Jul
12
Written by:
The Commish
7/12/2010 7:13 AM
The NASCAR Nationwide race at Chicagoland Friday night was a darn good contest right up until the end, when Brad Keselowski -- the Penske Dodge driver who supplanted eventual race winner Kyle Busch as the odds-on series favoriate -- ran out of gas and came home 17th for zero FMFL points. Joey Logano finished second to Kyle thanks to a green white checkers finish with Brian Scott third, David Reutimann fourth and Jason Leffler fifth ahead of Edwards and Harvick.
Surprisingly, Logano was so miffed at losing he got out of his car and stormed back to his hauler, showing his back to any reporters or media folks who wanted to hear how frustrated he was from his very own mouth. That's common practice for Shrub but for Sliced Bread? Not hardly.
The Saturday night Cup race at the same track saw David Reutimann gets his second career win over Carl Edwards, Jeff Gordon, Clint Bowyer and Jamie McMurray. Kasey Kahne was sixth in front of Jeff Burton, Denny Hamlin, Tony Stewart and Paul Menard.
Most popular pick Jimmie Johnson spun once, went down a couple of laps and then crashed to finish waaaay out of the points, just like fellow favorites Kurt Busch, Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick and Dale Jr. Greg Biffle qualified in the top five but blew an engine.
Sunday was a big day, starting with the F1 race at Silverstone where Mark Weber led every lap to win over Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg, Jenson Button and Rubens Barichello. Polesitter Sebastien Vettel, the second most popular pick behind Hamilton, cut a tire while trying to hold off fellow front row starter Weber, and fell to the back of the field before working his way back to seventh. Yes, he got finish points and kept his qualifying points but no lap leader or mfr markers.
Next was the truck race at Iowa, where none of the top three picks (Ron Hornaday, Toddy Bodine and Aric Almirola) finished in the top 16. Rookie Austin Dillon, grandson of Richard Childress and the latest and youngest driver to wield a No. 3 Chevy, led the most laps from pole and scored maximum points in beating Johnny Sauter, Matt Crafton, Ken Schrader and James Buescher. Mike Skinner was seventh, Ricky Carmichael was ninth and Brian Ickler 13th in the No. 18 Kyle Busch Motorsports Toyota that some thought would be raced by Kyle himself. Oops.
Then the ALMS race got the green flag at Miller Motorsports Park and wonder of wonders, the favored No. 1 Acura prototype took the checkers first after starting on pole and leading the most laps. The No. 8 Lola/Judd and the No. 6 Porsche prototypes filled out the podium with the No. 37 Lola AER fourth and the No. 55 Oreca LMPC fifth.
Since all the NASCAR favorites finished out of the points there were a lot of zero's in the scoring grids but hey; that's how the game works. So congratulations to Da Pharaoh Racin from Stone Mtn., Georgia on not picking any of them and scoring 1478 points to win Top Dawg honors -- and an autographed Dave Despain Bobblehead -- for the week.