Sep
13
Written by:
The Commish
9/13/2010 6:27 PM
As expected the Cup race at Richmond was won by Denny Hamlin and the Chase field remained unchanged. Kyle Busch, Jimmie Johnson, Joey Logano and Marcos Ambrose filled out the top five with Clint Bowyer, Juan Pablo, Allmendinger, Happy Havick and Carl Edwards were sixth through 10th with Ryan Newman, Jeff Gordon, Jeff Burton, Matt Kenseth, Brad Keselowski and Tony Stewart getting the last of the FMFL Top 16 points.
The unexpected were Kurt Busch (18th) finishing a lap down, which was a lot better than Kasey Kahne (29th) four laps down, Greg Biffle (32nd) five laps down and Dale Jr. (34th) six laps down. The race had few cautions which left the TV announcers plenty of time to fill after the checkers flew and while it wasn't a bad race to watch it certainly wasn't the Richmond race we expected.
The Nationwide race, featuring the 2011 COT -type cars, was a Kevin Harvick runaway as he started on pole and led the most laps to beat Brad K., Trevor Bayne, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (!), Reed Sorenson, Denny Hamlin, Clint Bowyer, Paul Menard, Kyle Busch and Carl Edwards. Elliott Sadler looked strong but faded to 13th, Ryan Newman as 21st in the Phoenix Construction Chevy and former full-time Roush driver Erik Darnell finished 22nd in the No. 16 Ford that Colin Braun occasionally drove before he wrecked too many of Jack's Fusions.
At Miller Motorsports Park the No. 01 Ganassi Riley/BMW scored its ninth win in 12 attempts in beating the No. 99 Gainsco Riley/Chevy and the No. 10 SunTrust Dallara/Ford -- which led the most laps and shoulda woulda coulda won except for a botched final pitstop. The No. 61 Riley/Ford, No. 8 Riley/BMW, No. 6 Riley/Ford, No. 77 Dallara/Ford, No. 90 Coyote/Porsche, No. 59 Riley/Porsche and No. 75 Lola/Ford filled out the top 10 with the No. 60 Riley/Ford and the No. 9 Riley/Porsche were the last of the DPs in the top 16.
The last race of the weekend was the F1 Italian GP at Monza where Fernando Alonso started from pole, lost the lead to Jenson Button -- who led the most laps -- and then got it back to beat the McLaren driver, teammate Felipe Massa, Sebastien Vettel, Nico Rosberg, Mark Webber, Nico Hulkenberg, Robert Kubica, Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barichello.
Top pick Lewis Hamilton made a bold move on lap one and paid the price with damaged front suspension thanks to contact with Felipe Massa for zero FMFL points. Rats for we who started him.
So the Rolex Series is now over for this season, there's only one ALMS race left and just a couple of IndyCar races yet to be run, both on ovals. F1 has five more events on the schedule, assuming the Korea track is finished and we have another 10 weekends of NASCAR.
Sounds like a great way to crown a Super 7 Sweep Charge to the Championship winner. Good luck to all!
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