Full Throttle

Two of NASCAR top three series’ were in action Saturday, one featuring a first-time winner and race car pirouette, the second featuring well, not much actually as rain and severe storms moved across the plains of Kansas and postponed the Truck event until Monday.

The Nationwide event at Talladega lived up to the tracks reputation as a place where anything can happen and anyone can win.

Roush-Fenway Racing’s David Ragan has spent the last few years operating under an undue reputation after some claimed his attempts at the NASCAR level resembled a job tryout as a crash test dummy.

Since 2006, when Tony Stewart said Ragan was a “dart without feathers,” he’s shown steady improvement.

The 2007 year saw the second generation driver score a fifth in the Daytona 500, third at Richmond, just missing the Chase after a poor finish in the fall Richmond event and was runner-up to Montoya for Rookie of the Year.

All that seat time paid dividends as he passed pole sitter Ryan Newman within sight of the Checkered Flag, after coming from seemingly nowhere, to win his first NASCAR race.

“I was kind of content with a top five,” said Ragan, who restarted fourth for the final two laps. “No one seemed to be able to really run on the outside and really push hard. I’ve got to give credit to Joey Logano. He helped me out—an old Legends Car buddy.

“I just kind of saw beating and banging there with first and second and said, ‘What the heck? Let’s jump to the outside and see what we can make of it.’ ”

Ragan and Newman rubbed fenders right before the finish line, and Ragan’s #6 Ford crossed the stripe .030 seconds ahead of Newman’s #33 Chevrolet.

“I knew Junior was coming,” Newman said of the final half-mile. “I blocked, and he got me sideways. I really didn’t expect the 6 to come that fast, but I guess he had someone pushing him.”

Tony Raines ran fourth to post his best Nationwide finish since 2005. Earnhardt came home fifth, followed by Jason Leffler, Jason Keller, rookie Scott Lagasse Jr., Brad Keselowski and Kyle Busch.

As seen above Ragan’s teammate Matt Kenseth was the feature player in the race car pirouette, not a good thing, but fortunately he’s none the worse for wear. The same can’t be said of his Ford Fusion.

“I was really just hanging on hoping I ended up rightside up,” Kenseth said.

Roush laughed when he said he was giving Kenseth the charred car as a souvenir.

As for that Dale Jr. guy, he was there at the end, but not for lack of trying to screw things up. He had to fight his way back into contention after missing his pitbox. Again.

“I didn’t even know where my pit stall was when I got on pit road,” he said. “There were a couple of cars in front of me and I never saw it.”

I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again, Junior needs a pit board made from Neon lights. Failing that Tony Jr. needs hop up that damn Chevy so he wins the pole every week. That way he can pick either the first or last pit stall. Be damn hard to miss that way!

As hinted at, oh so many paragraphs ago, the Truck event in Kansas was red flagged because of heavy rain, thunder-boomers and a hell of a lot of bolts from the blue in the area, if you get my meaning.

The event will restart Monday at 10am. Which really sucks for them guys as their costs just sky-rocketed with the 2 day layover.

And finally over in that other NASCAR series, some guy that goes by the moniker of “Latino Piloto is Muy Bueno” (well, he does here at FT anyway) won the pole for Sunday’s Sprint Cup race.

I’d say it was his second pole winning effort but for the sake of truthiness let’s call it his first - plus one half.

Montoya’s half a pole came at Kansas last year but the time was disallowed after he failed inspection.