Oct 25

Written by: The Commish
10/25/2010 1:36 PM 

Denny Hamlin moved to within six points of Jimmie Johnson in winning Sunday's Tums Fast Relief 500 at Martinsville over second place Mark Martin, Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch and JJ with Joey Logano, Dale Jr., Carl Edwards, Jeff Burton and Brad Keselowski filling out the top 10.  Jamie McMurray, A.J. Allmendinger, Paul Mendard, Kasey Kahne (in a Red Bull Toyota), Matt Kenseth and Kurt Busch got the last of the FMFL top 16 points as Jeff Gordon (20th), Tony Stewart (24th), Ryan Newman (30th), Greg Biffle (33rd) and Clint Bowyer (38th) all came up with bupkis for the players who started them.

The race was a typical Martinsville scrum with a total of 15 caution periods.  Jeff Burton led the most laps until A), his handling went away, and B) he started battling teammate Kevin Harvick.  Johnson and Kyle did some bumping, Kurt Busch and Jeff Gordon as well -- which is how Wonderboy went from what looked like a top 10 finish to 20th.

At Gateway, where the track is for sale and no more NASCAR or IndyCar races are scheduled, Brad Keselowski won his sixth NNS race of the season over Mike Bliss, polesitter and most-laps-led driver Justin Allgaier, Jason Leffler, Carl Edwards, Reed Sorenson, Josh Wise, Brad Coleman, Paul Menard and Jeremy Clements.  Trevor Bayne, who may be the best 'B' driver in the Roush Fenway stable was 11th ahead of Steve Wallace, Kenny Wallace, Brian Scott, Ryan Truex and Mike Wallace. Danica was 22nd in front of Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Matt DiBenedetto.  Larry McReynold's son Brandon finished 19th in his first Nationwide Series race.

In the Camping World Truck Series Ron Hornaday finally won a race at Martinsville, beating polesitter Kyle Busch, most-laps-led driver Todd Bodine, Jason White and Aric Almirola with Mike Skinner, David Starr, Stacy Compton, Ricky Carmichael and Matt Crafton.  Ryan Sieg, James Buescher, Justin Lofton, Hermie Sadler, Kevin Harvick and Austin Dillon wfilled out the top 16.

Far across the pond Fernando Alonso had a wonderful time in winning the inaugural Korean Grand Prix as he also jumped into the F1 world championship points lead after Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber both DNF'd; Webber by losing control and crashing all by his lonesome early on and Vettel via a Renault-stimulated smoke and debris bomb which indicated a blown engine very late in the race.  So late, in fact, that he was classified 17th so he didn't get to keep his points for pole position or leading the most laps.

Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa filled out the podium with Michael Schumacher, Robert Kubica, Vitantonio Liuzzi, Rubens Barichello, Kamui Kobayashi, Nick Heidfeld and Nico Hulkenberg fourth through 10th.  Jenson Button was 12th behind Jaime Alguersuari and in front of Heikki Kovalainen, Bruno Senna, the inimitable Sakon Yamamoto and Adrian Sutil, the last FMFL points-earner even though he DNF'd too.

The race was goofy as the track surface and garages were about the only things ready for competition and boy howdy did it ever rain.  

This week it's a Talladega crapshoot as Cup and trucks race on the big, 2.66 mile oval in Abalama and God only knows which unfortunate vehicles are going to be tabbed as victims of a 'big one.'  Picks aren't due until Friday at Midnight, a.k.a. Saturday morning at 12:00 AM so everyone will at least know which Sprint Cup teams were fast in practice and the truck series qualifying results.

Good luck to all -- especially the drivers.

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