May be...
Congrats Denny!
I see Kyle was picking up on some of Dale Jr's plate race expertise. It would have been nice to see if Jr could have put a move on Kyle and possibly Denny also. That is one of Jr's strong points is working the draft at restrictor plate races.
I was disappointed with the green white finish. It was also bad to see Mike Wallace get taken out by his nephew there at the end. Mike should have shown his nephew a little more patience. After all those old cars get upset easier aerodynamically than the new cot. That's racin' in those old cars at high speed tracks.
It was actually racing and not rain, fuel, pit strategy, etc... that determined the outcome and that made the race interesting in itself.
the leaders (the above, plus keselowski and a few others who shuffled in and out) were running high, running low, blocking, switching lines, trading places, cutting back and forth - and almost all without incident. yeah, kyle bumped reutimann a little bit and took his "warning." there was even humor as reutimann's crew chief tried calming him down by telling him to file it away to remember "for the end of the race" - as if reutimann had a snowball's chance of catching and keeping up with the leaders on any run over a few laps.
and what an ending, with the wallaces getting into it, everybody wondering what kyle and junior would do - work together to beat hamlin or split apart, carl getting put behind clint and then nearly wrecking out trying to get back by (great save by carl and bliss), and denny's performance coming back from two seconds back within the last ten or so laps and then fending off all comers made it incredibly exciting. and all three of the leaders had a great chance to win - what a race it would have been had carl not ended up down in the infield on that last restart...
and to finish it all off, denny's interview was actually one of the best i've seen him give in years - thanking his team and recognizing all they did for him when he came in, and now during this, his last ride in the #20. kyle was mellow and appreciative that he got his sponsor their first finish instead of tearing up the car again like at kentucky. junior was ready to start the head's a rollin' from the #88 crew, and then he spent minutes congratulating the gibbs guys not on their engines, but on their cars' bodies - going for "downforce" and handling over brute speed. and then to top it off, he congratulated tony stewart.
and then there's bowyer's brilliant comment that a "monkey" could win in the #20 car - classic clint sportsmanship: he had no problem running with and sometimes leading the gibbs cars, edwards, and junior throughout the race but couldn't close the deal - so he does his best to downplay hamlin's win. and mike wallace looked like a madman on the run during his interview. i froze the frame a couple of times to explain what was going on to someone else, and i swear i've seen that look before in the county mental ward (in movies of course ;-) - the red face, wild eyes, mussed hair, and bizarre grin... especially while saying that he had "met" with steven already to discuss what had happened. and then there was steven's glaring absence from any post-race interviews.
who could ask for anything more...
PS: LOL, I've never seen Mike Wallace that mad before!
Go Dale Jr & Hms
Figure it takes them one lap alone just to get up to speed.
No comments:
Post a Comment