Big 10 Driver Rankings- Week Off Edition

by Jim on March 12, 2010 · 1 comment

As the season is just four races old, there’s still plenty we don’t know. We’d like to speculate whether or not someone can beat out Jimmie Johnson for the championship, we’d like to opine on who that might be, but really, no one knows.

You do wonder though, if the week off will provide teams that are struggling a chance to re-trench and put it back together. Another burning question is one of whether or not that overachievers can become the Juan Pablo Montoya of 2010.

That’s the fun of the unfolding season, seeing what holds and what doesn’t….


    The Big 10

10) Tony Stewart- (ranked 8th last week)- It’s tempting to give this spot to an upstart like Scott Speed or Paul Menard, but does anyone seriously believe that Stewart won’t be a championship contender come November? I didn’t think so. He’ll be just fine. Believe it.

9) Mark Martin- (ranked 3rd last week)- A key figure in the Hendrick Motorsports debacle. In spite of finishing 33rd, Martin is still infinitely better off than he was this time last year. Believe it or not, that lousy finish was better than what he had last year, when Martin spent most of his day WATCHING the race.

8) Clint Bowyer- (ranked 5th last week)- The RCR revival hit a pothole last week for Bowyer and teammate Jeff Burton. In this humble opinion, he’ll be back come Bristol. The cars are too good, and Bowyer has too much skill to be regarded as otherwise.

7) Juan Pablo Montoya- (unranked last week)- Let’s face it, this is where the guy really belongs. The car is there, the skill is there. JPM has been killed by bad luck…until Atlanta. He always does well on speed tracks. Makes you wonder how the continually improving former open wheel ace will fair in the tight quarters of Bristol.

6) Kasey Kahne- (unranked last week)- Those footsteps you’re hearing belong to one Kasey Kenneth Kahne (want to bet the guy never had any monogrammed shirts growing up?). After a couple of duff outings to open the season, Kahne’s coming alive. In fact, I was just sure he was our race winner last Sunday.

5) Kurt Busch- (unranked last week)- Winning makes a great cure-all. Boding even better for Busch’s fortunes is that Bristol is his best track. If you think about, the 2004 champion is starting in a fashion reminiscent of how he ran in 2009. That wasn’t so bad. One thing’s for sure: he’s hit it off quite well with new crew chief Steve Addington. That has to eat at Kurt’s kid brother.

4) Greg Biffle- (ranked 6th last week)- Here’s further proof that Jack Roush and Company aren’t as bad off as I once thought. Four races, four top tens. It’s exclusive company. An 8th place finish at Atlanta won’t get you feeling all excited, but it has to feel good to be in this place, when you haven’t run an exceptional race yet.

3) Matt Kenseth- (ranked 4th last week)- I’ve got to tell you Matt the Brat is far exceeding any expectation I had of him. It bodes well for the 2003 champion, or any other driver for that matter, when you’ve shown you’ve got the speed and you’ve got the team to handle the plethora of downforce tracks. Yes, Kenseth fans, you can believe.

2) Kevin Harvick- (ranked 2nd last week)- You know you’re going well when you struggle with an evil car and still come out of a race with a top ten. It’s a far cry from last year, when it was plain to anyone with any degree of intellectual honesty that “Happy” was not, and he wanted out of Richard Childress Racing. It will be interesting to see how Harvick fairs at Bristol- an RCR haven.

1) Jimmie Johnson- (ranked 1st last week)- Tempting as it may be to think that the four-time champ is falling off, the truth is a 12th place finish ain’t all that bad. I can think of at least 28 drivers who would like to have a week that bad. Now if he’s not winning in the Chase that’s one thing, but we’re nowhere near there yet.


    FALLING OFF THE PACE

Jeff Gordon will recover at some point at be just fine. The jury is still out on the ever-improving Joey Logano, though let us not forget that he was a victim of circumstances, the lesser known victim of the early race dust-up between Carl Edwards and Brad Keselowski. Jeff Burton is someone we haven’t seen the last of, either.

    READY TO STRIKE

You’ll have to excuse me if I’m not quite ready to jump on the Paul Menard and Scott Speed bandwagon just yet. By the same token, they’re making this early 2010 an interesting one to watch. Marcos Ambrose is also continuing his ascent after a disastrous beginning to the season.

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Open Season On The Track? I Think Not

by Jim on March 11, 2010 · 9 comments

No matter where you go, you see it all over the ‘net. “If they let Carl Edwards off like this, what’s next?” “A driver’s gonna get killed, or even worse, a fan!” “It’s open season on the track!!!!”

Like all the other doomsday predictions I read on NASCAR-related websites, this too, shall not come to pass. Allow me to explain.

First of all- the drivers won’t let it happen. What? It was a rogue driver that made it happen! For one thing, right or wrong, I think Brad Keselowski got a loud and clear message concerning his standing among the veteran drivers. It may have been Carl Edwards that pulled the trigger, but you’d better believe there were more than a few that would have loved the opportunity. I have no doubt that the young Michigan man will be thinking just a split second longer before he tries threading a needle he shouldn’t.

As for Edwards, I think he had his “Oh snap!” moment. Yes, I’ll concede he’s got a hair trigger temper, and if he hasn’t learned his lesson yet, he’d better before it, at the very least, it costs him his career. More on that later. As it is now, Edwards has a growing list of adversaries, some of whom bear no fear of the guy behind the “99.” Does the name Kevin Harvick ring a bell?

Did you read John “Dawg” Chapman’s article featuring that Randy Lajoie quote? That’s another reason you won’t see those so-called rivalries getting out of hand. These guys have to pretty much live together in this traveling carnival. I mean, look at some of the old rivalries among current drivers. On any given Friday, you’ll see Tony Stewart hanging out with Jeff Gordon. Just last Friday, there’s a nice little picture of Brian Vickers and Kyle Busch making small talk. Kurt Busch won’t likely be getting a Christmas card from Smoke, and I doubt his little brother will ever have much to do with Dale Earnhardt, Jr., but speaking of the younger Busch, I recall him calling former sparring partner Edwards his “BFF.” Heck, in this day and age of perpertual “Silly Season,” you never know when one of these dudes might be your teammate someday. Could you have ever imagined back in the day that the son of one of NASCAR’s most pugilistic legends, would be a teammate of one of his last great rivals? For the most part, it just doesn’t pay to get to nasty with one another. Furthermore, if you look at Lajoie’s remarks, there’s little incentive financially to move somebody out of the way to move up one spot.

Speaking of thuggery (real or imagined), the sponsors won’t let it happen. Does it not strike you as ironic that this latest brouhaha featured one of NASCAR’s most marketable drivers? When sponsors have been leaving one driver for another, where have they been going? To Mr. Pepsodent.

Now imagine you are the marketing manager or advertising agency for Aflac, Scott’s, or Subway. What do you think your response would be to a “nasty gram” from a disgruntled fan? Well, I’ll tell you now, a reader got a response from an executive representing one of Edwards’ sponsors. They took the time to contact me, to let me, and I’m sure other media members know that this incident hasn’t gone unnoticed. Read that, the dude is in hot water. Their letter states that they see the driver as an ambassador, and you can read that to say they take a dim view of one of their ambassadors behaving badly in public view.

Frankly, I’ve said one of the reasons why this sport has gotten a bit vanilla is because drivers don’t want to jeopardize sponsor relationships, especially not in this climate. Now if you sign on with Kyle Busch, Robby Gordon, Kevin Harvick, or one of those guys, you know you’re getting a guy who might pop off verbally, or maybe even “pop” a driver, a la Curtis “Pops” Turner once in a while. In spite of his growing reputation among serious fans, Edwards has cultivated that Opie Taylor, Mr. Positive image a la Jimmie Johnson. After this week’s incident, Edwards’ visage has been on everything from the Weather Channel to ABC Evening News. Regardless of whether or not he decided to flip Kez, you’d better believe Edwards has zoomed to the top of the “Bad Boy” charts, and he’ll hear boos like he’s never heard before. Unlike, Kyle, Cousin Carl won’t like it. I really think Edwards regretted hitting Keselowski the minute he saw the “12″ car flip. I’m certain he breathed a sigh of relief when Keselowski walked away.

If there’s ever another run in between Carl and Keselowski, I’d bet it would be because Brad initiates it, because frankly, I don’t think Edwards will want any part of Keselowski now- after all the fallout. But you know what? It’s not gonna happen. Oh, there’ll be bumping and banging between other drivers, and maybe even the principles in this conflict. The difference is now, you’re not going to see NASCAR over-legislating the regulation of it.

Without naming names, I can think of at least one driver who pretty much mortgaged his career of racing in quality cars away because he couldn’t keep his nose clean, even his reputation was as much about perception as it was reality. You may think your opinion may not matter, but this season has been replete with examples of you, the fan, getting NASCAR’s attention. Furthermore, I see evidence you have corporate America’s attention, and you’ve always had the driver’s attention.

Time will tell whether or not I’m wrong. Even with all this aside, the wing, which played a part in Keselowski flipping is going away as well. I’ve always been more a free market kind of guy, a little bit on the Libertarian in some of my views. I think one reason NASCAR didn’t have to step in more heavily, is because they knew they didn’t have to.

You may think the brass at NASCAR may be crazy, but this may be an instance where they were crazy like a fox. I bet we’ll see where Carl Edwards has learned his lesson- thanks to the sponsors, the fans, and if it continues, let us remember well what happened to Kurt Busch. Jack Roush may be a patient man, but he won’t suffer foolishness for long.

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Is Brad So Bad?

by John Chapman on March 10, 2010 · 12 comments

Brad Keselowski came into Cup like a fox in the hen house. It just happened that Carl was the first to get his feathers ruffled. OK, more than ruffled, more like his neck rung, and his feathers plucked. Apparently he hasn’t forgiven, or forgotten.

If you believe that "Bad Brad" had a lesson coming ( I’m not totally convinced), I’d still have to question the advisability of showing him the error of his ways on the fastest track on the circuit. If we take a look at the incident at Atlanta that spoiled Carl’s and Joey’s day, what I see is Carl making a banzai move from the high line to the bottom. Only one problem, Brad was already there. Brad said in his interview, that he tried to give Carl room, but that there wasn’t time.

Remember the speeds. I think I’d have to give him the benefit of the doubt on this one. If he’d jumped on his brakes, he’d have gotten run over. If we look back to Talladega, where this thing really started, I see a clear culprit…..blocking. Carl tried to block a driver who was extremely hungry, who also remembered what happened to Regan Smith, when Tony blocked. If you try to take a pork chop from a pit bull, what do you think is going to happen? One thing I don’t think is going to happen, is if Brad finds himself in the same situation again, the guy in front probably won’t try to
block.

If we believe what we read, then not only Carl and Denny, but half of the garage is down on Brad. Let’s see if we can figure out why.

I’m working on an interview with back to back Busch Series Champion Randy La Joie. I’ll give you a little preview that I think may hold the answer….

John: "We have a lot of long time fans who are upset with the NASCAR. What do you think about the state of Cup racing."

Randy: "There’s too much money in the sport today, no one’s hungry. When I was coming up, we needed every dollar we could get. If you were running sixth, and thought you could move up to fifth, you’d go for it because you needed the money. If you had to move someone, that’s what you did. Now all the drivers are too
good a friends. They all live together on Lake Norman. They park together in the Motor Home Lot every week. No one wants’ to make waves, or make anyone mad."

Make sense? It does to me. A multi-millionaire would race differently than someone who’s really hungry. I think Randy’s nailed it. These guys are comfortable racing against each other. Not just because they respect each others skills, but because they race the way everyone wants’ to. We see way too much of this- “After you.” “No after you.” Maybe they just don’t like racing against someone who takes them out of their comfort zone. Who doesn’t "play the game," and wait until the last laps to really start racing?

I’ve heard drivers whining to their spotters, or crew chiefs about someone "racing them too hard." Say what? Cup drivers are the second highest paid drivers in the world.Maybe it’s not all bad that Brad’s got them a little shook up.

Back to Carl, if he really felt that he needed to teach Brad something about respect, it might have been better to have waited until Bristol. Not only did he put Brad, and other drivers at risk, he also potentially could have put fans at risk also.

The way things are, NASCAR needs all the paying customers they can get. If Carl really felt justified  in making his point the way he did, I might suggest a better place to do it, but I won’t criticize his doing it. After all, I can’t see Jimmie Johnson doing it, and we all know what people say about him.

I’m sure after Brad’s been in Cup a while he’ll settle down. If we’re lucky, when he does, someone else will come along, and race like he’s racing now.

Until that time comes, I’ll keep my eye on him.

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