Will what happens in Vegas stay in Vegas?

What a mess the Nationwide race was yesterday.  I mean, it was fun to watch, but so many wrecked cars, and so few reasons for them.

It appeared that some cars could get maybe 2 feet out of the groove, and they just wrecked.  It's that simple.  Some cars could run high and did OK, such as Dale Earnhardt Jr. in the Go Daddy 5 Chevrolet.  Others that put even one tire outside the middle groove of the track were sent into an immediate spin, and all heck broke loose behind them.  Based on the Nationwide race on Saturday, Sunday's Cup race should be very interesting indeed.

On Saturday, Kevin Harvick was driving his own car, the 33 Rheem KHI Chevrolet.  He got caught up in a wreck when the 29 Holiday Inn Chevrolet of Jeff Burton, owned by Richard Childress, spun in front of him.  Kevin had a few choice words for Jeff on the radio.  Today, they are teammates, both driving Richard Childress Chevrolets.  I doubt that any angst from yesterday will carry over to today, but Kevin was obviously not happy with his RCR teammate yesterday.  Kevin eventually got his car back onto the track, but basically was just trying to run NASCAR's minimum speed, sticking to the apron of the track for the most part.

I don't know what's going to happen today.  I have a feeling it's going to be ugly, like a Las Vegas bar brawl on wheels.  There are some drivers that desperately need good finishes, and obviously Matt Kenseth wants to go 3 for 3.  Dale Jr.'s trying to climb his way out of the top 35 doldrums.  Several Toyotas, including the 18 of Kyle Busch will be starting from the back, so the 18 will be passing a lot of cars today.  How cleanly he passes some of those cars will probably be somewhat of a story today.  Kyle is a great race car driver, but he's not known for having an excess of patience.

Today's race, by most indications, should be much more entertaining than the yawner known as California was last weekend.

Some California Results

Racing off pit road was about all the major racing there was.  Congratulations to Matt Kenseth for his 3rd California win, and his second in a row for the 2009 season.

Bad luck for Mark Martin, Kevin Harvick and Dale Earnhardt Jr. who all lost engines in the race.  Especially bad for Kevin, who had the longest streak of no DNF's in the modern era going.  I suppose all streaks must end, eventually, but it's disappointing to see Kevin lose an engine when he obviously had a pretty strong car all day.  Dale Jr. also had a strong run until his engine let go, driving from 43rd to 13th at one point in the race before engine problems sent him to the garage.

Matt Kenseth is obviously now the driver to beat in the Cup series now, starting the season 2 and 0.  Showing a lot of promise also is the 24 of Jeff Gordon, who came in second tonight.

I suppose some of the biggest news of the night is that Kyle Busch didn't complete the sweep, winning not only the Camping World Truck race, but also the Nationwide race on Saturday.  That feat alone set a record, winning two major NASCAR series races in one day, but Kyle didn't complete the trifecta, winning all three major NASCAR races in a weekend.  Give him some time though, he's still a young man.  Finishing 3rd in the Cup race was a pretty good run for Kyle Busch.

What I wonder though, is how long can Kyle Busch keep burning both ends of the candle, as well as the middle?  3 races in a weekend, at least when they run all three races at the same track is a grueling schedule for any driver of any age.  Kyle does it regularly, and I applaud him for that, but I have to wonder if the schedule from yesterday didn't take a toll on his performance today.  I'm guessing not, because Kyle seems to have an inexhaustible supply of energy, which is normal for a man his age.  I just wonder how long he'll keep that kind of schedule up though.

A Little bit of a Format Change here

Obviously.  I was just getting a little tired of the old look.  I don't know if it will stay this way, and I'll probably be tweaking it over the coming weeks.

Once again, NASCAR is feeling the curse, or maybe blessing of rain, this time at the Auto Club Speedway in California.  It's a little past half way, and there's been some racing tonight, but not a great deal.  I suppose that's about par for the course at Fontana.

Now 3 of the Hendrick cars appear to have engine problems at the same time, so or at least 2 of them.  Fox TV is reporting that the 88 of Earnhardt Jr. and the 5 of Martin appears to be down a cylinder.  It appears that the 48 of Johnson is jumping out of gear.  I wonder what's going through Jeff Gordon's mind right now?

My biggest complaint with the California races is purely selfish.  I live on the east coast, so the race didn't even start here until sometime around 7:00 pm, local time.  I wouldn't mind it so much on a Saturday night, but it's Sunday, and I've got things to do tomorrow, all of which involve paying the bills.  Life was so much simpler when it was Rockingham in February, instead of Fontana.  But like I said, it's probably selfish on my part.  I hope the west coast fans enjoy the race!  I really do.

I'm still wishing that the race was at Rockingham though.

Conversations Overheard at the Waffle House

For those of you who don't have a Waffle House nearby, I feel sorry for you.  I happen to have one nearby and ate dinner there tonight.

While I was eating dinner, an older gentleman came in and sat next to me at the counter.  It was rather crowded, so that's not unusual.  The gentleman was talking on his Blackberry cell phone the entire time he was there.  Apparently he was traveling through the area, and was talking to his teen aged son, who apparently lives with his estranged wife.  This man was apparently trying to push on down the road tonight, driving all night, to go see his son in Louisiana.  I live in South Carolina, for those of you who don't know, so this man had a long drive ahead of him.  I heard him mention that he had not seen his son in almost 2 months.  Part of that time, his estranged wife was on the phone with him.  She apparently said that because he was out traveling all the time, it's his own fault that he hasn't seen his son in so long.  Obviously, I don't know all the details involved here, but what I listened to was a sad story.  By the time I left, the gentleman was in tears, his face wet, and his voice hot with emotion.  This gentleman apparently had taken a job that puts him on the road about 95 per cent of the time, far away from his home and loved ones.

I'm alone most of the time these days.  I lost a very dear friend and companion back in July of last year.  I don't mind being alone, but since I am alone most of the time, it's amazing what you overhear at places like the Waffle House.  

Tonight, on the other side of me, I listened to a conversation between a young couple, apparently engaged to be married.  The young man had just been laid off from his job, and now the wedding plans were on hold.  The lady was very distressed, as many young ladies are likely to be when the wedding of their dreams gets put on hold.

I left the Waffle House tonight full of food, but quite frankly sad.  I had a couple of tears in my eyes when I walked out the door.  I consider myself one of the lucky ones.  I'm going to begin a new job next week that quite frankly is well below my skill set, but I'm still anxious to have.  We all have bills to pay, we all have obligations to fulfill, and this job will help me to do what I need to do to survive right now.  I'll still be here, of course, and on my new site, JCNN as well.  

Be thankful for what you have, if you have anything.  Don't ever take it for granted.  As some say, the good Lord gives you things, and the good Lord can surely take them away in a big hurry.  If you have family, friends, people who are willing to look out for you, take a little time and thank God for them.

I'm lucky enough to have those things.  I hope you do too.  If you have them, or whatever you have, take time to be thankful for them.

Please, from one friend to another, never, ever, take anything in your life for granted.  Thank whomever you pray to for what's good in your life.

Thank you. All of you!

I don't say it nearly enough, but thank you for reading.  I'd like to thank you in Ithaca, New York, Jacksonville, Florida, Virginia Beach, Virginia, The Dominican Republic, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, New York, NY, Zurich, Switzerland, Las Vegas, Nevada, Mexico, Tampa, Florida, Greensboro, North Carolina, Tampa, Florida, Frankfort, Kentucky, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, Chicago, Illinois, Cazenovia, New York, Detroit, Michigan, Wilmington, North Carolina, Scottsdale, Arizona, Meridian, Mississippi, Dallas Texas, Knoxville, Tennessee, Santa Clara, California, Warminster, Pennsylvania, Coolidge, Arizona, Minneapolis, Minnesota.  

That's just page one of my stats out of about 24.  Thank each and every one of you.  It's a new season, and I'm probably going to write way more than I should, but I'm going to do it anyway, since I have such nice readers like you.

Once again, thank you, from the bottom of my heart.

Can You Believe What You're Reading?

Not to mention any names, but there are some very suspect sites linked on Jayski.com today.  I've been linked a couple of times there, but mostly I just do my own thing and you read it.  That's the way it works.  I don't make money from this site.  If I could, I would, but like you, I'm a fan who just happens to enjoy writing about the sport I love.

I have read a few news stories in the past and led you astray.  I freely admit it.  Remember when Bobby Labonte was a sure thing to be driving the 33 Richard Childress Racing Chevy?  I wrote about that.  I was wrong.  I found out just how wrong I was about the same time you did.  I noticed something that day though.  A lot of the sites that reported that as a done deal suddenly withdrew the stories.  I didn't.  I made a mistake, and I still display it to the world.  If nothing else, folks, I'm honest.  When I make a mistake, I own up to it.  In other words, if I write it, I believe it's true.  I'm not always right, obviously, but I believe in what I write about.

It's a very young season, and there is much in the way of silliness to happen in 2009, but I will report what I believe is true, and what I don't know to be true, I'll simply report as a rumor.  I feel like I owe you, as a reader more than I gave you in 2008.  I promise I'll never lie to you, and if I report something wrong, I want you to give me a huge amount of crap about it.  

There is a site currently being featured on Jayski that is basically full of bull squeeze.  I've read it, and was stupid enough to believe it last year, and even though they've been totally wrong about basically everything in the past, Jay, for some reason, links to the site.  My site doesn't really qualify, since I'm a blog, not really a news site.  Once in a while though, I write a column that even Jayski can't ignore.  I used to be featured on Bleacher Report, but I got tired of all the editorializing there.  I came home to here, my own blog, and here it is, warts and all.

I'm not a NASCAR insider, and never pretend to be.  I'm like you, a fan, and express certain opinions here.  I probably know a few things that I can never say here, but you probably do too, if you've been a fan for a while.

I watch 99 per cent of the races on TV, just like most of you do, and I have to put up with Digger, and DW, and all the rest of it.  Actually, I thought the Digger deal was cute for about 10 seconds, then I got tired of it.  I get tired of DW after about 10 minutes, and that's only because I respect him for the driver he used to be.

I'm also officially tired of fan boards of any kind.  I still read a couple of them, on race days, but every driver's got his die hard fans, and he could shoot the President and the fans would still back him up on it.  It gets old after a while.  You think Junior Nation is bad?  Try the Casey Mears board or even Ryan Newman's.  Fans are fans, and God bless them all.  I'm doing my own site now, and I'm officially a fan of Smoke this year.  Yeah, go 14.  I wish him well and Ryan, his new teammate.

I've got a Fender Statocaster I'm trying to refinish.  Anyone got some suggestions?

Thanks, Dale Earnhardt.

The above photo is from Jayski.com

Thank you Dale Earnhardt for making this sport what it is today.  You, and people like Richard Petty, David Pearson, Bobby Allison , Cale Yarborough and many others helped put NASCAR on the map.

Dale's gone, he died on this date in 2001.  I hope you will help celebrate the life of not only a great race car driver, but a great man.  To me, Dale Earnhardt was the best race driver God ever put on this earth.  I certainly don't know your personal feelings about that, but even if you didn't like him, you had to respect him.  Dale came from basically nothing and got almost everything there was to get.  Dale won 7 championships, and 76 races.  He finally won the Daytona 500 in 1998.  

Dale died near turn 4 at Daytona International Speedway on Februrary 18, 2001.  He died very near where his buddy, Neil Bonnet died in 1994.  When I say Dale Earnhardt was a hero, I'm not kidding.  Neil was a hero of mine too.

Light a candle, and if you're near Mooresville, NC, go to the DEI headquarters on Highway 3.  Or go to the shop of Richard Childress Racing in Welcome, NC, and light a candle there.

This day in 2001, we lost a great man.  Let's remember him.