Oct
5
Written by:
The Commish
10/5/2011 1:24 PM
The Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta was a great race with lousy results as not one of the top five Super 7 Sweep picks scored in the points. Two International Le Mans Cup Peugeots, the #8 and #10 cars were 1-2 ahead of the #007 Yo!Adrian Fernandez Aston Martin, a Pescarolo, a Lola, and a Honda. Neither Dyson car or the #6 Muscle Milk car finished in the top 16; same with the No. 1 and 2 factory Audi's and the No. 7 Peugeot so there were a lot of zeros.
None the less, congratulations to slopnelson on winning the Super 7 Sweep ALM Series Championship and a highly detailed, 1/24 scale Wind Tunnel dirt collectible from American Diecast. This replica is going to look great on a shelf next to Porsche, Ford, Ferrari other other classic sport car models.
The NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Kentucky saw Ron Hornaday dominate in earning his 50th series win with Austin Dillon, James Buescher and Nelson Piquet leading a Chevy sweep. Brian Ickler finished fifth in the No. 18 Toyota a lot of us thought Kyle Busch was going to be driving ... but we think that every race, don't we. Ricky Carmichael, the Onion, Cole Whitt, Dakoda Armstrong and David Starr filled out the top 10.
This was the first race that Hornaday got to drive the No. 2 Kevin Harvick Chevy, the one that has always out performed the No. 33 truck this season. So good for the unemployed after Homestead veteran on showing that as long as he's got good equipment he can still win races.
Saturday's Nationwide Series race at Dover was all Carl, all the time as Edwards qualified second and led the most laps. Brad Keselowski was a respectibly close second in front of Clint Bowyer, Kasey Kahne, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Trevor Bayne and Reed Sorenson -- in his last race this season for Turner Motorsports. Joey Logano was 13th in the No. 18 Toyota a lot of us thought Kyle Busch was going to be driver .... wow ... I'm getting a sense of deja vu all over again.
Elliott Sadler was 14th, Jamie McMurray was 17th for no FMFL points in Danica's No. 7 Chevy and rookie Timmy Hill qualified 42nd and finished 20 spots better in Rick Ware Racing Ford. Nice run, kid.
On Sunday Kurt Busch tamed the Monster Mile to jump right back into the thick of the 2011 Sprint Cup championship battle with Jimmy Johnson, Carl Edwards, Kasey Kahne and Matt Kenseth filling out the top five. Kyle Busch, A.J. Allmendinger, Clint Bowyer, Marcos Ambrose and not-that-happy Harvick were next with Jeff Gordon 12th, Denny Hamlin 18th, Brad Keselowski 20th and Ryan Newman 22nd. Dale Jr., Tony Stewart, Greg Biffle and polesitter Martin Truex Jr. also failed to score player points.
Saving the bittersweet best for last, congratulations to Ed Carpenter and Sarah Fisher on their first IndyCar wins as a driver and a team; too bad sponsor Dollar General announced prior to the race that they would not be coming back in 2012.
Carpenter beat Dario Franchitti by a whisker thanks to conserving his push to pass bursts with Scott Dixon third in front of James Hinchcliffe and Ryan Hunter-Reay. Ryan Briscoe was eighth in front of Buddy Rice and Danica, Graham Rahal was 12th, Tony Kanaan was 17th and poor Will Power came home 19th after starting on pole and leading with relative ease until Ana Beatriz ran into him during the first round of pit stops. Bummer.
Marco Andretti was also a contenda until a pit road accident, one of many, and those miscues sure made the world's supposedly whatever-ist teams and drivers look pretty lame. There were injuries, too.
This week it's a three-series gamble with NASCAR Sprint Cup and Nationwide at Kansas and Formula 1 at Suzuka. This round present us with lots of options re: doubling up on both NASCAR races and pick 3 F1 drivers? Pick one NASCAR driver per race and then choose five GP favorites? Or something in between?
Yours truly won't decide until this Friday at midnight, when starters are due. I'm leaning toward going as F1 -heavy as possible but we'll see how my mood is when my time to dither is up.
Copyright ©2011 The Commish