NASCAR 2013 Sprint Cup season (other series discussion welcome!)

  • Thread starter Thread starter JRS
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So, Martinsville this weekend for the Cup and Trucks.

No Hamlin racing obviously (he'll probably be back at Richmond), but he's very much in the news still. He's saying that he was wrecked intentionally by Logano (though he doesn't blame him for the injury he suffered, he put that down to a lack of SAFER barrier on the wall he went into). Joey in turn is saying that he was going for the win, and the wreck was purely accidental. This one's going to rumble on for a while yet.

As for the saga of who will replace Denny temporarily....well, that got a bit tangled. For the full story see here.
 
Engine blew on Danica Patrick's car in practice, so she drops to the back of the field for the start. Going to be a long day for her introduction to Martinsville.
 
sr4470 said:
She's been disappointing this year, after ending strongly in 2012. Suppose its a no-win for her...run 13th and get wrecked, or run near the back and finish, get criticised either way.
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12th place finish, ahead of both her team mates and easily beating the guy who turned her into a spin early on in the race. Ties her for 30th in the list of best first-timers at Martinsville since '72. She's had worse afternoons than that! Ken Schrader came on the radio to say "That'll learn her" after spinning her - she learned alright Ken, which is why she ended the day 12th and you were down in 32nd! :D

JJ won, so I would assume that accusations of cheating are flying around various internet message boards dedicated to NASCAR. Hey ho. Gives Hendrick Motorsports their 20th win at this place, with top 5s for Jeff Gordon and Kasey Kahne as well. Dale Jr's spin and 24th place finish drops him to 3rd in the overall standings.

Good to see Kurt Busch get out of that car. His interview from outside the care centre indicated brake failure - better to happen here I guess than most places, but not something you want to ever face and he did a damned good job a) getting it to a halt as safely as he did and b) having the presence of mind to hit the fire extinguisher button on his way out of the car rather than leaving it for the marshals.
 
The Nationwide race at Texas was....well, when 8 of the top 10 finishers are Cup regulars you know that something has gone wrong with the series. Kyle Busch won his third race in a row. Cup race is on today, the Trucks are running at Rockingham (North Carolina, as opposed to Corby ;)) tomorrow.
 
He ran in a nice piece of strategy, helped by the caution at lap 218 but you make your own luck in this sport sometimes.

One person who was **** outta luck though was Kyle Busch. He really does not like this track!
 
Hoo boy....

So, Kenseth's car was running an illegal part. TRD apparently built an engine with a connecting rod that didn't make the weight specified in the rulebook. He's docked 50 points, and also loses the three bonus points he'd get if he makes the Chase (closest thing to DQ'ing him from the Kansas race entirely). His pole position at Kansas also won't count towards making him eligible for the 2014 Sprint Unlimited. His crew chief has been fined $200k and suspended for six races. Joe Gibbs (the car owner) loses 50 owners points, is suspended from getting any owners points for the next six races (hell of a blow), and Toyota have been docked five manufacturers points.

They'll appeal, I guess. And it's very unfortunate because their engines are provided by TRD (Toyota Racing Development) rather than being made in-house. But, rules are rules and NASCAR has form for heavily punishing anyone who bends them in the engine department. Just ask Carl Long....
 
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TRD made a reasonable point - running with one con rod underweight is hardly an advantage, because you're introducing odd forces to the crank and potentially impacting on engine life (especially with these latest Cup engines turning the thick end of 10,000rpm at the top end). Running all eight con rods light would be more like cheating.

Utterly irrelevant, because they broke the rules, but very reasonable.
 
It was a ****-up, plain and simple. And while on the one hand you should never attribute malice to something when stupidity is an adequate explanation, it was still a breach of the engine construction rules and deserved punishment.

Think on - that part could have caused the engine to blow, endangering other competitors (not exactly fun getting showered with oil, coolant, bits of engine block and big end bearing!), bringing out the pace car and radically changing the complexion of the race. So yes, it was possibly detrimental to the performance of the car. But it could have made a big difference to the outcome of the race in other ways. The NASCAR rulebook is the way it is for sound reasons (I may not agree with everything NASCAR has done over the years, but the technical ruleset is the textbook example of how to run a semi-spec series), and they've shown in the past that they'll beat you to a fine pulp for infringing where the engine is concerned.
 
The BS about NASCAR favouring the Hendrick camp and Hendrick cheating goes back so long now I don't suppose the people wittering about it even know why they do.

Kenseth and his crew chief have reacted to the penalty. No surprises with their opinions - no intent to cheat, penalties too harsh, etc. I do hope Joe Gibbs plans to send a rocket up TRD's backside if the appeal fails, since this mess is all on them.
 
Anyone watch the Nationwide race? Thought it was good, even though it was dominated by Cup drivers again.

Also, I thought we were trying to get away from teams 'starting and parking'? Jeff Green turned just 4 laps before a 'vibration' put him behind the wall for the rest of the race, JJ Yeley managed 7 laps before 'electrical issues' put him out. Time for NASCAR to take another look at that - it's one thing doing that when the number of cars qualifying is the number of spaces in the race, but I'd hate for a team to have to pack up and go home, only to watch the car that beat them into the race stop a few laps in and simply collect the starting and prize money for a 40th place finish.
 
Lot of bent up racecars in that Nationwide race. Talladega strikes again.

Travis Pastrana is blaming himself for his race ending crash - not sure what he could have done differently myself. He says he should have been riding further back in the pack, but he could have been wrecked just as easily (probably more so) back there as up front.
 
Both Penske and JGR had their penalties reduced on appeal, though Penske had to go through to the 'last chance saloon' for theirs.

JGR decision.

Penske decision.

Darlington this weekend, the track they call Too Tough To Tame. Probably my favourite of all the tracks on the NASCAR tour :) Nationwide tonight, Cup on Saturday.

Also the site of one of my favourite ever races, the 2003 Carolina Dodge Dealers 400. Just for the final laps:

 
Indy500 said:
Paging JRS, it's the Coca Cola 600 at Charlotte this weekend :)
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I'm here, no need to panic ;)

Did anyone see the All-Star race last weekend? JJ won, so fandom predictably exploded. Hey ho. Maybe one day NASCAR fans will GROW A GODDAMNED BRAIN AND STOP WHINING ABOUT THE #48 TEAM CHEATING. Pushing the rulebook is a part of NASCAR. People seem to not grasp this. Or maybe they're just annoyed that Hendrick, and in particular the #48 team, do it better than everyone else :p
 
I am in no shape, way or form a Kyle Busch fan. And a few years back I would never had said what I'm about to say. But I would really like to see him try out a Formula One car now.

A), he'd probably be very good at it. And a well-driven F1 car is something worth watching....
B), because of that it'd wind the 'NASCAR sux, F1 rools!!!1111oneone" crowd up....

And this coming from someone who once posted a thread on these forums whining about how awful Kyle's declaration that he'd like to test a Toyota F1 car was :p

Aaaaaaaaaaaaanyway. Kyle didn't win the Nationwide race (a yellow flag threw a curve to the field and Joey Logano won). He's leading the Cup race as I type this though.
 
Jason Leffler dies after an accident during a Sprint Car race in New Jersey. He was the first driver to win a race for Toyota in the Busch Series (now the Nationwide Series). In 56 races in the Truck series he made 35 top-10 finishes, 1 win and 10 poles. He'd found success a bit harder to come by in recent years, his last full season ride was back in 2011 in the Nationwide Series for Turner Motorsports (he finished 6th in the championship IIRC) and he didn't end up making many NASCAR starts in 2012. Guess he went Sprint Car racing to fill the void.

Not the first driver this year to die racing Sprint Cars on dirt, sadly. Hopefully he'll be the last.
 
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