The Monster Throwing Stones?

DOVER, DELAWARE – Jimmie Johnson sure does like the Monster Mile, or maybe the Monster  likes Jimmie.  Either way, Jimmie earned his 9^th victory at Dover this past Sunday.  You couldn’t tell that just a few weeks ago when Jimmie couldn’t win a race.  This week, he led 272 out of 400 laps in his Chevy.  Coming off a victory at the Charlotte 600, the fortunes of this Hendrick driver have certainly turned.  Brad Keslowski placed his Team Penske Ford in second place followed by Matt Kenseth in his Gibbs Toyota.  "It was an awesome race car," Johnson said. "The first run I wasn't sure we were really going to have the normal Dover magic here. Once the track rubbered in our car came to life and it was so good. It's amazing that we can stay on top of things here with the different generation car, different rules, different tires. This place just fits my style.”

The slow start for Johnson stemmed from the inability of the team to get their new, sixth-gen car ready due to Johnson’s off-season surgery and cancelled test sessions due to weather.  But based on the car’s debut at Dover, the team sure didn’t cut any corners in its development.  "We're getting closer," Johnson said. "We brought out a new-generation car that Chad just had a lot of faith in, put a lot of time and effort into. He told me I'd love the car, and sure enough, we unloaded and got on the track and it was right."

Kyle Busch set the pace from the front row leading 81 laps, but a mishap with Clint Bowyer on lap 124 put his Toyota into the wall dashing any chances for a victory.  Then only 10 laps later, AJ Allmendinger caused a multi-car wreck bringing out the red flag.  He also ended the day for teammates Greg Biffle and Ricky Stenhouse.

Then, the most bizarre incident of the day occurred on lap 158 when part of turn 2 flew up and smacked Jamie McMurray’s car sending him into the wall.  Two laps later, the officials brought out the red flag again in order to allow workers time to patch the hole in the track.  "When I came off of the corner, it just felt like I hit something obviously heavy," McMurray said after the race. "Initially I thought I had blown a tire out, because when I hit (the concrete) it pushed the car out to the right. I got into the fence a little bit, and as I slowed down I couldn't figure out, first off, why I didn't hit the wall harder, and then what happened."I didn't see anything," he added. "It just hit the front end, ripped the splitter off and pushed the car to the right."

Rosberg and Hamilton At Odds After 1-2 Win at Monaco

MONTE CARLO, MONACO – For the second Monaco GP in a row, Nico Rosberg claimed the top spot on the podium a full 9.2 seconds ahead of teammate and rival Lewis Hamilton.  The German driver drove his Mercedes to the win from the pole position, won in a rather controversial manner.  In the final laps, Daniel Ricciardo made a very heated attempt to claim the number two position from Hamilton but could only manage third for Red Bull by a 0.4 second margin.  "It was a tough race out there today,” said Rosberg, “but I am absolutely delighted to have won my second Monaco Grand Prix in succession. It's an amazing feeling and I'm proud to have done it at home, in front of my family and friends who were all here this afternoon. “

Mercedes has definitely been the ones to beat in 2014 winning every pole position.  But the competition does not stop at the doorstep of the silver arrows team.  The rivalry between Rosberg and Hamilton has been compared with that of Aryton Senna and Alain Prost when each drove for McLaren in the late 1980s.  Rosberg said after the race, “It was important for me to break Lewis' momentum of winning the last four races this weekend.” 

Though cleared by FIA of any wrongdoing, some are claiming that a “mistake” caused by Rosberg during qualifying causing a yellow to come out and dashing Hamilton’s chance for a pole was intentional.  Hamilton was so put-off by the incident, that he refused to congratulate Rosberg for his win.  Mercedes Chief, Niki Lauda, no stranger to inter-team rivalry, is said to not be happy with the situation. “The tension is building up, no question,” Lauda commented, “but we have to make sure that the team doesn’t get out of hand. So if they don’t say hello in the morning, it’s out of hand.”

But, lucky for the fans, Dieter Zetsche, the chairman of Mercedes parent Daimler, agreed that Hamilton and Rosberg should be free to wage their battles, even though imposing ‘team orders’ would mean less ‘grey hairs’ for the management.  “This is exactly what the viewers want to see,” he said. “The worst thing would be nice team orders with one behind the other.

Sir Jack Brabham 1926 - 2014

QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA – Another racing legend passed Monday – Sir Jack Brabham – three time Formula One Champion and the first, and only, to win a championship in a car built himself.  Black Jack as he was called, had 14 F1 race wins with Drivers championships in 1959, 1960 (Cooper) and Drivers and Constructors 1966 (Brabham).  Brabham again won the Constructors Championship in 1967.  The Australian died peacefully in his home on the Gold Coast Monday morning. READ MORE

Mayhem at 'Dega

TALLADEGA, AL – If you thought the short-track race last week was mayhem, ‘dega lived up to her reputation of being super-mayhem!  The race was won by Denny Hamlin who happened to be at the right place at the right time.  On the last lap of the race, Hamlin’s Gibbs-Toyota car was out in front when a back-marker crash brought out the caution which fixed the field.  Greg Biffle was able to claim second for Roush-Fenway and Clint Bowyer third.  "It feels good to be back in Victory Lane in a points-paying event," said Bowyer, "but I'm still a short-track guy.  Those are my roots, that's where I love racing the most, but we've come a long way. We couldn't finish 22nd at superspeedway races for the longest time and now it seems like when we go we've got the knowledge and car that can win."

Mayhem started early when on lap 6, Danica Patrick took her first lead, but on lap 14, Brad Keselowski attempted to pass Patrick but spun, putting him I the midfield.  Patrick was able to salvage a 22^nd place finish on the lead lap.  Keselowski wasn’t done causing trouble though.  On lap 137, Brad was trying to make up a 7-lap deficit when running with the front runners when he broke loose taking 15-cars including Gordon, Bayne, Kenseth, Menard, Stewart Busch and Johnson with him.  Darrell Waltrip had this to say about Brad’s move “I know the Monday Morning Quarterbacks are saying Brad had no business up front racing being six laps down. The guy is paid to race. He was simply trying to get his laps back.”

And the mayhem continued on lap 174 when Jimmie Johnson’s car broke loose in turn 4 taking out 7 including Kurt Busch, Joey Logano and David Ragan.  On lap 183, Carl Edwards lost a rear tire ending the day for Newman and Cole Whitt.  DW summarized it best “I had a great time. I always have fun at Talladega. As I said on the broadcast, the whole day was just as clear as mud to me. I could see right through it all day long. I'm just kidding. I just threw that out there during the broadcast. It's a saying from way back in the day when you couldn’t  understand something because the explanation was so convoluted they used to say, ‘Clear? Or clear as mud?’"

Just good ol’ boys, Never meaning no harm...

RICHMOND, VA – Saturday night at Richmond reminds me of that Waylon Jenning’s song “Just good ol’ boys, Never meaning no harm, Beats all you ever saw, Been in trouble with the law, sInce the day they were born.”  Short track racing certainly can bring out the tempers, and last Saturday night was no exception with Brad Keselowski waving his finger at Matt Kenseth and Marcos Ambrose and Casey Mears throwing punches in the garage.  “Those 43 NASCAR drivers gave us some aggressive driving” commented Darrell Waltrip, “there is an old saying ‘kick the tires and light the fires.’ Well, they didn’t even need to kick them for the fires to happen!”

Joey Logano seemed to be able to stay out of trouble the best and was awarded a hard fought win with Jeff Gordon and Kyle Busch taking 2nd and 3rd.  Following a late caution period for JJ Yeley’s engine failure, the restart with only seven laps to go resulted in a four way fight between Kenseth, Keselowski, Gordon, and Logano.  Kenseth was on top at the restart with Keselowski hard on his tail.  Keselowski was running fast at the top of the track, but Kenseth was no way going to let him by, putting some blocking moves on the Ford.  Keselowski didn’t appreciate Matt’s move and gave him a hard check to let him know.  During the melee, Logano was in the opportune spot able to pass the duo with four laps to go.  Gordon and Busch came up strong also getting around Kenseth and Keselowski.  Kenseth ended up fifth behind Keselowski.

But it didn’t end there.  Keselowski still upset that he was not able to win the race, slammed on his brakes in front of Kenseth causing contact with Gordon and Earnhardt.  “The extracurriculars,” Kenseth said, “pushed the confrontation over the line.“  Of course Kenseth and Keselowski weren’t the only hot tempers at the track.  Mears was upset following a move the Aussie made during the race when he dove down under Mears going three wide in a corner.  Mears felt that was an unwise move, and when they saw each other in the garage, they became heated with Ambrose throwing a punch resulting in a black eye for Mears.  The two have talked it out since, and NASCAR is reviewing the incident.

Tires were the other big topic for the weekend with several tire failures that ended in fires.  Clint Bowyer, Ricky Stenhouse, Cole Whitt, and Reed Sorenson all had their tires go up in smoke.  Goodyear brought out a new multi-zone tire combination.  The tire had a 10” section of a known compound, with a 2” inner section of a new, high temperature compound.  It appears that the tires were coming apart, and as the treads came entangled in the wheel and suspension, caught fire from the heat of the brakes.  Kyle Busch commented “(It’s) really tough for all of us to, for one, keep the tires under our cars, and for putting a harder compound on the outside edge (and) having it cord and come apart, and actually it's supposed to be more durable, I think was just not the right way to go obviously for Goodyear.”  Goodyear commented that the well balanced cars did not have issues.  I am sure this won’t be the last we hear of this.

Another 1-2 Sweep For Mercedes

SHANGHAI, CHINA - That Mercedes is setting the pace for the 2014 Formula One season was confirmed by Lewis Hamilton’s brilliant run in Shanghai.  Hamilton, who has moved one ahead of Jim Clark with most poles by a British driver, finished a full 18 seconds ahead of teammate Nico Rosberg.  This is the third race this season that the German marque finished 1-2.  “This is a team on a roll, that’s for sure,” Hamilton said. “I’m going to be working hard, we’re going to keep working hard because obviously the others are pushing hard to catch us.”  Rosberg worked hard for his second place finish starting 4^th on the grid then dropping to seventh after a poor start.

It was a better weekend for Ferrari achieving its first podium finish in 2014 with Fernando Alonso finishing 3^rd.  Ferrari appeared to make some good improvements in the car after Bahrain.  “It was a good weekend,” said Alonso. “We did improve the car a little bit compared to the first three races, so we felt more competitive and now in the race being here on the podium is some kind of surprise for us, a nice surprise finally. http://www.autoweek.com/article/20140420/f1/140429996#ixzz2zYHFAIJC . 

Teammate Kimi Raikkonen could manage no better than eight place, 50 seconds behind Alonso. Rumors that the Swede is losing focus and determination were strongly rejected by Raikkonen, though he does admit that his driving is struggling. "In the race I was just too slow, but there is not one big problem that we have found,” he said.

Four time World Champion Sebastien Vettel, who last year appeared to be super-human, has struggled with the newly designed v-6 turbo cars. For the second race this year, Vettel has been asked to pull-over for his quicker teammate, Daniel Ricciardo. When first asked by team principal Christian Horner to allow Ricciardo to pass, Vettel was surprised, but after a few laps he understood that he was behind the pace. "I'm not yet where I want to be with the car, but it's an ongoing process,” said the champion.

Duck Commander 500 Won by Joey Logano

FORT WORTH, TEXAS – The Duck Commander 500 was run at…. What, Duck Commander?  What the heck is that?  Yep, The Duck Dynasty clan is now the official sponsor of a NASCAR race.  Can’t get more redneck than that!  I Digress…. Texas Motor Speedway.   It was a nice run for Joey Logano and the Team Penske who won the race following a strategic pit stop during the final caution period of the race.  "We've been in contention every race this year to win, and I'm proud to be a part of that," said Logano, who extended a streak that has produced seven different winners in as many Sprint Cup races. "I felt very confident about this race. For some reason, I told Todd, I said, 'We're going to win this week,' and I was mad when we didn't get the pole. But I felt like we had a car that could win today."

Logano and teammate Keselowski were running 1-2 when Kurt Busch played chicken with the wall in turn 2.  During the caution, the Penske cars chose to change 4 tires while Hendrick driver Jeff Gordon switched only their outside tires.  With a green, white checker restart, the quicker pits top got Gordon out in front, from sixth place, but the fresh rubber allowed Logano to run quicker and passing Gordon after two turns.  "I got a pretty good restart, so I was happy about that. Got through (Turns) 1 and 2. I was shocked I was leading off of 2, to be honest. I wish I would have run a little bit higher down (Turns) 3 and 4. I'm sure Joey was going to go wherever I didn't. Probably would have been a little bit better off on the top. He crossed over and got into the back of me pretty good. At that point I was just thinking, 'I want to finish.' Looked out my mirror, those guys were racing hard behind me. A great second-place finish for me."

Keselowski denied Penske a 1-2 finish earning a penalty for speeding in pit lane dropping him to 15th.  "That last caution was a shame," said Keselowski, driver of the No. 2 Miller Lite Ford. "I was just trying to get a little too much on pit road and wanted to get us out front to be able to win the race and tried a little too hard. We're in it for wins. We're not in it for finishing second."

With Dale Jr. crashing on lap 12 dropping him to 43rd, Gordon has climbed to first place in points.  

Redneck or not, the grid girls are nice!