Full Throttle

There were two defining moments Sunday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

The first moment was an eight-car crash on a midrace restart that roused tempers and took out a couple of contenders during the NASCAR Sprint Cup race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

The second came when Mother Nature once again intervened (When hasn’t she this year?) and called a halt to festivities. The Red Flag and subsequent suspension of the event gave Joey Logano his first Sprint Cup win.

The 19-year-old rookie was probably the only happy driver when NASCAR announced the race official, but veterans of the sport would quickly tell the youngster to enjoy his win because “there’s no telling how long it might be before he wins another one.”

Crew chief Greg Zipadelli, Logano’s mentor and crew chief on the No. 20 Home Depot Toyota, a veteran of this sport’s tremendous emotional peaks and valleys, probably told his rosy-cheeked driver, “You take em any way you can get ‘em, kid.”

Precisely, and as fast as the race was called the whiners and teeth-gnashers inhabiting the chats and forums all jumped on the “it ain’t fair” bandwagon. Unsurprisingly some were Jr. fans who conveniently forgot Father Gas Mileage gave their charge his last win.

As for the new found “feature” at NHMS, The Big One, opinions varied among drivers who precipitated it. My take, Dale Jr. spun his tires on the restart and the ensuing chain reaction that collected 8 cars.

Before I leave the subject of “whiners and teeth-gnashers” there were plenty of complaints about both the lack of rain tires in nascar and double-file restarts being the cause of The Big One.

All of which proves Roseanne Roseannadanna was right, “Well, Jane NASCAR fans, it just goes to show you, it’s always something.”

That aside, Logano was among a group of drivers who moved to the front of the field after getting out of sequence on fuel stops. The youngster moved into the lead on lap 264 when Ryan Newman ran out of gas.

The rain began falling three laps later and, after NASCAR put out a red flag to try to dry the track, the rain began falling harder and the race was called after 273 laps.

Despite the carnage that claimed a couple Chase contenders no one dropped from the top 12 and no moved into it, although 13th thru 16th tightened up considerably.

Kasey Kahne (-1) is in 13th followed by Reutimann, Bowyer and Jeff Burton who’s only 108 pts out of place.

The Chasers dodged the bullet this week, but I’d bet they won’t in next week’s Wild Card at Daytona.

UPDATE: The stupid comment of the day comes via Claire B. Lang’s radio show. One of her listeners suggested he was pissed about the shortened NHMS finish, and claimed this is the worst NASCAR season evah!

Finally he suggested NASCAR should have run 10 more laps under yellow so Logano would have run out of fuel!