Jimmie wins. Carl is behind 141 points. Jimmie must finish 36th or better. I don’t like to call it this early, but I think Jimmie will win his 3rd championship in a row since Cale Yarborough did it from 1976-78. I have never been a member of the Jimmie fan wagon, but I have to give his props.
See ya in Homestead everyone!
One more thing…Texas Tech is still #2 in the BCS rankings
For all of us Red Raiders
This is a cross posting over at NBFT Digest. I haven’t been much of contributor of late and I apologize, so if you haven’t been over there in awhile stop and say hi.
That’s right the 2008 season is winding down. With only two races left, it’s Jimmie’s championship to lose. Carl did cut down some of Jimmie’s lead in Texas, but Jimmie and Chad have been here before. I have to admit since Talladega I haven’t been all that excited about the racing. I guess it’s because Tony isn’t a contender and he is closing out his career with Joe Gibbs. I am looking forward to next season. It’s going to be interesting to see how both Tony and Ryan run under the Stewart Haas flag.
I am a little bummed that Kyle Busch didn’t make a better showing in this Chase. I mean he was hotter than habanero pepper and the next thing you know he is out of Chase contention. I still wonder what the Chase would have been like if it weren’t for his bad luck at the beginning of the Chase. I think I would be more into the Chase and it would definitely be more exciting.
Since the season will come to an end in a couple of weeks, I can finally get back to spending time with my friends and family who I have ignored since February as well as all those projects that need my attention. I have to say it’s been one interesting season. For the past two years I have held the Trixies to honor those events that have shaped the past NASCAR season. I am now in the process of reviewing the season and I hope to have them up sooner than I did last year, but you know how life can get in the way. In case you missed the 2006 or 2007 Trixies, you can stop back by The Park and take a gander. If you have any suggestions for the 2008 Trixies just leave me a note.
This is just too funny…trick or treating at Texas Motor Speedway.
Raiderland has been a buzz this week. The #1 UT Longhorns are coming to town to take on my #7 Red Raiders. This is the biggest game I have seen us play in quite some time. ESPN’s College Day is also making their first trip to Raiderland. It’s going to be crazy beginning tomorrow. I would love to be there Saturday morning with the rest of those crazy Red Raiders. However to be honest, I would rather be toin Ft. Worth at the moment hanging with all of my fellow NASCAR fans.
Update on Postman…still in hospital. I am hoping they will let him go home tomorrow, but you never can tell. I hate sitting at the hospital. It’s boring and tires me out. You wouldn’t think it would, but it does. Luckily they have WiFi throughout the hospital, but it sucks I can’t get to my favorite game site. It’s blocked. I understand why, but it still sucks!
Glad this month will finally be over…October has been hell. The next two weeks will be crazy as Postman and I prepare to finalize the adoption of Little Smoke two weeks from today. It’s been a long process, but well worth it.
Well, here’s to my Red Raiders, may you kick the crap out of the Longhorns!!!!
I can’t believe I haven’t posted on last week’s race. I am sure a bad blogger. In fact I really wanted to do a post on Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Burton, but work has been so crazy this week that all I want to do when I leave is go home and sleep.
Congratulations to Jeff Burton! He is the one driver I like to watch every week. You never can considered him out until his car is in the garage. He definitely is in the hunt for the championship. I love it when they show his wife Kim. She is so passionate about Jeff’s racing. Her enthusiasm is great! If I was married to a NASCAR driver, I would hope to be as passionate about my husband’s racing as she is.
Well, I thought the race last Saturday night was great. There were several times during that night where different drivers lead the pack including my driver Tony Stewart. I am still confused as how he could go to leading the race and then boom he is back in the pack and stuggling. But it seems this car struggles once it gets in dirty air as opposed to the clean air.
It was another bad day for the Junior Nation. Dale Jr. hit the wall after a tire goes down. This happened to him in the spring race as well. I have been listening to Sirius this week and soem fo the callers wonder whether or not Junior creates the tire issues by running up in the high groove. There is quite a bit of debris up along that part of tracks, but I don’t think that is just that. Sometimes it’s just oen of those things that happens to drivers during a season. Don’t fret Junior Nation I am sure Junior will find the right path and get back to his winning ways.
I have to say I have a little quirky thing about numbers and at times it can drive Postman nuts, but he had to admit it was strange about what was happening last Saturday. Last Saturday was a night for the double number cars. What you say? That’s right the double number cars were having all kinds of trouble.
I think I have made my case.
The boys are in Martinsville this week. People say that Lowe’s is the Jimmie’s house, but I have to disagree. I think Martinsville is Jimmie’s house. He has 4 wins, 9 Top 5s, 12 Top 10s and and average finish of 6.0. Plus I see qualifying has been cancelled once again and Jimmie will be starting on the pole. I think Jimmie will be tough to beat at Martinsville. If you don’t believe me just look at his stats below.
|
Year |
Race No. |
Start |
Finish |
Laps |
Status |
|
6 |
10 |
4 |
500/500 |
Running |
|
|
6 |
20 |
1 |
500/500 |
Running |
|
|
32 |
4 |
1 |
506/506 |
Running |
|
|
32 |
9 |
1 |
500/500 |
Running |
|
|
6 |
1 |
3 |
500/500 |
Running |
|
|
32 |
6 |
3 |
500/500 |
Running |
|
|
6 |
37 |
8 |
500/500 |
Running |
|
|
32 |
18 |
1 |
500/500 |
Running |
|
|
8 |
8 |
4 |
500/500 |
Running |
|
|
32 |
26 |
2 |
500/500 |
Running |
|
|
9 |
7 |
9 |
500/500 |
Running |
|
|
32 |
7 |
6 |
500/500 |
Running |
|
|
8 |
14 |
35 |
446/500 |
Vibration |
Several months AMP energy was running a promotion, where you could be on Dale Jr’s car at Talladega. Of course, you had to be one of 70,000 to get your name on the car and ride with Dale at last week’s race at Talladega. With all those out there in Junior Nation, I thought no way was my name going to even have a chance, but when I search…there it was. Since I want to keep my identity as private as possible as I can, I won’t point my location at to you, but let me assure you it is there. My name was on the right side of the car in the “M” of the “Mountain Dew”.
Of course I wasn’t the only one who got their name on the car either…congrats to Race Kitten as well. Postman asked how that crash felt…I am sure it didn’t fell all that great for Dale Jr. and perhaps that would explain why I have felt like a Mack truck ran over me all week.
In case you are wondering how I was able to get the picture of my name from the website. Here’s how I did it (I am sure there must have been an easier way, but I am not all that computer saavy)
- I hit the “Print Screen” button on my computer keyboard. It is usually one of those buttons near the top that I don’t use very often. This will copy the screen you are viewing at that time.
- I then opened up Powerpoint. I then hit “Paste” under the edit menu or you can right click and choose “Paste”. This will past the picture into a powerpoint slide. I then cropped it to get just the portion I wanted.
- On the picture, I then “right clicked” chose “Save As Picture”. A pop up menu comes up and name the picture. Before hitting save, I selected “JPEG” under “save as type”. This way I can upload it to my site.
All of this may sound long and confusing, but it’s the only way I knew how to get the picture for my site.
In this corner: Carl EdwardsAll I have to say is NASCAR is about passion and that is what these two drivers have–Passion. This will probably be another “much ado about nothing” after this weekend. If you are a reader of The Park you know who I would root for in this tete-a-tete. It’s weird how most of the season the talk has been about Kyle Busch and his attitude/antics and now…well, let’s just say there hasn’t been much discussion about Rowdy. But like with anything, the more things change the more the stay the same
Looks like qualifying has been rained out and thus the points were set by the standings. That means Jimmie is on the pole once again. Lowe’s is Jimmie’s track. He has 5 wins at the track and even if he doesn’t win, he is always a threat at Lowe’s.
Stewart Haas Racing has announced that Army will be the sponsor of Ryan Newman and the #39 car in 2009.
Wow…that’s really all I can say about Talladega.
Congratualations to my driver Tony Stewart for picking up his first win of 2008, his first win in #20 Home Depot Toyota (and yes I know it was Subway), and his first win at Talladega. Of course there is always a little controversy that surrounds Smoke. I have tried to keep a perspective about the whole yellow line thing because I guess I am a rules girl. NASCAR explained to the drivers on Sunday morning the rule about the yellow line. You can’t go below it…period. If a driver goes below the yellow line then they will suffer the consequences. And in this race fan’s opinion that’s what exactly happened on Sunday. I really don’t feel like debating the whole did Stewart push the #01 down below the yellow line. Regan Smith was there and he advanced his position. And in my eyes and NASCAR that was a big no-no. It was the green-white checker and Tony was leading. Tony was going to do everything in his power to win on Sunday. Tony was going to protect the bottom to prevent the others from getting a run. We have seen it time and time again at other tracks. Drivers do what they need to do to get the victory. That’s racing.
I have to say Carl Edwards went from “wow, what a great move” to “WTF just happened” in the matter of a 7 days. I know about 20 laps left at Talladega is when everyone turns it up a notch and Sunday was no exception. Carl basically took out two of his Roush teammates along with a few others including Dale Jr who was having a typical Talladega run. I have to say Carl did apologize causing the big one. Of course, with Carl and Greg involved in this crash, it helped out Jimmie. He left Talladega still with the points lead.
It was strange some teams were having tire issues. I don’t see Talladega as a track that will give the teams fits about tires. But as we all know tires have a mind of there own. They weren’t just getting cut, but exploding. Just ask Dale Jr., or Brian Vickers, or Denny Hamlin. In fact, he was taken to a local hospital after his crash at Talladega. When you slam into going that fast, even with all the safety measures in place, you are going to feel it.
Now that Talladega is out of the way, we can look to the remaining races. Next up Lowes, or as the race commentators say, Jimmie’s House. Oh and by the way, it’s on Saturday night! I love Saturday night racing.
Well, I am still recovering from my trip to Chicago. I have to say I had a wonderful time, but I don’t think I could live there. Too big of a city for me. However, I was able to experience ESPN Zone and all that it entails. I love ESPN Zone! I mean come on, you have a tv at any angle. While there my fellow co-worker and I were able to eat with Jeff Daniels. That’s right star of Dumb and Dumber was eating dinner at ESPN Zone with us. Ok…maybe he was three tables away, but we were there and he was there and we were eating dinner. So, in my world, we had dinner together. Of course I didn’t get a way with from the place without purchasing a few souvenirs. My favorite…a coffee mug with the following on it…”Yes, I am a woman, I know the game, I watch ESPN”. How can I not purchase this mug?
And we were able to get a bird’s eye view of Chicagoland Speedway.
I was able to see Kansas Speedway, but did have the forethought to pull out the camera.
Sorry for interrupting the race post with my Chicago highlights, but it was a great trip and has refocused me with regards to my job as an advisor. In fact we will be making a few moves in the office and I will be able to get back to what I love–working with students. I work with students now, but not as many as I would like. This new change hopefully will get me out of that professional funk I have been in lately. And with that here are a couple highlights of my trip….
Trixie's Trailer Park 
