Full Throttle

Ah yes, “the twisty bits” Cesspool. whenever the NASCAR circus arrives at a road course event you can rest assured more than a few of it’s stars and hangers on take the flying leap into the infamous NASCAR Cesspool.

Let’s start with NBC and it’s road cam, underground cam or whatever they called it. As predictable as rain in Seattle, first lap, some errant driver decided to test the camera’s durability. Result, “upside down cam.” And BTW, unless I missed it, NBC takes a double dip into the fetid feces. You never showed the replay of the repair job that righted the camera.

Kurt Busch and crew were fooled into believing a tire was going down on lap 36. Despite the fact all four were inflated the change was made and Kurt was sent on his way. Lap 38 saw a return trip to the pits to repair a swaybar mounting bracket, the real cause of the original “flat tire syndrome.” Nice catch on the part of Benny and Wally who spotted the problem on the first stop. One would think a crew that didn’t see a flat as advertised would have made at least a cursory look under the car. The crew must have been daydreaming of dancing blue #2’s in their heads. BTW, Kurt also deseves this dip for creating the green-white-checker that added two laps to the event.

Although contrite - “It’s hard going out there and racing people you’ve got so much respect for. I should’ve been thinking about that when he was in front of me I guess” - Junior deserves a dip in the Pool for turning the other Dale [Jarrett] and putting him into the wall. Jarrett’s resulting 22^nd finish dropped him from the top ten and well… Earnhardt is still out of Chase contention.

The safe bet would be Jeff Gordon’s Glen finish wouldn’t earn him a dip in the Cesspool. You would have lost your money. Jeff did an imitation of Ryan Newman’s Infinion trick and attempted to beat the yellow flag entering the pits. In the famous words of Maxwell Smart: “I missed it by that much.” The resulting penalty sent Jeff to the rear of the longest line and may have cost him a shot at victory.

Greg Biffle gets two entries this week. First for giving his pit crew the silent treatment. It was obvious to all, pitcrew, fans and announcers Biffle had slowed considerably and lost about a dozen places within a few turns. Obviously Biffle switched ignitions systems and was back up to speed, despite the silence from the driver. His second entry this week is for loose nuts… er, make that lugnuts. Luckily it was caught before leaving the pits but it still made for a long stop.

The last entry this week goes to Kasey Kahne. Like a fast left lane driver pushing an under powered 59 VW out of the way, Kasey decided to play a game of bumper tag on lap 72. That sent Michael Waltrip spinning, crashing and out of the race.

Next weeks Michigan Cesspool should be faily short. MIS is one most drivers like because of the ability to run three wide. The extra space available should cut down some of the pushing and shoving. And besides they will save that up for Bristol in two weeks.

NASCAR, Sports, Watkins Glen, Auto Racing