits the setup right will look like King Kong. Kyle Busch WAS King Kong tonight. It didn't matter which line he was running; he was stout wherever he was running. At times his lead was 10+ seconds over second place. He got away with one bad restart when Dale Earnhardt Jr cut a tire shortly after that restart and brought out a caution. It was his night.
Brad Keselowski: he was the best of the rest, even though he got shuffled back on the final restart. He led 79 laps but finished seventh.
David Reutimann: he was strong, stayed in the top 10 for pretty much the entire race, and kept his nose clean. Kentucky is very similar to Chicagoland, where Reutimann won last season. Had the final caution not come out, he may have stole this one, as Busch was low on gas. With good pit stops and strategy, he was in a position to win or get a strong top 5.
Kurt Busch: he was strong early in the race, being at the point up to the competition caution at Lap 30. He never really dropped out of the top 10, but got shuffled back late. He led 41 laps en route to a ninth place finish.
Denny Hamlin: he started at the rear of the field due to an engine change. Must have worked, because he charged towards the front in a hurry. He even led five laps during a round of green flag pit stops.
Jimmie Johnson: it's been awhile since we've seen you here, JJ. Although he didn't lead a lap, he was strong and stayed within striking distance.
Ryan Newman: he was the beneficiary of good (and lucky) pit strategy, as he at one point pitted out of sequence. But it worked to his favor late in the race. He got a MUCH needed top 5, finishing fourth.
Honorable Mention: Carl Edwards, Matt Kenseth, and David Ragan.
THE BAD
Big Red: they sponsored three different makes of cars--Dave Blaney (Chevrolet), Mike Bliss (Ford), and Mike Skinner (Toyota). Skinner was a start and parker and finished DFL. Bliss did a LITTLE better, finishing 34th, three laps down. Blaney did the best, relatively speaking, finishing one position ahead of Bliss. He also finished three laps down. They'd have done better with JJ YELEY, had he run!
Mike Skinner: start and parker. He hotfooted it out of town with his earnings before the traffic got too bad.
TNT: TOO MANY COMMERCIALS. A sub-Good for the enhanced coverage, though.
Kevin Harvick: as big a Harvick fan as I am, I've got to put him here. The 29 crew missed the setup, making for a LONG night. The car started loose and finished loose. No matter what kind of adjustments they made to the car, it would not respond. They would have done well to read the notes from previous Chicagoland races, where they have run well. He was never a factor, and as a result, he drops to third in points, with Kurt Busch looming large in his rear view mirror.
THE UGLY
The race itself: it was a SNOOZEFEST, as most 1.5 mile races are. WHY does NASCAR INSIST on having 1.5 mile races when they KNOW most fans check out before halfway through the race? I'd be in favor of having FIVE races at most on 1.5 mile tracks. I even fell asleep!
Those are my nominees for the race. Feel free to come in with yours!
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6 comments:
Agree on the 1.5 circuits jon. Thank Bruton Smith for all of these lovely tracks... He was campaigning long and hard to get Homestead removed as the final chase track in favor of his Las Vegas 1.5 mile track on SPEED before the race. He has a lot of influence too. SPEED essentially just stood back and let Bruton have his way with the audience... I see where due to traffic the track never was completely filled even though it was sold out. To expedite getting people in and out of this facility I guess the roads are all one way. They're inbound before the race and then switch to outbound at the end. There were people still trying to get to the track when the traffic controllers switched to one way direction to outbound... I'll bet there were some very unhappy people in Sparta Kentucky...
Don't be so hard on Harvick, Jon. 16th, on the lead lap.... no one runs top-5 every race.
The traffic will be the story of this race. Many stories of people taking 5-6 hours to drive the last 20 miles to the track. Kentucky's Sr Senator left Frankfort (45 minutes away) at 2pm... and never made it to the track!
Bummer of a first race for Kentucky. Not surprised KB won, but I thought this track would produce better racing than this, it usually has with Truck and Nationwide races.
Wow, I cant believe they gave up Atlanta racing for that. Boring! The bumps made it somewhat interesting for a few laps but they basically took away a racing groove. If they could have kept up the 3-4 wide racing then maybe...LOL
Clearly Kentucky deserves award for worst.traffic.ever. Yikes and there were reports they were traffic planning since Feb?! FIRED!
Did you put Junyer in bad? Shouldda, that boy flat spotted his tires going into pits is my guess. What a doofus...so much for his Chase hopes. And speaking of, what up with Smoke!?!? He is not showing much either...and last I checked its summer.
agree with pretty much all of it, Jon. I'll give a bad to Marcos' crew....that fluffed early call pretty much ruined their whole day.
giving a 'horrendous' to the Indycar guys too...I think the guy driving the safety car is the only one with a license or something :o
Hey Dwindy! I could see Homestead being removed and being the second race of the season, right after Daytona. The rest of the races are moved back a week. Las Vegas would get that second race. But FIVE 1.5 mile tracks out of 10?? Sounds to me that the champion races the best on those tracks. Those fans that had tickets and weren't able to make it to the track should DEMAND a FULL REFUND. I should have put the logistics in the VERY UGLY category.
Gene, I was listening on his dedicated Hot Pass channel, and no matter what the crew did to tighten the car, it was STILL loose. They were chasing the setup all race long. Sixteenth isn't going to cut it in the Chase. Fortunately, they're going to tracks that favor Kevin. Governor Beshear better look into the logistics and roads surrounding the track and seek to improve them.
JM, true. It was a NIGHTMARE.
Kristen, it was a SNOOZEFEST. As far as Jr, his Chase chances are going up in smoke. Speaking of Smoke, unless he gets a couple of wins, he's not making the Chase.
Tez, I'll take your word for it.
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