Good race. If Harvick had been closer to the front on that last restart, he may have had something for Jimmie. Not sure anyone else did though, atleast on new tires. Would have liked to have seen it go green and see if:

A. Carl's gas strategy would have won it for him.
B. Gordon's two tires would have won it for him.

5/26/2014 7:35:39 AM

Quote :

"My problem with indy is the way its built, if you look at the grandstands, you are watching tv/nothing for most of the lap. Unless you are up high in turns 3 or 4. Also Indy is great for follow the leader "racing"."

From my 2nd 500 onward I've always sat at the entrance to turn 3. Either the entrances to 1 and 3 or the exits of 2 and 4 is the best spots to sit. I sat in the middle of the frontstretch outside the track when I went to the inaugural Brickyard 400 in 1994 because someone else got the tickets and those seats were pretty bad as far as watching the race. Some people that aren't savvy racefans though like those because they can see the prerace festivities and the pits, plus they're covered.

I like the entrance to 3 because:

-you can see half the track from the exit of 2 to the exit of 4, which is as good as you're going to get at Indy
-there's a huge TV screen right across from you in the infield to see the other half of the track and the pits
-they're always the last seats to sell so that's your best bet for getting leg room

Good race. Hunter-Reay's a deserving winner. I saw the end of the race on the delayed broadcast in the Indianapolis area last night, and they didn't show this on TV. On the post-checkered flag lap, everyone slows down and Hunter-Reay especially as he's waving to the crowd. Castroneves just flies away from everyone and wants to get back to the pits so fast. He was kicking himself for losing. After the Carpenter/Hinchcliffe incident, any of Andretti, Castroneves, and Hunter-Reay could've won and "it'd've felt right" based on how the race went.

As far as the "it seems too easy for them to pass", this has been how these cars have raced at Indy since they were first raced in 2012. An Indycar creates a larger draft behind it in comparison to say a stock car because of the air hitting the exposed rotating tires creates a larger hole in the air. I personally would like the cars to have a little more separation between them or to not have a pass be so automatic. I don't know what's going to happen, they're going to have aerokits developed by Chevy and Honda that will externally differentiate the cars.

As for the 600, I saw some of it when I got home. Jimmie's da man. You could tell Kurt Busch after blowing his engine was incredibly tired, but seemed very heartbroken he couldn't finish the race. He was struggling early in the 500 and fell back to 19th for the first couple hundred miles. Then he worked himself back up and using the cautions and attrition worked himself up to 6th which great run as he was the 4th-highest finishing Andretti car.

[Edited on May 26, 2014 at 7:17 PM. Reason : .]

5/26/2014 7:10:55 PM

While watching on TV I was thinking the middle of 3 and 4 up high would give you a view of everything but turn 1. Must be hard to see them when they are that far away I guess.

5/28/2014 4:03:31 PM

^ there's a pagoda, infield grandstands, trees, haulers, etc. in the way

you can be 15 to 20 rows up and see everything pretty clearly as far as the cars not blurring as they go by you

here's a picture I took in the 2012 race of the parade lap from about where I normally sit at the entrance to turn 3, looking toward turn 1; they've since taken out a couple sections of this Vista along the backstretch because they didn't sell well and to reduce capacity:



here's a shot of 3 and 4 from the same location, from here I can tell you I like to sit more to the right toward the turn than where this picture was taken, about where the infield service road is so you can see the turns perfectly (this part of the infield shown here is the Snake Pit):




fun fact: Kurt Busch is ahead of Graham Rahal in the Indycar Point Standings.

[Edited on May 28, 2014 at 10:08 PM. Reason : .]

5/28/2014 9:52:25 PM

https://cocacola600.fancam.com/20140525/

lotta funny in that crowd

5/29/2014 8:17:32 PM

^^I would never go to a race there Not being able to see the entire track would drive me insane.

5/30/2014 10:21:46 AM

Chase Elliott showing his speed today in Dover

5/30/2014 2:43:37 PM

Cool, Just tune in Sunday. Jr has this one in the bag.

5/30/2014 5:27:57 PM

I wonder if Kyle Busch gets tired of winning against sub par competition? Watching him in Nationwide and Trucks is like watching Alabama play A&T in football. Yawn.

5/30/2014 7:56:14 PM

^trucks I'll give you... But he hasn't been that great in the nationwide series. He'll, Sam horn is has the same amount of wins in that 54 car as he does and both chase elliott and kyle Larson have twice the wins he does.

5/30/2014 9:01:54 PM

Yea he hasn't been as dominant in Nationwide this year. I know he brings money and fans to the trucks, but he's holding back the drivers in those series imo. Instead of being a cheeseball in his superior trucks, why not put a developmental driver in and let them get some shine? I want to see Bubba in a Nationwide car, gonna be hard to get there when you can't get wins unless Busch and his super truck is out. (Bubba has had terrible luck this year)

5/31/2014 7:12:20 AM

the dude with the twitter handle "nascarcasm" has comedy writing skills imo

5/31/2014 7:19:20 AM

^^Bubba has talent, but he needs alooooot of seasoning before he should get a full time nationwide ride.

Also, the sponsors for Gibbs/Penske/JR wouldn't be there if they didn't have Harvick, Keselowski, Logano, Kenseth and Busch running in those cars. If anything, those guys being in the races brings more notoriety to the series. Would Larson/Elliott's two wins mean half a flip if they hadn't beaten the best to get them? Busch and the rest aren't holding back any drivers that are going to make it in Sprint Cup. Regan Smith and Elliott Sadler are 1/2 in the points thanks to a broken part on Chase Elliott's car last weekend, and neither of those could hold a spot in Sprint Cup. If there are some hot shot young drivers out there(Elliott, Larson, etc)...they will get a nationwide ride whether Busch is in the 54 or not.

5/31/2014 7:31:18 AM

Also:

Chase Elliott was fastest in both Nationwide practices yesterday. Qualifying is this morning at 10:40...race is scheduled for 2:00 PM.

Brad Keselowski sat on the pole for the Sprint Cup race on Sunday.

5/31/2014 7:32:14 AM

My cousin held the american flag today in the buckle up 200 nationwide race!

He will be holding it for the national anthem tomorrow before the FexEx 400 tomorrow! huge honor for him.

5/31/2014 4:21:54 PM

Thats awesome. I hate Kyle Busch.

5/31/2014 4:44:41 PM

man...that was the worst NNS race I've watched all season. Absolutely no passing, at all. You had to re-start in 1st or 4th or else you were gonna drop a position or two and fall in line until the next re-start. Absolutely shitty racing.

5/31/2014 5:31:34 PM

When the Cup drivers left Trucks, Trucks fell off the face of the earth as far as respectability. No one uses it for driver development any more. Johnny Benson I think it was a few years ago won the Trucks championship and he couldn't find a ride or sponsor for the following season. The thing keeping it going is NASCAR stubbornness and they can leverage it onto TV off the back of the Cup contract. There's no reason for a 3rd national championship at this point.

Nationwide is better than Cup because it's still seen as a legitimate development mechanism, but if you removed Cup drivers from it I think the crowds and TV interest would collapse even further. The name sponsors that are there are for the Cup guys. That's just a fact of life.

[Edited on May 31, 2014 at 5:35 PM. Reason : .]

5/31/2014 5:32:10 PM

There are usually about 10 "contending" cars in each race. Why do you think Regan Smith has this "amazing" Top 10 % going this season. If you have Gibbs/RCR/JRM/Penske equipment under you...theres no reason(outside of broken parts) for you to finish outside of the Top 10. Regan Smith will ride from 5th-10th, as well as Elliott Sadler, all season long. They're not good enough to stay in the Top 5 consistently. Chase Elliott is 18 years old and continuously spanks their ass and is one of the only Nationwide ONLY dudes that can with and in front of the sprint cup guys consistently. They should count their lucky stars that he had a broken part at Charlotte and got taken out by that no driving ass Ryan Blaney at Talladega or they would probably be staring a 30+ pt deficit in the face right now.

5/31/2014 5:39:27 PM

^ That's how racing used to be, is why Richard Petty has 200 wins, and racing is heading back toward that point since costs have increased dividing the haves further away from the have nots.

For stock cars there was always much more parity in comparison to other forms of the sport but the worst to me was always ARCA. You could get a Podunk NASCAR driver, stick him in an ARCA race, and there's no reason he should not win if you're at the bigger tracks reliant on having a motor like Daytona, Pocono, Michigan, Talladega. 30 cars of the 40 in the field you ought to simply just drive away from even if you have minimal talent.

5/31/2014 5:42:55 PM

I think buying rides is next. We have already seen the start of it (Danica, Menard). Nascar is on a path to Formula 1.

5/31/2014 7:13:30 PM

Bummed out this morning that i missed k&n at bowman gray last night and little douche has a shot at a triple dover sweep

6/1/2014 8:00:48 AM

Ole 6 time will stop him.

You missed this



[Edited on June 1, 2014 at 10:09 AM. Reason : lol]

6/1/2014 9:47:07 AM

did she dick punch him?

6/1/2014 10:14:32 AM

^he didnt act like it.

wonder if she got arrested...

6/1/2014 11:06:29 AM

she absolutely dick punched him

6/1/2014 11:06:38 AM

bunch of fucking rickies up there

[Edited on June 1, 2014 at 12:02 PM. Reason : isn't the bump and run pretty much SOP at bowman gray?]

6/1/2014 12:02:06 PM

^Don't think i've seen a video of a race at the madhouse where the leader didn't get spun.

6/1/2014 12:06:36 PM

That track is crazy...Im not seeing a catch fence outside of Turns 1 and 2...I know its a small track, but that seems insane regardless.
Also, how much work do they have to do to get that field ready for football season? Looks like it would take a beating with all the drivers that feel the need to drive through it.

6/1/2014 1:12:04 PM

these are the same fucking hilljacks who sit around dipping captain's wafers in ranch dressing at the local diner.

6/1/2014 3:37:12 PM

It ain't a race if they don't throw a caution at the end.

[Edited on June 1, 2014 at 5:15 PM. Reason : See previous post for winning prediction]

6/1/2014 5:06:30 PM

I like the cage for drunks.

and the drunks that sit down in he cage before the race even starts because they know otherwise they will get thrown in it.

Friggin awesome.

6/1/2014 9:23:24 PM

good scanner audio from dover:

http://nas.cr/vjJQ

also, pocono sucks on TV

6/4/2014 7:31:17 AM

Quote :

"I think buying rides is next. We have already seen the start of it (Danica, Menard). Nascar is on a path to Formula 1."

Danica does not qualify as a ride buyer to me. This may be a technicality to you, but from watching racing over the years this is how it works. A ride buyer is a person that would not get hired otherwise that shows up to the team with sponsorship saying "put me in the car, here's the money". Menard is the classic example, also former Cup backmarker Kevin Conway. In Danica's case, the sponsor was the one intent on putting her in NASCAR, Danica wasn't shopping herself after she found someone that gave her money. If she was let go tomorrow by Stewart Haas, another team would hire her based on sponsorship she could get (team would probably not be as good as Stewart Haas, but someone would hire her).

Ride buyers if the money leaves would not be in the series. Pastor Maldonado in Formula One for example is backed by a truckload of Venezuelan state oil money. Maldonado a few years ago even managed to fluke a race win, yet if he didn't come with the $30 million or so, no one would hire him (which annoys Pastor because he thinks he's good enough at this point to get hired on his own merits, and he's not). In Danica's case, even though she's not the best driver, a Cup team would hire her because they would have a reasonable expectation they could pick up a sponsor if she's the driver.

^ I like Pocono in a way because the track is so different from normal.

[Edited on June 4, 2014 at 8:55 AM. Reason : .]

6/4/2014 8:47:23 AM

same is true for jr. he's an owner's dream-come-true from a sponsorship standpoint.

6/4/2014 9:12:06 AM

^Same is true for Chase Elliott. Look how quickly NAPA flocked to him. He'll never have issues pulling sponsors because of his name.

I happen to like Chase though, so im all for it

6/4/2014 9:25:00 PM

Dude already has 2 nationwide wins and a solid showing otherwise at 18, he's definitely not a just a name.

I'll throw Townley into the mix as a loser ride buyer.

6/4/2014 9:34:34 PM

^I'm a Bill Elliott fan from way back and have followed Chase up through the Late Model ranks and into Nationwide. I'm a huge fan of his...hes my driver now and will be when he reaches Cup.

I didn't mean for it to sound as if hes a ride buyer. The guy ahead of me stated that Dale Jr. was a owners dream because his name alone is going to bring sponsors out the wazoo. In that respect, Chase Elliott is the exact same. Neither of them are ride buyers because they've both made it on talent alone. I agree with you there.

6/4/2014 10:05:14 PM

I'm pretty sure I was agreeing with you and then just worded it poorly. I'm definitely on board too. Seems like Bill raised him up right.

6/4/2014 10:12:41 PM

Scott Speed is dominating the X Games rally car event.

6/7/2014 4:04:38 PM

i didn't even make it 10 minutes before i couldn't stand kyle petty and wally dallenbach anymore and had to turn that shit off

6/8/2014 1:29:44 PM

Dude I ain't watched a lap at Pocono in so long, when did they start shifting again?

I wish NASCAR would have a set crew that announces the race no matter what channel. Or give me the option of listening to PRN through my tv.

6/8/2014 1:32:53 PM

pocono would be sweet if the track had the same radius and banking in turns but with NO straights.

6/8/2014 1:44:02 PM

once again, running with the center speaker unplugged for NASCAR on TNT

6/8/2014 1:46:31 PM

TNT's crew is horrible. I need a boogity boogity boogity to make me excited about Pocono.

^^Pocono would suck no matter what you do to it. The track sucks, hands down is my least favorite track on the schedule.

6/8/2014 1:57:51 PM

This really can't be happening.


LOL Brad has to be pissed, wtf was he thinking.

[Edited on June 8, 2014 at 4:14 PM. Reason : .]

6/8/2014 4:10:18 PM

Jr gets revenge for Vegas

6/8/2014 4:17:10 PM

jooner nashun!!!

6/8/2014 4:21:35 PM

Kes shoulda stuck to the "run it til it blows" plan. Happy for junior though. First time since I was still in high school that he's won more than one race in a season

6/8/2014 4:28:17 PM

i like how BK tried to say it would not have made it. BS, it made it to 2nd didnt it

6/8/2014 6:34:00 PM