After all of the hubbub surrounding the events in the final laps of the NAPA Auto Parts 200 last weekend it seems that Robby Gordon will come out of it all smelling less like a rat and more like a rose.
In what I think is the best peace offering you can get in NASCAR, Gordon offered Marcos Ambrose (the dude that spun him out and then Gordon spun him out in retaliation) a Cup ride in his Robby Gordon Motorsports No. 77 Camping World Ford Fusion for this weekend’s race at Watkins Glen. Ambrose has accepted.
I think it’s a great, fitting ending to this semi-dramatic series of events. I’m not adding Robby Gordon to my list of NASCAR bad guys just yet.
But I can tell you what team is quickly becoming a hub for guys in the “big tool” club. That would have to be Joe Gibbs Racing. As much as I would like for that to not be the case it just is. You’ve got the founding member, Tony Stewart, and now Kyle Busch. Ech. I’m sorry that J.J. Yeley must leave JGR to make way for Busch. That must suck; ya gotta give up your ride for that nerd? Sad. Anyway, Denny Hamlin has managed to stay pretty humble and still has a gleaming halo above his head. But ya never know, all that egotastic arrogance in the shop at JGR could start spilling over to the No. 11 team.
If you can’t laugh at my artist rendering of the future team that will be Joe Gibbs Racing then you have no sense of humor to speak of… hehe
In other news…
If you’re a fan of Dale Earnhardt Jr. then you should already know Matthew Good. He’s a musician and Dale Jr. has been a fan of his for quite some time. Good’s latest CD titled “Hospital Music” is out now. You can get it for only $7.99 on iTunes. Plus for the past week, I think the promotion ended yesterday (sorry), iTunes had the song “Born Losers” available to download for free. It’s good music, kinda reminds me of Ryan Adams, and I recommend you check him out.
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Are you shocked? I’m not. There are worse things he could do.
And now I give you some things that you might want to know:
– If you’re a San Francisco Bay Area IndyCar fan you’ll be happy to know that Fior d’Italia Restaurant is giving $25 gift certificates to the first 40,000 fans that enter Infineon Raceway for the Motorola Indy 300, presented by Jackson Rancheria Casino & Hotel on Sunday, August 26. So make sure you get there early!
– NASCAR driver Ryan Newman will be a guest on the “Best Damn Sports Show Period” live from Lowe’s Motor Speedway on August 7th to announce the finalist for Kodak’s “Ink Ryan’s Ride” contest.
– Walk the track with Kurt & Kyle Busch, Jeff Gordon and Ernie Irvan at Pocono Raceway on Saturday:
Kurt will join brother Kyle and four-time Cup champ Jeff Gordon in Saturday’s LAPS Walk with Ernie Irvan at Pocono Raceway. Irvan, Gordon and the Busch Brothers will unite with NASCAR fans, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) survivors, and the Pennsylvania Army National Guard for a walk on the racetrack to raise awareness and needed funding to conquer TBI in America. The LAPS Walk festivities will kick off at 2:15 with a Q&A session and presentation to the top fundraiser of a signed helmet to recognize his/her outstanding effort for TBI awareness and prevention. Following the Q&A session, all participants, including Irvan and Kurt & Eva, will move down to the track where they will be joined by members of the National Guard for the opening ceremonies and a walk on the racetrack. For more information, please visit www.lapswalk.org or call the Brain Injury Association at 800.772.4323.
– I find this quote from Jimmie Johnson to be very interesting indeed. It’s about the resetting of the points once the Chase kicks in for the final ten races of the season.
It certainly looks like I’ll be a big beneficiary of it (resetting the points) and with the way that it is, I’ll take that forgiveness the way the point system is structured right now and try to capitalize on it. But when you look at Jeff’s (Gordon) point situation and how strong he has been, deep down inside there is still a part of me that says, ‘Man, the guy’s had a great year and deserves to be the champion and have it re-racked with everybody on top of him again probably isn’t fair.’ But it’s the way it is. The Chase does a lot of positive things for our sport. I’m in a position where I could capitalize on a tough summer. So you deal with the situation, as it exists. Just falling back on the way racing has always been and the way we’ve all raced through the season and had every point add up to equal a champion, if Jeff doesn’t win the championship I’m sure he’ll have a lot of heartburn over it. And I think us racers, deep down inside, might not think that it’s exactly right. But it’s different racing today than it was years back.
– Greg Biffle will be running a special “Dog the Bounty Hunter” paint scheme on his No. 16 Ford Fusion at Pocono. Uhm, yea, I’ve got nothing.
– All I can say about this is that I hope either A.J. Allmendinger or Brian Vickers can make it into this race or else this visit will be kinda awkward and embarrassing. I got my fingers crossed for ‘em!
Two members of the New York Red Bulls, the MLS team that plays its home matches at Giants Stadium, will make the 90-mile journey from East Rutherford, N.J., to Pocono Raceway to absorb the sights and sounds of NASCAR racing.
Midfielder Joe Vide and midfielder/forward Clint Mathis will get a true taste of what stock-car racing is all about. They’ll hang out on the grid and in the pits, and the fleet-footed duo will meet Red Bull Racing’s two drivers for lunch Sunday morning.
While the Nextel Cup Series was on a break this past weekend so was I. Part of it was self-imposed and the other was thrust upon me by the not-that-helpful-at-all people at Comcast. For the fifth time I had to have a Comcast service person come out to fix my internet connection. They came out on Sunday when it started working again on its own, but it’s down again.
For me not having an internet connection, or an unreliable one, is the same as not having electricity. Even if I’m not going to use any of my appliances I like knowing that I could if I needed to. I seriously feel wrong/weird not knowing if my internet connection is going to be working when I get home today. Peace of mind is everything.
Anyway, while drivers were spending their weekend off heading here and there (see below) I spent mine at a conference called WordCamp in San Francisco. The two-day event brought together bloggers and developers from all over the country who use WordPress as their blogging software of choice, me included. I only attended the first day but it was really fun to be around other people (tons of dudes) that were doing cool things with their blogs. I learned a lot of cool ways that I could enhance my site and I hope to implement some of those things soon. I think a slight redesign is in my future.
I’m not sure how much interest there is in this kind of information but I figured I’d list what I could about what some of Cup drivers did over their free weekend:
Kevin Harvick — Spent time at home with his wife DeLana.
“You know everybody has these trips planned to go this place and that place,” said Kevin. “Man, we go every week. I don’t know why you would want to leave home if you had a week off.”
Kasey Kahne — Went down to Mexico
Elliott Sadler - Played some golf and visited family & friends in Virginia.
Denny Hamlin — Denny hit up Miami.
Jimmie Johnson — Spent some quality time with his wife Chandra in Europe
Jeff Gordon — Practiced changing diapers at home with his wife Ingrid and newborn daughter Ella.
In other news…
Reed Sorenson won the Busch Series race at Gateway International Raceway in IL this weekend. All I can say is good for him. Although it would have been cool if Carl Edwards could have made it to the front again with that insanely banged up car but alas it wasn’t meant to be.
I can’t believe Reed is just 21 years old. What were you doing when you were 21? I highly doubt you were winning a nationally televised stock-car race. I’m 26 and I keep asking myself where the last 6 years of my life went. I vividly remember turning 21 and now I’m soon to be 27 and I have no clue what I’ve done with my life since then (well not completely but ya know, I am quite proud of a few things that I’ve done). For those same 6 years I’ve been a NASCAR fan. I had to quiz myself the other day on all the winners of the Cup Championship to make sure that I haven’t been in some weird sub-conscious coma. I’m happy to report that I was able to accurately name all of them.
So here’s more thoughts & things from the Pepsi 400 at Daytona last weekend, and some stuff leading up to Chicago this weekend.
– This exchange between Dale Earnhardt Jr. and his crew chief (and cousin) Tony Eury Jr. is just funny, so I felt like sharing:
Running 26 laps behind the leaders, the team needed one more stop for fuel to make it to the finish. The yellow flag flew on lap 116.
Eury Jr.: “Pit the second time by. We’ll just take fuel and we’ll be good the rest of the way.”
Dale Jr: “You ain’t gonna give me tires?”
Eury Jr: “You only have four laps on those.”
Dale Jr: “Well, if you like this set so much, you can take them home with you. I need tires. This place is like Darlington now.”
Eury Jr: “Alright, we’ll pit for four tires, second time by.”
As for Chicago, I think Junior is right:
“I’m beginning to think I should just not slow down when I see a crash in front of me. I hope that theme doesn’t continue. We’ve been taken out of two chances to win a race this season by getting hit from behind while trying to avoid a wreck (at Texas in April and last Saturday evening in Daytona). I keep saying that we’re due to have the breaks start going our way, and when they do, we’re going to enjoy it.”
– Are you like me and a need a new laptop? Well here’s the perfect contest for you to enter. You can win Carl Edwards‘ laptop. An autographed Toshiba Notebook. Go to www.officedepotracing.com for details.
– Another note about Jamie McMurray’s win last week at Daytona. After the race, while Jamie’s crew chief Larry Carter was being interviewed he looked as if nothing happened. The look on his face was priceless, he did not look or sound like a man that had just won a Cup race. In fact he looked like he had lost the thing. All of that changed, a little, once he was in victory lane with Jamie and the rest of the team. He finally cracked a smile! I counted at least 2 or 3. Maybe he just needed to be there in the winner’s circle before he could relax and enjoy it.
– After this weekend’s race at Chicagoland Speedway drivers Reed Sorenson, David Stremme and Juan Pablo Montoya will attend a Chicago Cubs game at Wrigley Field. The game on Monday, July 16th is against the San Francisco Giants. Sorenson is supposed to throw out the first pitch (don’t mess it up Reed, you’ll never live it down) and then go sing “Take me out to the ball game” with Stremme and Montoya during the seventh inning stretch. Uhm… Interesting. If you can’t make it to the game in person it’ll be broadcast on ESPN.
– Try on this quote from Kyle Busch’s crew chief Alan Gustafson:
“There’s been a lot of speculation about the equipment we’re getting and what Kyle is getting. I’d like to set the record straight that there is no discrimination as to who gets what at Hendrick Motorsports. It’s the same as it’s always been. We finished second last week — I’d say we were the best car out there. We are here to make the Chase and win a championship. That goal won’t change regardless what the 2008 plans are. I expect the Kellogg’s/CARQUEST team to win this weekend. We’re right on the brink, like we were last year at this time. We have a lot of momentum and I think Chicago is as good a place as any for another win.”
Uhm… Where did this come from? I’m just thinking out loud here, but has he talked to Kyle about this? ‘Cause I think he’s probably the one that started all of the speculation.
It’s funny how your mind has to switch gears quickly while watching a NASCAR race. One minute I’m hoping that Dale Earnhardt Jr can still make a play for the win and then all of a sudden I have to ditch that thought and hope that Denny Hamlin can hold off Jeff Gordon.
It’s weird. I don’t dislike Jeff Gordon but I don’t want him to win. It’s so boring to me when it happens. And now there’s this mini documentary on his racing life (24 x 24: Wide Open With Jeff Gordon) they’re showing on Saturday before the Pepsi 400. I want to watch, but I don’t. I want to watch it because I’m a race fan and I’m curious about drivers’ lives on and off the track. But on the other hand I don’t like him that much and I feel like if I watch it I’m giving in to him somehow. Does that make sense at all? Probably not, but whatever.
If you’re unlike me and need more Jeff Gordon in your life then you should watch “Live with Regis & Kelly” on Monday, July 9th. He’ll be co-hosting the show with Kelly Ripa, filling in for Regis Philbin. I think we can expect some baby talk, not from Kelly, but Jeff as I’m sure he’ll expound on the joys of first-time fatherhood. After watching Saturday Night Live’s spoof of Kelly (they totally hit the nail on the head), I can’t take 5 seconds of that show. Too bad Jeff couldn’t have co-hosted with Regis instead.
And now for some photo goodness from this weekend’s race at New Hampshire.
uhm… Can the #48 team of Jimmie Johnson keep their interim crew chief Ron Malec (left) even when Chad Knaus comes back?? He’s hot! Next thought: Is he single?
Interim crew chief Jeff Meendering, of the #24 DuPont Chevrolet driven by Jeff Gordon, talks with interim crew chief Ron Malec, #48 Lowe’s Chevrolet, driven by Jimmie Johnson, prior to the start of the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series Lenox Industrial Tools 300 at New Hampshire International Speedway on July 1, 2007 in Loudon, New Hampshire. (Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)
Denny Hamlin beats Jeff Gordon to the finish line to win at New Hampshire International Speedway. (Photo Credit: Matthew Stockman/Getty Images)
President of global operations for Dale Earnhardt Inc., Max Siegel, stands on pit road with Dale Earnhardt Jr., driver of the #8 Budweiser Chevrolet, prior to the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series Lenox Industrial Tools 300 at New Hampshire International Speedway on July 1, 2007 in Loudon, New Hampshire. (Photo by Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR)
It just occurred to me, the thought of Kyle Busch possibly sitting in the No. 8 car. I feel nauseous.
I don’t care what Hendrick Motorsports has to do but they must get that number from DEI. While it isn’t for sure that Kyle is going to DEI to fill that empty slot, I don’t think anyone else but Dale Earnhardt Jr. should be able to use that number. I mean, can you imagine some schmo using Michael Jordan’s number?? Uh no. Ok, Dale isn’t on the same level as MJ yet but he does have the same level of popularity and it would be insanity to let someone else use it.
The number 8 is synonymous with Dale Jr. Separating the two would be like breaking up the Captain & Tennille, or Batman & Robin… Lindsay Lohan & drugs… hehe… just kidding. The point is that when you think of one you instantly think of the other. This number is important. I can swallow Dale running a No. 08 or 81, but I can’t take someone else running the No. 8. That just can’t happen.
In other news…
– Did you know that Robby Gordon won his first NASCAR Nextel Cup race at NHIS back in 2001? Annnd… he’s the only driver in Nextel cup history to win his first race at New Hamphsire.
– If you’re up for meeting No. 40 Coors Wide Mouth Can Dodge driver David Stremme tonight here’s your chance to do it! (Provided that you are already in New Hampshire)
David Stremme will participate in the Coors Light Annual Pub Tour Friday night from 7-9pm in and around the Concord, N.H. area in advance of Sunday’s New England 300. Stremme and guests from Capitol Distributors (the local Coors distributor) will hit four local area pubs so keep your eyes open for the Coors Light crew Friday night.
