Jul
23
Written by:
The Commish
7/23/2010 8:53 AM
NASCAR invades Indianapolis this weekend with Cup at the Speedway and the Nationwide and Truck series at IRP. The top five Brickyard 400 picks are all Chevy drivers, led by Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon, with Denny Hamlin the most picked Toyota driver and Kasey Kahne the most popular Ford choice -- with a whopping 1.4% of all picks.
NOTE: The Brickyard 400 is a declining asset and there's been talk it may be dropped from the IMS schedule. I seriously doubt that but you never know, especially since IndyCar seems to have finally realized that NASCAR/ISC cares more about conquering the competition for the race fan's discretionary income as opposed to cooperating with them.
Brad, Kyle and Carl are the favs for the Nationwide race with Kyle, Hornaday and Todd Bodine the unsurprising top picks for the Friday night truck race. Both races will have plenty of spins, crashes and yellows and who get's punted and who avoids carnage is completely up to the racing gods. But the big question is, will Hornaday finally get a win in 2010? Or at least finish in the top 16?
Re: the Brad and Carl feud, point penalties and fines are one thing but if NASCAR wants to reinforce a demand for proper, sane on track behavior it needs to start sitting the perps down for awhile. One race at least, maybe more.
And talk, talk, talk ... when do we eat? The 'problem' of Cup drivers and teams dominating the Nationwide series has been around, and talked about, for far too long. Yes, the Cup drivers sell tickets but at a cost; the Nationwide teams can't compete on budgets and with no chance of winning a race, and getting valuable TV attention, they lose the sponsorship battles too.
NASCAR needs to do something, and not something weenie, unless it wants to watch the Nationwide Series, even with new Mustangs and Challengers, to continue it's downward slide.
Will Power is the favorite to win his fifth race of the season this weekend at Edmonton, he and Dario at the top of the picks list followed by a nominal amount of picks for Helio, Dixon, Justin Wilson and Briscoe. As many players picked Danica as they did Tony Kanaan, more than for Ryan Hunter-Reay and one player picked Simona. Yay for cockeyed optimism.
The No. 1 Acura P2 was picked by more than eight out of 10 Wind Tunnel Super 7 Sweep players with the No. 3 GT2 Corvette the next most popular selection with 3.7% of the picks followed by another GT2 car, the No. 90 Rahal Letterman BMW. That's one strategy.
Fernando Alonso is the preferred entry for the German Grand Prix followed closely by Hamilton, Michael Schumacher (ah, the value of brand) and Sebastien Vettel. Massa and Button got more picks then Weber, who was just slightly more popular than Nico Rosberg on the starter stats list. 80 people started Rubens Barichello, who could earn significant FMFL points if it rains at Hockenheim Sunday morning.
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