4 time takes on 4 peat; wild weekend @Talladega

The racing was tight, and the track was dry, at least on Sunday it was. Another rain soaked, stormy weekend for NASCAR to navigate only this time we went green on Sunday, like it was meant to be. This weekend at Talladega will be remembered more for the turbulent winds coming from two of the sports top drivers, not the legendary draft created by the thunderous machines displacing air.

For the second straight week the 24 and 48 are at each others throats. Jeff Gordon has simply had enough of the 48 and his act, and he believes it's about time he does something about it. Flashback to last week at Texas and the 24 trying to go all beastie boys on the 48 and sabotage his afternoon and the integrity of his tires. Radio monitoring the 24 revealed the malice behind Gordon's actions, he was heard saying "looks like ol 4 time didn't like that too much". 4 time referring to Jimmie Johnson, who in 4 short years has matched the amount of cup championships that took Gordon over 15 seasons to amass. So in essence we have 4 time picking on 4 peat.

Chatting to an associate of mine revealed the marginal hatred that comes along with massive success. He exclaimed to me that for no warranted reason he simply does not like the 48, in fact he actively roots for someone to dethrone ol "4 peat". It's kind of like the Yankees or the Lakers, fans love to hate, heavy is the head that wears the crown. If you are on top we want to see you fall, if you are on top for as long as the 48 has, it's a long reach to knock you off the pinnacle. Can Gordon reach that high? Can he be the one to ruffle the untouchable feathers of the 48? Only time will tell. In the mean time we are in for a real treat as this story continues to unfurl.

Jimmie Johnson has tried to extend an olive branch in the direction of the 24, but it seams that the only thing that will satisfy Gordon is a pound of flesh. He was the golden boy, he was the one that the ladies loved and the dudes hated, he was the one that had his number plastered along every novelty tee shirt stand along the boardwalks of the Jersey shore. Gordon wants his title back, and it just may take a steel cage match to settle this, and crown an undisputed heavyweight champ.

On the track we saw Kevin Harvick end his win less streak with a last lap pass for all the marbles.
Because of the unique configuration of Talladega, with it's start/finish line at the end of the front stretch, this pass was possible. It amazes me how someone 50 years ago thought to mix it up a bit, and go against conventions by giving the finish line its placement. How could they have had the foresight for so many exciting finishes. Genius or accident? We will go with a little bit of both, for every idiot there is also an idiot savant. Genius is just not a term I like to use lightly (thanks Margo Tenenbaum).

Next week we roll into Richmond VA. The biggest little short track out there. Look for another win less streak to end next week in the form of Dale Jr. or perhaps the very hungry Jeff Gordon. Look out for VA. native and one of the hottest drivers on the circuit right now, Denny Hamlin to contend as well. He loves to ham it up for the home crowd.

Michael Clark (emsea)

A Texas two-step

After a rain soaked weekend in northern Texas, there were 800 miles of racing that took place on Monday afternoon. Both the Sprint Cup, and the Nationwide races were canceled leaving us with yet again a Monday morning race, only this time I was lucky enough to avoid finding out the results yielding an enjoyable Monday night race viewing for me (conveniently the Yanks were off).

The race was dominated by Hendrick Motor Sports, with the 24, 48 and 88 combining to lead 209 out of the 334 laps run. Unfortunately for HMS none of these drivers lead the money lap. However the domination by the 24 of Jeff Gordon was an eye opening experience for the entire field of drivers. With flashes of the Gordon of the '90's, the 24 set the pace and demanded the lead all afternoon. If Gordon can rekindle his old ways we just might have a driver and a team good enough and with enough experience to dethrone team 48 (remember Gordon has 4 cups on his mantle as well). When challenged for the lead it was as if Gordon were a lion protecting its cubs, Jimmy Johnson found this out the hard way. Johnson tried to pass his fellow team mate and was ungraciously and acrimoniously slammed on the driver side door panel causing a plume of smoke to rise like a genie from a bottle from the 48's wheel well. This is the kind of rubbing that gets the good ol boys out of their seats, it also caused the 48 to fall a lap down. But this is the 48, they are not going to let a little thing like being a lap down hinder their performance now are they? Of course not.

As luck would have it the 48 came to pit road, took 4 fresh goodyears and returned to the track. Moments later the caution would wave and the leaders would hit pit road. Chad Knaus made the decision to stay on the track being that their tires were merely 5 laps old, so once again, just like Henry Higgins, a little bit of luck and the 48 just might win! They were back on the lead lap and poised to deal with the 24. Like a fortune cookie once told me "the best revenge is massive success", the 48 would have their revenge by simply avoiding a late race wreck that hoovered up about 15 cars including the dominant 24. Gordon would finish 32 after leading 124 laps, the 48 finished 2nd. 1 more lap and they would have been driving to victory lane yet again.

Meanwhile we had another cherry picking victory for Denny Hamlin. The 11 car led a whole 12 laps in his winning effort. Bad but not that bad, last week Ryan Newman won on the dog-leg of Phoenix notching an entire 4 laps out front. This is the paradigm in NASCAR now a days, dominant performances by dominant drivers and their teams, a late caution flag waives, and a less deserving driver steals the trophy, and drives off in to the sunset with the big purse. Parody, yes, fair, of course not. Dale Jr. spoke about this in a post race interview, stating that "we go out there and run a clean 450 miles just to have the whole thing jumbled around at the end there".

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely applaud the gritty performance by Hamlin, who won just weeks after having his knee scoped. This amazes me, recently a good friend of mine had ACL surgery and was laid up for weeks, withering in pain. It is not just the win by Hamlin that has me so impressed, his 30th place effort last week in Phoenix has to be the greatest 30th place finish in NASCAR history. Why you ask? Because at three different times during the race in the desert Hamlin was offered relief from his wheel-man duties by stand by driver Casey Mears, each time he refused to get out of the cockpit. Hamlin's reasoning for not exiting stage left, "The only thing I was going to gain was maybe some respect of the team guys just because I knew our day was shot," He went on, "I wasn't going to give up on them. I wasn't going to lay down on them." Hamlin also mentioned that he would have been embarrassed to hand off such an ill fated car to Mears. "To be honest with you, I would have been too embarrassed to give Casey (Mears) the car I had today, It's not what we're accustomed to."

The spoiler was given rave reviews by the drivers after its first true test at a super-speedway. The consistency of the spoiler in the corners was a welcome difference from the wayward performance of the wing in turbulent wind. We will see how this new set up will effect the cars when restrictor plate racing commences next week In Talladega.

Note: Kyle Busch raced 800 miles on Monday finishing 3rd in the cup event and then winning the Nationwide series event that started about an hour after the completion of the cup race. This capped off the "weekend" sweep for Joe Gibbs Racing. Of the 15 drivers to pull double duties on Monday, Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick and Greg Biffle were the only ones to complete all 534 laps.

Michael Clark (emsea)

Granderson fitting in nicely

After 3 games in historic Fenway Park, Curtis Granderson has already submerged himself right smack in the middle of the storied rivalry between the Yanks and BoSox. Granderson went over the wall in his first at-bat as a Yankee, and it doesn't stop there. Although Granderson homered in his first at-bat he was scrutinized by the NY media for striking out to end the first game of the season. Welcome to New York.

CG continued his hot hitting with some late inning heroics last night, taking Red Sox closer Spencer Pratt, I mean Jonathan Papelbon (ever notice how those two douches look eerily similar?) deep into the right field bleachers. No pie in the face yet for Curtis, but indeed a game winning longball none the less.

I have been a fan of Granderson since first I first saw him play at Comerica Park in beautiful downtown Detroit in 2005. Needless to say I was delighted by the trade, funny how having a slight connection to a player makes him become "your" player. My wife grew up in Detroit so I frequent the city regularly, and being a former speedy centerfielder myself, I was naturally drawn to Curtis. It goes to show that people do actually listen to you when you talk, after Grando's first homer in pinstripes my text inbox became flooded with phrases like "there's your boy!" or "you are gonna love having this guy". I hope the same can be said about Johny Damon in D-town but time will tell, I reassured my Detroit contingent that they were going to love having the Sheff wearing the old english D, but that did not go quite as swimmingly as I had prognosticated.

As anticipated John Sterling of WCBS has come up with another zinger of a homer call for the new Yankee, waxing off his golden vocal chords, Sterling coined the phrase "The Grandy man can!". As usual Sterling reached deep into his bag of puns for this one.
Check out this article debating what Sterling's "Grand" call will be.


The Yanks Are off and running, and now head back to Tampa to take on the Rays at the Trop. Javier Vazquez vs David Price should make for a great Friday night match up.


Michael Clark (emsea)

Madness at Martinsville

What a finish to a great race! Even though I knew that Denny Hamlin was going to end up in victory lane the finish still had me on the edge of my seat. Hamlin and the Fed Ex 11 team were having a rough go at it until just about the halfway point of the race, then they got their ducks in a row and "pulled a 48". They were able to fine tune the car enough to make a charge for the lead, and dominated the entire second half at Martinsville.

The drama began as I sat there watching the 11 lead the race with 10 to go and thought to myself, "well its over", I know he wins (thanks Ben!) so he is just going to hold off the field for the victory right? Wrong.

Suddenly the caution flag waived and the Joe Gibbs cars (at this point Kyle Busch and Hamlin were running 1-2) threw caution to the wind and hit pit road for four freshies and a splash of fuel. DW and the Fox sports crew were baffled by this, stating that they just threw the race away, Why would you pit now? Are you crazy? ect. ect... But I knew the outcome, I knew Hamlin had won the race, however, even I wasn't sure how he was going to pull this one off.

The restart with about 7 to go and Hamlin is somewhere back in the 10th position. This is Martinsville, not exactly the best place to try and pass 9 cars in 7 laps. The paper clip shaped track gets congested and will give you the squeeze. So I sat there just waiting to see how this would play out. 4 laps later Kyle Busch is dumped into the corner in turn 4 and the caution waves yet again. This is a common trend in present day NASCAR, you can expect 3-4 cautions in the last 25 laps, reminiscent of the last few minutes of an NBA game where one team fouls constantly thinking they still have a shot to win.

Now the restart with 2 to go. The good ol' green white checkered we all have become accustomed to. Hamlin now is restarting 6th, but remember he is on fresh tires and needs to save his crew chief's you know what with a win that they all but handed away.

Hamlin dives to the middle bullying his way 3 wide into turn 1 like a bat out of hell. Gordon and Kenseth, both former champions and Martinsville monsters are all that stands in his way. The 17 of Kenseth was bumped hard by Gordon and losses all his momentum. As this rubbing is playing out between the two champs, the 11 sneaks by on the inside followed by youngster and fellow teammate Joey Logano in the Home Depot 20. The two Joe Gibbs car finish 1-2, a feat accomplished for the first time in a long time for the organization.

Even though I knew the outcome, I could not have been more pleased with the quality racing that took place at Martinsville.

Jeff Burton had a great race and looked strong all day, but his good run was ended when he was sideswiped into the wall with about 50 to go. The 31 team is a sleeper for any NASCAR fantasy league. These guys are as consistent as Hideki Matsui, who's middle name translates loosely to consistency. They always run up front and are usually good for a top 5 on any weekend.

The proud owner of many a grandfather clocks (the race winner at Martinsville gets a grandfather clock in lieu of a trophy), Mr Jeff Gordon, had a dominant car all afternoon as well but just could not close the deal.

A bad day for our points leader (going into the race), Kevin Harvick. The 29 battled a balky car all afternoon and eventually ended up behind the wall to repair an blown engine. He finished 35th, leaving him looking up at our new points leader, you guessed it, Jimmy Johnson.

The spoiler made its return to the cup series this weekend and fans could not be more pleased with the cosmetic appearance of the cars. The aesthetically pleasing cars actually look like stock cars again! We will see how the drivers handle the new package at Texas next weekend. The high banked 1.5 mile speedway is known for its high top speeds. The spoiler effects the aerodynamics and down force of the cars much differently than the wing, last week on the short track it was more about the integrity of your bumper than your aero package. We may see some drivers doing their best impression of the Tokyo Drift next week, we are talking "slideways" all day folks!

Michael Clark (emsea)