Submitted by NASCAR Ranting and Raving Blog
How fitting that Dale Jr’s ‘Chase For The Chase’ ended with a blown motor. It just symbolizes his entire season perfectly. I’m kind of glad that he didn’t finish the race with the car intact, the way he ended the race leaves more of a mark on the company than the driver. It was the company’s motors that let loose this year that caused Jr to fall in the standings. Now I don’t deny that Jr made some mistakes this year, but his mistakes didn’t take him out of races like those blown motors did. That is the fifth motor in competition that ‘dun blowed up’ on Jr this year and if memory serves me correct it is also the fifth motor of Jr’s to blow up since he announced that he is leaving DEI for Hendrick Motorsports.
OK, conspiracy theories aside, it is still a little too coincidental for my liking that only Jr’s motors blow up while no other RCR/DEI engines do. Maybe Jr’s team does something different to the motors once they get them, but you think they would have figured out the problem by now, and they haven’t. According to this week’s Sports Illustrated they still haven’t pinpointed the the problem(s) that caused Jr’s motors to expire while on the track.
Here is another tidbit of info that is interesting too; the Wednesday before the ‘heavily attended’ Labour Day California Classic, Jr blew up another motor while testing.
I wonder if Jr is getting the ‘recycled’ motors while Truex and Menard are getting the ‘fresh’ ones. By recycled I mean just that, each motor is used about 15 times before it is retired. Now granted, all moving parts are replaced after each race, especially the valve train, but they still use the block and heads again. Maybe Jr is getting the motors that are closer to the 15 uses mark rather than his teammates.
Anyway, I guess now Jr can just concentrate on winning 13th place in the standings, and maybe show them Chasers a thing or two by out scoring them in the points for the final 10 races just to say I told you so, unless of course this happens.
Photo Credit: AP Photo/Gary Knapp
