Full Throttle

Come on all you disgruntled NASCAR fans, admit it, Saturday’s 10 lap side-by-side finish in Kansas was a barn burner.

But all is not lost for you “haters,” you still can claim it came down to two Buschwhackers and not say, Marcos Ambrose and Bobby Hamilton Jr.

Such is life, get over it.

The reality is it was an exciting finish as Kyle Busch held off Matt Kenseth over the final ten laps. Ford against Chevy, Roush-Fenway against Hendrick what more do you want, the only thing missing was a Toyota in the mix.

Casey Mears followed the top two with Clint Bowyer and Jamie McMurray rounding out the top five.

Denny Hamlin, Paul Menard, Jeff Burton, Brian Vickers and Greg Biffle completed the first ten finishers.

While on the subject of “haters,” even with points leader Carl Edwards problems on the day, the final indignity pictured above, he still leads the standings by a wide margin.

Edwards and his team can sit out three of the last five events and still win the championship. Someone explain to me how that’s better than having five Cup drivers within 18 points of each other in Cup?

UPDATE: Kyle Busch’s winning #5 failed post race inspection with what NASCAR called an out of spec intake manifold. You can bet that wasn’t caused by an after race bump/celebration by a teammate.

Damn, what’s the hells gotten into (pun intended) Michael Waltrip?

After turning in the eleventh fastest time in Cup qualifying it makes you wonder if we’re seeing a reprise of Daytona. And he must have shared a “bit O the Juice” with Dale Jarrett, he qualed in the 13th hole!

Before you jump Mikey fans, I’m kidding, honest :$

Congrats to the most downtrodden NASCAR team of the year. Maybe the extra engineering help provided by TRD has finally seeing some positive results.

At the top of the charts is Jimmie Johnson who won his third pole position of the year with a speed of 175.063 mph. followed by Kenseth, Riggs, Gordon and Hamlin. Scott Riggs was the quickest driver required to make the field o

There have been many tears shed over the late and lamented North Wilkesboro Speedway after it’s death in 1996.

Those that wish for its revival have become almost cult-like in their devotion to the speedway and a few have a two year old website dedicated to the tracks past history and possible news of its resurrection.

Land developer Worth Mitchell is the latest in a long line of those that think they can make magic happen in what once was known as the

Wakey, wakey Tifosi, turn off your Maranello alarm clock (imaged left) and roll out of your specially designed beds.

While you were dreaming Robin Leach type fantasies, and another Prancing Horse win, Kimi and Felipe put your favorites 1-2 at Fuji Japan during FP1. they were closely followed by Alonso and Lewis “Secret Agent Man” Hamilton.

The surprise of the session was Williams’ satellite-Toyota of Nico Rosberg who timed in fifth fastest and teammate Alexander Wurz at seventh.

And wait, there’s more. Jarno Trulli in the “real” Toyota timed in at eighth. Although it must be said Trulli has been flirting with 8-10th spots all year.

But the performance of the Satellite Williams team makes one wonder. Hummm… Fuji, owned by Toyota, holding it’s first GP in 30 years and their team is near the top of the speed charts. Why do I smell a very light load of fuel for the benefit of the home crowd?

Anyway, speed may not determine final qualifying results or race order. It may come down to choices made on when to use or not use rain tires.

Rain is forecast for both Saturday and Sunday. It should be wet, but not as bad as the 2004 Suzuka event when typhoon Ma-on forced organizers to postpone qualifying.

Here’s today’s F1 Headline of the Day: Lewis: McLaren favour me

And unsurprisingly the story contains today’s Quote of the Day courtesy of Lewis “Secret Agent Man” Hamilton:

And since what’s gone on in the last few weeks they’ve realised who the real people are in the team and who they really should back.

Whatever does Hamilton mean by “real people?” I never realized being a real humanoid entailed passing secret text messages via some kinda decoder ring or something.

Silly me. Guess I have to work on my “people qualities.”

Many people think that and now we have confirmation.

Witness the comments of one Scott Speed on the occasion of his first stock car test at Talladega.

It’s not every day you can say NASCAR has made the right move. The release of the 2008 Sprint Cup schedule does give a slight clue the sanctioning body can go down the Path of Correctness on occasion.

The first noteworthy change is the removal of the off week after the season opening Daytona 500.

Having the 500 open the season, which traditionally garners the highest TV ratings of the year, followed by an off week has been universally panned as silly at best, idiotic at worst.

In seasons past NASCAR Nation has been hyped to the peak of excitement leading up to and during the two-week speed fest. And then, just when fans are at their collective peaks, nothing, everything falls flat for two weeks. It’s a PCNA mandated Coitus Interruptus.

But that’s gone now with the first off week after the fifth race of the season. (Bristol) That’s a good thing, but they failed to address another scheduling problem, no off week before the Chase begins.

An off week after event 26 (Richmond) would solve the obvious, let teams gear up for the final championship run.

It would also give NASCAR the chance to go into full hype mode. Not that it would be good in many eyes mine included. Back in the day when I gave a rats butt about the Numerous Felons League I found the two week break before the Stupid Bowl tedious, silly and mostly an opportunity for reporters to think up the most inane questions possible. And they never disappointed me. As would the NASCAR beat reporters.

But it is what it is, that’s what leagues do to hype their “star attraction” whether it be an individual or big event. In NASCAR’s case the important advantage is to give teams an extra week off before the run to the wire.

It didn’t happen for the 2008 season, maybe if enough teams voice their opinion in favor of a week off it will happen.

On the other hand maybe my thinking is clouded by the Tin Colander affixed to my skull.

It’s new, it’s unique and never seen before.

Roush-Fenway Racing has decided to appeal NASCAR’s decision to penalize the #99 Ford Fusion 25 championship points. And they’re are doing it a new and improved way by snatching a slide rule from the aerodynamics dept. and using what I would call the New Chase Mathematics.

Team president Geoff Smith claims it’s unfair to dock Edwards 25 points for a violation during the Chase, that the penalty when weighed against the same one given to Kyle Busch and Johnny Sauter earlier this year isn’t equal.

How so? Well, I’ll let him tell you ’cause I suck at math, new and old. And this guy is talkin’ New Chase Mathematics and it throughly confuses me

“What is unfair is that Carl is receiving a penalty that is 250 percent greater in its effect than a similarly assessed penalty against a non-Chase driver,” Smith said. “Chase drivers are competing for a total of 1,950 points (in 10 Chase races). All drivers competed for 5,070 points in the first 26 races. Do the math. The net effect is that a 25 point penalty falls unfairly hard on a Chase contender.

“That’s simply not right. To equalize the penalty impact on all competitors, not more than 10 points should have been taken from a Chase contender.”

Excuse me… let me consult my resident Math Genius…. (my seven year old)

She says, and I quote: “Who the hell (she gets that from Mom, honest!) does Geoff Smith think he is a later day “