Submitted from NASCAR Ranting and Raving Blog

Today’s running of the Brickyard 400 (yes, I still call it that - don’t you?) quickly turned into the Junkyard 400. The safe place to be was out front, but that nearly turned costly for Harvick and Stewart as they ‘beat and banged’ their way around the track fighting for the lead. Stewart would eventually take and never look back - even when drinking from his water bottle, using both hands mind you, while driving down the straightaway at nearly 200 mph with just 10 laps remaining. Stewart’s comment about that when asked was, “I was thirsty”.

“Here, kitty, kitty, kitty,” Stewart called out over the radio as he chased down Harvick. “Come get you some of this.”

Whether you like Stewart or not, you cannot deny that he is one heck of a race car driver and he proved it yet again today.

Another driver of note is Juan Montoya. Using a slightly different driving lane than his fellow competitors he finished second after starting second in today’s race. It must be noted that after the start of the race Montoya was virtually out of the picture for the whole race until the closing laps when he appeared ‘out of nowhere’ to finish second in his first start at The Indianapolis Speedway as a NASCAR driver. Not too bad for a rookie. I wonder what Juan would have done if the caution flew in the closing laps and gave him a chance to get Stewart on the restart which were giving him problems late in the race.

To be honest with you, although I never documented it, I had Montoya pegged to finish in the top 5 today. The other 4 in my top 5 were Stewart, Earnhardt, Jeff Gordon, and Jimmie Johnson with a possible spoilers being Kahne (with his new/old nose) and Denny Hamlin (who seems to do well on flatter tracks).

Speaking of Jimmie Johnson, man he took a hard lick today - thank God for safer barriers. I happened to have recorded the race today as I had a ton of things to do today and I went back to watch his wreck later (I was listening to the race on the radio at the time of the crash) and if you watch closely you can actually see the left fender of the car crumple against his tire about halfway down the straightaway followed by smoke and the tire blowing up as he enters the corner. This would go with what he said in his interview after where he explained that he felt something fall off the car, maybe a brace, about halfway down the straightaway and then the tire went down.

Talking about weird things; what a terrible place to finally stop - right in the middle of pit road while the rest of the field comes in for pit stops during the caution. I bet Dale Jr had a few anxious moments there while the cars drove around his stalled (for lack of a better term) vehicle.

You know, I wonder if there is something going on at DEI - sorry, this is not conspiracy theory - he looses the use of his power steering a few weeks back and had to finish the race with no power steering and today he reported that he lost his power steering just prior to the engine experiencing catastrophic failure. Can these two separate incidents be related somehow - maybe in the final assembly process where something is being put on wrong, or they are using the same parts that are defective somehow? I don’t know, but hopefully DEI won’t be doing a Ray Evernham here and they will actually look into this to see if they are related.

Let’s move onto the topic that everyone is talking about and that is ‘Bullpoo’. OK maybe not exactly Bullpoo, but you know what I mean. Yes I think NASCAR will fine Tony on Tuesday under the catch all Section 12-4-A of the NASCAR Rule Book (you know, “Actions detrimental to stock car racing …).

Does Tony regret what he said? Probably not. He had this to say afterwords, “It’s a little late to be concerned about it now,” Stewart said. “It pretty much is what it is. Whatever happens, they still can’t take this trophy away from me today.”

The other ‘hot’ topic right now is Kevin Harvick. After the race he deliberately ran into Tony on the cool down lap. Was it a congratulatory bump or was he peeved that Tony got into him while fighting for the lead? I think wa all know which one it was, don’t we?

Tony wasn’t too concerned about it after the race, winning can make you gracious after all. I wonder if the shoe was on the other foot if he would have done what Kevin did? After considerable thought, I think that yes he would have.

Kevin had this to say, “It was just good racing until I got the left front fender caved in. He didn’t quite give us enough room.” I don’t know if he said this ‘pre’ or ‘post’ visit to the NASCAR trailer for ‘rough driving’. I think it is post-visit quote, it is a little too tame for Kevin. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was even docked points under Section 12-4-A of the NASCAR Rule Book too.

Regardless of what anyone thinks, I still think that the battle between Harvick and Stewart was great. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. I don’t think it was as deliberate as Kevin insinuates though, Tony could have easily cut down a tire or caved in his fender too. Rubbins’ Racin’ Kev.