Apr 10

Written by: The Commish
4/10/2011 6:04 PM 

Other than Greg Biffle getting his braces removed the big story at Texas Motor Speedway was the dominance of the Fords in both the Nationwide and Sprint Cup Series races.

On Friday night Carl Edwards started from pole and led the most laps in beating Brad Keselowski, Paul Menard, Joey Logano and Elliott Sadler in the NNS race with Justin Allgaier, Reed Sorenson, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., David Reutimann and Brian Scott filling out the top 10.  Kasey Kahne was 11th followed by Aric Almirola, Trevor Bayne, Josh Wise, Jason Leffler and Welcome Back Sam Hornish.

Kyle looked to have the only car capable of passing the No. 60 Mustang but he was taken out when Tim Schendel's TexasCountryTV.com/Fire and Ice Heating and Air Conditioning Chevy blew a tire and wandered up into the path of the No. 18 Toyota, slightly making contact with Carl, too.

And the reason I gave props to the sponsor of Jimmy Mean's No. 52 car is because after wrecking Kyle Busch, even if was just one of them racin' deals involving a cut tire, we may not see Mr. Schendel again this season.

Saturday night's Cup race saw Matt Kenseth gets his first W since 76 races ago in beating Clint Bowyer, Carl Edwards, Greg Biffle, Paul Menard, Marco Ambrose, David Ragan, Jimmie Johnson, Dale Jr. and Kurt Busch.  Jeff Burton, Tony Stewart, Juan Pablo, Ryan Newman, Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch filled out the FMFL top 16.

Brad Keselowski (18th), Kevin Harvick (20th), Jeff Gordon (22nd), Joey Logano (24th) and Mark Martin (36th) were among the favorites that scored bupkis.

The first race of Barber Park's weekend schedule became the sixth consecutive win for the Pruett/Rojas No. 01 Ganassi BMW/Riley, their 12th in the last 14 races.  Second through fifth were the No. 99 GAINSCO Chevy/Riley, the No. 8 Starworks Ford/Riley, the No. 61 AIM BMW/Riley and the No. 5 Action Express Porsche/Riley with the No. 60 Michael Shank Ford, the No. 9 Action Express Porsche, the No. 2 Starworks Ford, the No. 90 Spirit of Daytona Chevy/Coyote and the No. 77 Doran Ford/Dallara filling out the top 10.

And the next six spots were GT cars.  Where are all the Daytona Prototypes?  There were only 11 in the field and the one that was waaaaay outside the top 10, the No. 10 SunTrust Chevy/Dallara was classified 23rd after losing 11 laps due to mechanical problems.  Max Angelelli actually set fast lap in that car AFTER it came back on track when repairs had been completed.

This was the one race the Ganassi car should have lost.  The No. 90 car qualified on pole and led the most laps but then the engine started going south and they were lucky to finish ninth.  The No. 99 car also might've fought for the win but it suffered a suspension failure near race's end and was lucky to come home in second.

Somebody's going to beat that 01 car this season.   I just hope that car is one of my starters when it happens.

Starting at 12:30 AM here in Phoenix last night I got to watch the Malaysian GP and even though its only been two races I have to say this may turn out to be the best F1 season in recent memory.  Yes, Sebastian Vettel won from the pole and led the most laps, yawn, but from his rear wing back the racing was pretty darn excellent.  Jenson Button and Nick Heidfeld filled out the podium, Mark Webber was fourth ahead of Massa and Alonso after having trouble with his KERS system, Lewis Hamilton was seventh after a post-race penalty and Michael Schumacher finished ninth after not making it into the last qualifying session ... again.

I still don't like the goofy moveable rear wing or the tires that have to be changed two or three or four times per race but oh well; the on-track action has not disappointed and I'm expecting more of the same all season.

Finally we come to the IndyCar race at Barber Park, the one where Will Power was fastest all weekend, started on pole and led every darn lap to beat Scott Dixon, Dario, Marco (really?  Marco finished fourth?), Oriol Servia, Tony Kanaan, Helio, Simon Pagenaud, Simona and rookie Charlie Kimball.  

SeaBass finished 11th for Dale Coyne, Ryan Hunter-Reay was 14th, Danica came home 17th and Justin Wilson was 19th after contact.

Oh yes, the contact.  The drivers did a little better with their double-file restarts but there were still some daredevils who made things interesting.  Raphael Matos, Ryan Briscoe, Mike Conway, EJ Viso and James Hinchcliffe were all outed from crashes and speaking of riddles, why on earth does KV Racing keeps EJ Viso around?  The poor kid is continuing the spin/crash/write-a-big-check legacy he started two seasons ago and I say its time to find someone else for that seat.  Like Buddy Rice.  Or Townsend Bell.  Or someone I don't care about for all races except the Las Vegas $5 million dollar finale when Jimmy Vasser puts Kyle Busch in the car.

For my money -- and since the Wind Tunnel Super 7 Sweep is free I can throw that money around pretty easily -- the two open wheel races were the best of the weekend.

Now let's see if they can continue that streak into RD#11.  Starters are due by Friday at Midnight with ALMS and IndyCar at Long Beach, F1 in China and both NNS and Cup at Talladega.

Copyright ©2011 The Commish