"Birthday Boy Sweeps Action Track"

The rains stayed away and the fans who made it to Richmond saw a rootin' tootin' short track special that saw Kyle Busch reverse an early season victory slide with his third win of 2009. It came on his 24th birthday. Busch joins Cale Yarborough as the only two NASCAR drivers to win in the top division on their birthday.

Multiple stories this evening: Jeff Burton looked early like a pinball getting knocked around. He finished 3rd, behind Tony Stewart and Busch. Ryan Newman took a strong 4th, which pleased Stewart--his boss and teammate. Jeff Gordon also showed strength, leading laps and notching an 8th place finish, which put him back into the Sprint Cup point lead over Kurt Busch who dropped to second--10 behind Gordon. Stewart-Haas Racing has been a pleasant surprise with their steady progress toward the top ranks of Sprint Cup teams--pundits predicted the progress but not as quickly.

Denny Hamlin led the most laps, and was on pace for a hometown win. The rule change with lug nuts for this night anyway, flummoxed Hamlin's crew. Hamlin ended the race 14th.

The snapshot with crew chief Steve Addington, Busch and Coach Joe Gibbs came during their post race news conference.

We'll do this again next Saturday night at Darlington Raceway--the "track too tough to tame"--for the Southern 500.

"Best of The Rest"

What you see here is Greg Biffle's Ford Fusion...getting ready to take the track here at the Atlanta Motor Speedway in Hampton (about 20 miles from downtown Atlanta), GA. The track was hit with a "frog-strangler" earlier today...and the track crews are trying to take care of "weepers", which are streamlets of water that percolate through seams in the pavement. If a racing tire were to run over a slick...the effect would be like that of you stepping on an ice cube on a wood floor, and slipping all over the place.

The economy is on the minds of the drivers--make no mistake. Jeff Burton, as he is wont to do, issued a very detailed and clear explanation of how this affects the garage area. So too, the man who drives the #16 Dish TV Ford Fusion. You'll hear more on our "Race-Talk " programs in the coming few weeks.

We'll check back in with a snapshot of the top qualifier (and with lights, the track and NASCAR can go as long as they need to here) after.

"Beast of the Southeast grabs Jr., Cousin Carl and Kenseth; Burton wins, now 2nd in points"

Jeff Burton won the Bank of America 500 over Kasey Kahne, 2nd and Kurt Busch, 3rd. More important--Burton now trails Jimmie Johnson (finished 6th) by 69 points. Johnson led 67 of the 334 laps..but his car seemed to lose the handle and the two time and defending champion literally hung on to finish 6th. Carl Edwards had an electrical problem which dropped him back to a 33rd place finish, and 168 points behind Johnson. Dale Earnhardt Jr was caught up in a crash...and finished 36th. Matt Kenseth crashed out and was credited with a 41st place finish. Jr is 10th in points (-354); Kenseth 11th (-360).

Kahne had the fastest car at the end...and cut a lead by Burton (up to 1.7 seconds at one point) to .946 of a second at the checkers.

We'll button up here...and join you later this morning in Petersburg, VA.

You DID See A Picture Like This in Late July

Jimmie Johnson dominated the Pepsi 500 at Auto Club Speedway, and with served notice that he and Chad Knaus (crew chief) do indeed have something for the Chase. Domination=leading228 of 250 laps. That puts him in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Championship.

Top Finishers:

Johnson--Top Chevy

Greg Biffle, 2nd--Top Ford

Denny Hamlin, 3rd--Top Toyota

Kasey Kahne, 8th--Top Dodge

Other Notables:

Point Leader Kyle Busch--7th

Carl Edwards--6th

Dale Earnhardt, Jr.--11th (clinches a spot in the Chase)

Jeff Burton (500th career start)--17th and joins Busch, Edwards, Johnson and Earnhardt, Jr in the Championship Chase, which begins on September 14, at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

See you later in the week at the Action Track.

"The Carl, Bob and Jack Show"--Roush wins at Pocono

Is it better to be lucky than good? You might properly direct that question at "Cousin Carl" Edwards and long-time crew chief Bob Osborne. Osborne called his driver into the pits for a tire stop which put him out of the lead (at the time). Osborne and Edwards had a disagreement on the strategy (or lack thereof). After a 41 minute rain delay, Mr. Osborne's strategy reminded one of another denizen of "Happy Valley"--JoPa. Edwards was in the right place at the right time afterward, and had enough to win over a charging Tony Stewart, who would have won the race if it were 10 laps longer. Brickyard 400 winner Jimmie Johnson was 3rd. I would not have wanted to be on Kyle Busch's plane this evening--the Sprint Cup point leader lost a lot of his lead because his car ran out of gas two laps from the end...as he was running fourth. So the post race show was entertaining with Jack Roush just sitting back like the "Cat in the Hat".

The points going into Watkins Glen:

Kyle Busch--3059

Dale Earnhardt, Jr.--2883 (-176)

Carl Edwards--2874 (-185)

Jimmie Johnson--2859 (200)

Jeff Burton--2833 (226)

6-12

Jeff Gordon

Kasey Kahne

Greg Biffle

Tony Stewart

Denny Hamlin

Kevin Harvick

Clint Bowyer 2512

Matt Kenseth is 13th at 2501 points.

We'll resume live blogging from the IndyCar event at Infineon Raceway outside Sonoma, California.

Luck=Preparation meets Opportunity

From left to right: crewchief Gil Martin, owner Richard Childress and winner of the Crown Royal Presents the Dan Lowry 400, Clint Bowyer, who snuck past leaders Dale Earnhardt Jr., and Kyle Busch. Busch tapped Earnhardt Jr, spinning him out of the lead. Bowyer was running 3rd at the time....and took advantage of the dustup to take the lead...and hold off Busch on the final restart for career win number 2. Busch took the Sprint Cup lead by 18 over Jeff Burton as the series goes to Darlington next weekend. The crowd did not like what happened to Junior and some denizens of the Junior Nation threw trash on the Richmond oval...that kept the yellow out...and set up the green-white-checker restart...since the dustup came within 5 laps to go...that meant some overtime.

We'll get to Darlington next weekend to see the cars turn 200 miles an hour on the 1.3 mile egg shaped oval, which ought to be interesting.

AT&T, NASCAR Settle $100M Lawsuit

USA Today reports that NASCAR and at&t settled their contentious sponsorship dispute. Bottom Line here in Richmond, the "at&t" logo is back on Jeff Burton's #31 Chevy Impala...and will be until 2008, when the original sponsorship agreement with Richard Childress Racing will expire, and at&t leaves NASCAR's top division. So Bill France's billion dollar estate stays relatively intact, NASCAR makes its point about exclusivity for its series sponsor, at&t gets the benefit of NASCAR eyeballs on its changed cellphone brand (still #1 in subscribers) for the rest of '07 and 2008, Richard Childress Racing gets some time to find another major sponsor, and the sanctioning body gets to stay out of one less courtroom. The only downside is for the litigators who were salivating at some $300/hour or higher legal work. Interesting that the only major print medium working this was USA Today.

Random Musings

The contretemps between Richard Childress Racing and NASCAR (proxies for at&t v Sprint) is tedious, but not boring. Commercially, at&t is the largest cell phone provider...Sprint does not come close. What is at stake here is NASCAR's ability to sell exclusive series sponsor rights (and the accommodations that go with that sponsorship) vs. at&t's right to change its name. The company did not change its name simply so it could go on Jeff Burton's #31 Chevy. AT&T is an iconic brand, which makes us older folks turn our heads like Nipper, the RCA dog. When Bell South bought AT&T, they bought the most valuable brand name in telecommunications. Does Bell South have the right to change the brand name of its cell service from Cingular to at&t? Of course. We suspect Sprint is driving this more than pragmatism. Why? They aren't beating at&t in numbers of subscribers (can you spell iPhone...)so they want to exact some "justice" by having NASCAR be their proxy.

Good Beach Book for NASCAR Fans

Jim McLaurin and David Poole, two veteran NASCAR scribes, have collaborated on a book which is a "Cliff Note" history of what makes NASCAR, NASCAR. NASCAR ESSENTIAL from Triumph Books is an easy read, and one the casual fan should pick up. The book (unlike the culture surrounding NASCAR today) remembers and looks into the beginning of the sport (1947--not 2004, when Nextel took over sponsorship), with intriguing looks at the knights and knaves who wrote and lived the history.

Back to Basics--road trips will resume

When you wear many of the hats in any enterprise, you tend to get caught up in short term crises, which build into long term problems, unless you take some time, get back to basics, and refocus your efforts. That's one of the reasons we had to cut back on travel this summer. Usually, our "Race-Talk" program will have intriguing comments from drivers in all series. That comes from attending races, and talking in person with the drivers. With $3/gallon for fuel...that is a bit difficult. So we've added advertising positions in both our programs, to insure that our fans and the others with whom we deal, can be dealt with properly. This effort will take some time to bear fruit (or grow like potatoes--most of it underground, out of sight, until you are ready to dig). Once it does...we will be in better position to bring back to you, our listeners and readers, the proper perspective of a 30 year observer.

Random Thoughts/Indy and Nextel Cup

• Happy Harvick (Kevin, Daytona 500 winner from Richard Childress Racing/RCR) took the money at Lowes Motor Speedway and spanked "The Beast of the Southeast" at the Nextel All Star Challenge...if Hendrick Racing stumbles next weekend...Happy will get happier.
• Dale Earnhardt, Inc. and RCR are going into a joint engine program...wonder who will get the best motors...methinks Harvick and AT&T driver Jeff Burton (NASCAR lost this latest round in Federal Court to keep AT&T off the Burton car) and another driver for Childress will get the best (AA grade) and DEI gets darn good (AA-) engines.
• We wonder who's got the biggest bankroll to pay lawyers...AT&T or NASCAR...even Vince McMahon backed off when he had the dispute with the World Wildlife Federation.
• Almost 10 per cent of the Indianapolis 500 field (9.1% or 3 out of 33 starters) are women. Wonder where the NASCAR "Drive for Diversity" took a wrong turn--or are we impatient? Humpy Wheeler was ahead of his time when he arranged for Janet Guthrie to get a ride in the Coca-Cola 600 some 30 years ago.
• On Armed Forces Day, May 20: The men and women in the Armed Forces do something every day that 98.5% of the population can't or won't do--serve in the active defense of our way of life. They will, unfortunately, never get the respect they deserve in most outlets--except here.

NASCAR getting nasty?

Tony Stewart gets whacked in the wallet and put on probation for suggesting NASCAR throws "debris cautions" to affect the outcome of races--

AT&T can't replace Cingular on Jeff Burton's #31, even though that brand is morphing to AT&T--

The anti-trust lawsuit between Kentucky Speedway is proceeding apace--

Some boneheaded spectators showered Jeff Gordon with beer cans after Gordon notched win number 77, passing Dale Earnhardt's career victory total--

The more things change, the more they remain the same.