Submitted by NASCAR Ranting and Raving Blog
The one mile track in Dover Delaware proved to be one Monster of a Mile for most of the Chase contenders today.
With only 6 cars on the lead lap at the end of the race the Monster Mile took a bite out of almost everyone today, including the race winner Carl Edwards. You see, Carl’s car failed post-race inspection. It was too low in the right rear. Fines will be handed out. Carl gets to keep his win. I’ve got a problem with that, but that is another post in the making. Carl is expecting a 25 point fine in addition to the monetary fine as well. This 25 point deduction will drop him to 6th in the points from 3rd.
Carl suspects that the reason the car is low is because of ‘The Biff’. Greg ‘The Biff’ Biffle, Carl’s teammate at Roush-Fenway Racing and second place finisher, gave Carl a few congratulatory love taps in the right rear corner of Carl’s car with his own during the cool down lap after the race and it from that action that Carl thinks made the car lower than the minimum height as set out by NASCAR. NASCAR will be testing that theory as they have taken the car for further review.
I guess once all this is all said and done there will be a new policy about congratulation taps, and donuts, being applied to the victor’s car after races so as the configuration of the winning car is not affected. I wonder if this will be a NASCAR sanctioned rule, or a gentleman’s agreement between drivers. But Carl is no stranger to running into cars on their cool down laps now is he? Oh how I digress on that one, I’ve got to put myself in check here before I go off on an uncalled for rant.
OK, let’s look at the rest of the Chase contenders. Where are they?
- Kyle Busch gets the “Come Back Kid” award for his performance today - that team did not give up at all and finished on the lead lap in 5th which should have been impossible after they were laps down and involved in a few incidents on the track.
- Jeff Burton, Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon, Clint Bowyer, and Martin Truex Jr all finished one lap down and 6 positions within each other. Truex gets the “Atta’ Boy” award for just finishing the race after the last crash which should have taken him out of the race and probably would have if it were not for the fact that there only a handful of laps left which allowed him to just roll around to the finish.
-Jimmie Johnson was 2 laps down and still finished 14th? You don’t see that too often. Usually if you are two laps down you will be finishing 35th or worse.
- Kevin Harvick was 4 laps down and still finished 20th! Unheard of these days, simply unheard of. Usually if a guy is 4 laps down he is near 40th. Kevin even moved up a position in the standings! Simply unheard of.
- Kurt Busch crashed out of the race and still finished 28th, not bad considering he was already showered before the checkered flag flew. His little crash affected a lot of people too, like Truex. I’ve got more to say about Kurt’s crash, but again that is another post in the making.
- Matt Kenseth has an engine failure? Did Jack get his latest batch of motors from Dale Jr? Whoa, that’s gotta hurt! You lead all day and the race is yours to lose, and you lose. Bummer.
- Finally Denny Hamlin runs over Kyle Petty and then blames Kyle. Listen, I’m not the biggest Petty supporter out there, but Denny is wrong and I think Kyle was right in his interview when he said that the reason why Denny hit him was because he was sick and racing yesterday did not help his situation today at all. I think what happened today was a mental error on Denny’s part due to his illness (possible flu) and by racing yesterday he made matter worse. He should have been resting Saturday for the race on Sunday. I wrote about this yesterday and it looks like I’m right - he should not have been in that Busch car Saturday, period.
The Monster Mile proved to be tough for everyone today, and you know what? That is just what the NASCAR doctor ordered - drama.
On a parting note, did anyone notice that Michael Waltrip finished a respectable 15th today? I did. It will be interesting to see how much he talks about it on ‘Inside NASCAR’ on Monday.
Photo Credit: (Jonathan Ferrey/Getty Images for NASCAR)
