Full Throttle

BREAKING NEWS!! - Elvis found ALIVE!

Long thought dead the Rock & Roll legend has been spotted wandering the pit stalls at All-Star Speedway. In somewhat less shocking news, NEXTEL Cup star Kyle Busch will be racing the Rowdy #51 Super Late Model in the PASS All-Star 200 this evening at All-Star Speedway.

The Busch East Series used to be strictly a New England series, with most short tracks in the region hosting them annually and overflowing with local racers, has become anything but.

“It’s changed a lot,” said Andy Santerre, a four-time series champion who fields cars for Sean Caisse and Jeffrey Earnhardt. “There are a lot of teams now that have the financing to buy and bring good equipment.”

The good equipment comes from some of the best in the business, Dale Earnhardt Inc., Joe Gibbs Racing, Hendrick Motorsports and Ginn Racing all field cars for young drivers on development contracts.

One of those drivers, Gibbs Racing’s Joey Logano, has been smokin’ the field. Logano won the New England 125 on Friday at NHIS, the fourth win in seven starts this season.

“Everywhere we go, we’ve got a top-five or a winning car,” the 17 year-old Logano said. “This car here is undefeated. This is the third time we’ve run it this year, and we’ve won every race. This car ran good all day, and you can’t ask for any more here.”

The “Cup-Lite” event just finished at NHIS with Kevin Harvick taking the win ahead of series points leader Carl Edwards and a long string of the “usual Cup suspects.” The top finishing Busch regular was Rusty’s son Steve in 15^th.

IN NEWS OF THINGS WITHOUT FENDERS, Felipe Massa secured Ferrari

“Thanks” Dave Blaney! Next time you decide to make history at the wheel of your Bill Davis Racing TOYOTA could you give a little heads up?

Waiting in a hospital ER isn’t the most pleasant thing under normal conditions, but waiting in an extended line watching Dr. Phil clones tending to xenophobes suffering acute cases of “Toyota Derangement Syndrome” is just too much!

Regardless, congratulations to the crew of the #22, Blaney, Toyota Racing Development and Bill Davis Racing for winning the marquee’s first NEXTEL Cup pole.

The pole victory was Blaney’s first of the season and second of his Nextel Cup career. His other pole victory was in 2003 at Rockingham. Starting alongside Blaney will be the Penske Dodge of Kurt Busch.

Reed Sorenson and Johnny Sauter will make up row two. Infineon Raceway winner Juan Montoya was fifth quickest.

IN OTHER NEWS: “TNT to wow jaded NASCAR viewers.”

Shouldn’t that headline be written in past tense? Didn’t TNT, aided & abetted by Kyle Petty, WOW NASCAR viewers last week? Guess not as NASCAR’s “porn squad” declared it a “non-WOW” event by ignoring the incident. Not that it matters, it was on cable, who cares?

But, on to the point of the headlined story; At Daytona next Saturday night, TNT will unveil its latest broadcast innovation called ”Wide Open Coverage.”

In short that means no commercial breaks. It means “the bottom of the TV screen” [will be used] “for sponsor messages, on-screen graphic elements and other vignettes.”

The top portion of your Idiot Box will have continuous and uninterrupted racing action. So they claim.

Wooo-who, no commercials! At least not in the traditional sense. But it remains to be seen what “the bottom of the TV screen” means. If the area is say 10%-15% of your viewing area it shouldn’t be much of a problem.

If that “ad section” stretches much beyond that the racing action may be like watching a flea circus. Instead of watching the Lenox Industrial Tools 300 we may get a broadcast of the “Arthropod 300″ from NHIS.

We’ll see, regardless it should be an interesting experiment.

Let’s put to bed the lastest NASCAR “cheating scandal,” latest because another will soon follow.

Did anyone notice an oddity in the penalties handed out to the Hendricks teams?

Both Knaus and Letarte as crew chiefs for the #24 & #48 took what apparently is NASCAR’s “New Black,” (or should that be the New “Lack of Gray”) a 100 G’s fine, and 6 weeks on the bench. Many have said, Ho-humm, they still get to work in the shop and that’s very true.

But something’s been missed in that scenario. Both Knaus and Letarte have been credited with being the evil geniuses behind their respective teams and that is also true. But their primary job, and what they get paid big bucks for, is to call the shots on Sunday.

Their replacements for the next 6 weeks on top of the war wagons are Jeff Meendering for Gordon, and Ron Malec as Johnson

Let’s start with NASCAR:

So…, Roush-Fenway Racing will “wrap” Carl Edwards’ #99 to look like a baseball in recognition of the business tie-up between Roush and the owner of the Boston Red Sox. Also added to the paint scheme will be two sponsors logos that have had a long relationship with the Red Sox.

In addition, Boston Red Sox will host Roush-Fenway Racing Day at Fenway Park Friday as the Red Sox take on the Texas Rangers.

The Half-Vast Staff

Well…, at least NASCAR was consistent. For one day. For one type of infraction. In one series. For one type of car. But for “poor” Ted Musgrave and his NCTS team NASCAR has shown they are still consistently inconsistent.

I haven’t checked but feel pretty confident in saying there have been dozens of drivers over the last few years using their Chrome Horn during a caution period and didn’t get a one race suspension for doing so.

I might be going out on a limb here but, I think Musgrave is innocent. He was just operating under Cartoon Law X that states, “For every vengeance there is an equal and opposite revengeance.”

Ryan Newman has an interesting take on the “fuel mileage” event at Sonoma: “We got beat by fuel mileage,” Ryan Newman said. “We got a 20th-place finish with a top-seven car.”

Note he says he had a “top seven” car not a winning car. Apparently that’s a new definition of “winning” that supplants the previous one dictating second place is the first loser.

Entering into the Shyster Land (All-day ride tickets, Priceless!) for a moment: It has been reported the Kentucky Speedway - NASCAR antitrust lawsuit is headed for mediation Friday.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Gregory Wehrman has set a “settlement conference” in Covington, Ky according to the court clerk’s office.

That might mean something, like Kentucky getting a Cup date with no admission of guilt by NASCAR, or it could mean the retainer fee buffet line stays open feeding the pockets of high priced Shysters as they sit around a $20,000 dollar imported mahogany table agreeing to disagree.

Just what NASCAR needs, more TV coverage. Not that I’m complaining my TV has both a channel selector and an on/off switch. But I do wonder, will Ray Evernham’s new show Race Wizard with Ray Evernham, really do what he says?

Ray claims his intention is to “help viewers understand how technology and innovation are giving teams the edge in competition today.