Congrats To Ryan Truex, NAPA and Michael Waltrip Racing on First Title

I just wanted to say congratulations and job well done to Ryan Truex and his #00 NAPA Auto Parts Toyota team out of Michael Waltrip Racing team on netting the NASCAR Camping World East Series title this past Friday night in Dover. Truex finished eighth in the Sunoco 150 and won the title by a scant 34 points over Eddie MacDonald, who placed ninth. Truex, the 17 year old younger brother of Martin Truex Jr, who will pilot MWR's #56 NAPA Camry next season in Cup, exceeded just about everyone's expectations this past season, including mine. He and crew chief Mike Greci, who won the same series title several years back with Martin Jr, won the 2009 championship to the tune of three wins, seven top fives and eight top tens during the 11 race schedule. Ryan Truex will also go down as the first champion in any series in MWR's short three year history. This is huge for MWR, NAPA and the Truex family. But, it didn't come easy. The first two races were a struggle for the team, but they overcame and in a way, overachieved, exceeding many an expectation. So here's to a great season, great teamwork and a lot more titles for MWR down the road. Awesome job guys!!!

Johnson Tames Monster Mile, While Logano Gets Grabbed

It was a tale of two races for NASCAR's two home improvement cars this past Sunday. The Lowe's Impala, wheeled by Jimmie Johnson, was the dominant car all race long and the eventual winner. On the other hand, the Home Depot Camry, driven by freshman Joey Logano, was claimed by "The Monster Mile" early on in the event. The #96 DLP Ford of Bobby Labonte was the cause of the mayhem because Labonte was cleared low by his spotter. As he moved down the track, Logano wisely lifted off the gas to let Bobby in. However, Logano's predecessor in the #20, Tony Stewart, didn't get the memo and drilled Logano from behind in the entry to Turn 3. Since Joey's wheels were turned left to make the corner, his car spun down to the apron, back up the track and into the wall. This collected the #1 car of Martin Truex Jr, the #7 car of Robby Gordon and the #43 car of Reed Sorenson. Sorenson's Dodge t-boned Logano's Toyota, lifting the right side off the ground and rolling the Middletown, Connecticut native down the steep banks of Dover. Logano barrel rolled down the track seven and a half times before coming to rest on the apron. The crowd was totally silent, waiting for the rookie to emerge from the wreckage, and when he did, the grandstands erupted with clapping and cheering. And Joey Logano will be back racing at Kansas this weekend. You can say what you want about NASCAR's new car and how it races, but it sure is safe. And that is the most important part.

Now, back to the action. There were very few wrecks aside from an three car pileup on the frontstrech late in the race, involving Regan Smith, Elliott Sadler, and the aforementioned Martin Truex Jr, and an earlier incident involving Michael Waltrip, the #55 NAPA Camry, a blown right front tire and the Turn 1 wall. Waltrip and his crew worked feverishly to return to the track and gain valuable points toward next season, but it was all for naught, as the NAPA car never returned to the track. Kyle Busch also managed to hit the fence twice, taking some right side paint off of the #18 machine to the delight of the fans and Sam Hornish Jr spun off of Turn 2 by himself and received very minimal damage. But other than these incidents and some "debris" cautions, nothing much else happened to allow another team to take a shot at ruining Johnson's "monster" run. His Hendrick teammate Mark Martin finished second in the Kellogg's #5 and Matt Kenseth's #17 Ford had one of his best runs since winning the season's two opening races, finishing third. Earnhardt-Ganassi's Juan Pablo Montoya finished fourth and the "Blue Deuce"of Kurt Busch finished fifth. Rounding out the top ten were the #24 of Jeff Gordon, the #44 of AJ Allmendinger with a phenomenal run, the #9 of Kasey Kahne with a great rebound after last weeks blown motor, the #14 of Tony Stewart and his teammate, Ryan Newman in the #39. Despite Johnson's best run in some time, he still trails Martin by a mere 10 points in the standings and Juan Montoya assumed third from Denny Hamlin. Outside the Chase, Matt Kenseth was able to wrestle 13th place away from Kyle Busch.

This week, NASCAR travels to the Heartland and the Kansas Speedway. Will Dover spark a surge for the 48 bunch? Will Mark Martin keep this run he's on going and win the title? Will we see another daring last lap pass for the win, as we did last year with Carl Edwards and Jimmie Johnson? Who knows. We'll just have to see after all 400 miles have been run and the race has been won.

Junior's Latest Remarks Nothing But Bullheaded

I gotta tell ya. I have lost so much respect for Dale Earnhardt Jr this past week. NASCAR's most popular driver was asked if he had talked to David Reutimann after their skirmish in New Hampshire last weekend. Driver 88 told reporters that he knows Reutimann is a nice guy, but that "ain't gonna be good enough no more." Junior also said the MWR Toyota driver also needs to "sharpen up and polish up his craft a little bit." He said that The Franchise needs to learn from his mistakes and stop costing him good finishes. "We don't get opportunities to finish in the top five too often... and neither, really does he." Earnhardt also managed to throw Reutimann's teammate, Marcos Ambrose, under the bus as someone who will "...just go in the corner and wipe you out." The article I'm referencing is on http://www.scenedaily.com/ if you would like to read it for yourself.

If you ask me, this is just the pot calling the kettle black. If you take a look at the 2009 stats, Reutimann has a win, 5 top fives, 8 top tens, 2 poles and is 16th in points. He also remained in Chase contention right up until the last race in Richmond. Now, compare that to Juniors 0 wins, 2 top fives, 5 top tens, 0 poles and 21st place standing in the points. Oh, and Reutimann's average finish is 16.4 compared to Junior's stellar 21.9.

And Junior is not as innocent as everyone is making him out to be. In the Daytona 500, just 28 races ago, Earnhardt was racing Brian Vickers for the Lucky Dog to get back on the lead lap after several pit road blunders by the Hendrick Motorsports driver. Down the backstretch, Junior turned Vickers' #83 in front of the rest of the field, raking out several cars that could have had a shot at the win. And while the 83 was loaded on a tow truck, the 88 was given a free pass to get back on the lead lap. After the race, Earnhardt blamed the incident on Vickers blocking him too far down the racetrack. At least Reutimann apologized and admitted his mistake and didn't make up some lame excuse.

Hey Junior! Here's a great idea! Leave Reutimann alone, shut your mouth and drive your car so you can work on "polishing your craft." Then maybe next year you will be able to run closer to David's league. Follow your own stinkin' advice, you baby!

AAA 400at Dover

The second race in the Chase for the Championship is set to run Sunday afternoon. After two practices tomorrow, it will all be over but the racing. Big surprise in qualifying today as Jimmie Johnson grabbed the pole in his #48 Lowe's Impala with a lap of 22.87 seconds, or 147 mph. This will be Johnson's second pole of the season and his 21st top 10 start of 2009. Jimmie will be flanked by Bogota, Columbia's Juan Pablo Montoya and his #42 Target Impala. The rest of the top five will include Ryan Newman's #39 U.S. ARMY Chevy, Greg Biffle's 3M Ford and David Reutimann's Aaron's Toyota. Elliott Sadler lost an engine due to a broken crankshaft, a problem that ended teammate Kasey Kahne's race one week ago. So Salder's #19 Geek Squad Dodge will start from the rear of the field due to the engine change. The lone car that did not qualify was Scott Wimmer's #4 Morgan-McClure Motorsports Chevy team.

Earlier in the day, practice was held and, big shock here, the #48 team topped the leader board with a time of 22.78 seconds, or 158 mph. The rest of the top ten included Newman, Montoya, Biffle, Kurt Busch's #2 Miller Lite Dodge, AJ Allmendinger's #44 Super 8 Dodge, Reutimann, Kevin Harvick's #29 Shell/Pennzoil Chevrolet, Mark Martin's #5 Kellogg's Chevy and David Gilliland's #71 unsponsored TRG Chevy.

Like I said, there will be one Happy Hour practice tomorrow, so there is one more chance for the rest of the field to get to where the 48 is, setupwise, and keep him from getting the repeat in Deleware.

Sponsors That Stick Are a Rare Find These Days

We all know by now that we are in an economic recession and it has hit hard. Not a lot of sports are tied to the economy, but in NASCAR, the economy is what makes the sport run. If the economy is up, sponsors will be more than willing to brand a racecar, but when it's down, there is not a lot of sponsorship to go around. This week it was announced that Jack Daniel's will leave Casey Mears and Richard Childress Racing's #07 Chevy at seasons end, as well as Jim Beam bolting from Robby Gordon's #7 Toyota. Earlier this season, DeWalt announced they will leave 2003 champion Matt Kenseth's #17 Roush Fenway Racing Ford and Irwin Tools is leaving Roush's #26 Fusion in favor of sponsoring the night race at Bristol. There is also talk that Ask.com could leave Hall of Fame Racing's #96 Ford and 2000 champ Bobby Labonte, leaving yet another team to scrounge for every sponsorship dollar it can find. But not all sponsors are leaving their teams.

Bass Pro Shops has only scaled back the number of races it will fund for Martin Truex, Jr and the #1 Chevrolet. But it is still unclear who will drive this car next year, as Truex has left Earhardt Ganassi Racing for the comfort of a full season of sponsorship from NAPA Auto Parts at Michael Waltrip Racing, driving a Camry with his family's number, 56. Even current points leader Mark Martin could face a decrease in sponsor income from Kellogg's and CarQuest next season. Martin is signed to drive the #5 for Hendrick Motorsports through 2011 and only has 20 races worth of sponsorship from GoDaddy.com signed for certain so far. But some teams are in even worse shape.

Some teams do what is known as "start and park" where they go all out to qualify and only run a handful of laps and collect the last place money to compensate for their lack of sponsorship. However, this is not a long term solution, as very few of these teams make it through the season.

In the 2010 season there are only about 30 t0 35 teams planning to run the full season. Typically 43 teams make the field each weekend with at least two or three teams failing to qualify. Nine teams that ran the full season last year did not make it to through the off season due to lack of sponsorship and unless the aforementioned teams, like the #7, the #07, the #96, and some other smaller organizations find some sponsorship, that list of nine teams could grow a little bit bigger.

In Defense of David Reutimann

Having just read more of Dale Junior's comments after the race yesterday, I would like to come to the defense of my driver, David Reutimann. I've been pulling for David since his Truck Series days and Junior longer and to me, yesterday's incident was nothing more than a racing deal. And most of Junior Nation will obviously see this as a personal attack to Junior, an attempt to ruin one of the best cars he's had all year and somehow make his abysmal season even worse. I can almost guarantee that next week at Dover, at least half the crowd will erupt in a chorus of boos and hisses when D-Reut is introduced to the masses during pre-race festivities. But I will not be one of them. I'll be in the minority cheering for Reutimann through all 400 miles.

This wreck was not intentional in the least bit. And if Reutimann wanted to run someone over intentionally, he has a lot more sense than to spin the sports most popular driver. Reutimann has been run over several times before in the past and this isn't the last time either Dale or David will get run into. Lets all jump in the Wayback Machine and look at the second Pocono race from this year. Reutimann was in Chase contention and was on his way to a top 5 finish when Denny Hamlin blatantly turned the #00 into his teammate Marocs Ambrose, ruining both of their day. Hamlin went on to win the race while Reutimann was left to think about what might have been. Did anyone say that Hamlin was in the wrong for bumping Reutimann through Turn 1 and pushing him from the exit of Turn 3 down the first part of the straightaway? No. Has Reutimann payed Denny back yet? No. Will he ever? Probably not. Because that isn't the way he races. David races with respect and doesn't take other drivers out on purpose. That was evident at the Memphis Nationwide race last season. Reutimann had three or four good chances to at least move Carl Edwards out of the way, but he didn't. He didn't want to race unfairly and so he settled for second. Now would a guy like that take Someone else out on purpose?

Like I said yesterday, I'll cut Junior some slack and assume he was just mad after the race. And he had every right to be. But he shouldn't have come out of the care center and said that "...he ain't got enough talent to run in the top five, I guess" or that "He ran down int the side of me and spun me out" or that " You've to know how much car you've got and you've got to know how much talent you've got before you go down in the corner. He never knows." Junior, you can be mad and talk about it being disappointing for you and you're team, but trash talking a nice guy like Reutimann is just uncalled for. I think you need to take a look at your own abilities first before you criticize other people's. Reutimann's crew chief, Rodney Childers, raised a great point after the race. Between Junior and Reutimann, who has more top fives? Who has more top tens? Who was in Chase contention longer? And most importantly, who has a win? I rest my case.

One Down, Nine to Go

Well, the first race in the 2009 Chase for the Sprint Cup was very exciting. There were several cars that had a chance to win, but few were as dominant as Juan Pablo Montoya. The polesitter from Bogota, Columbia looked to be headed to his second career victory, and his first of the season. That is until pit strategy came into play and the Target Chevy, along with several other teams, got off sequence with the rest of the leaders. Montoya raced back up to the front, with the help of several late cautions, and looked poised to win. But on the last restart, Mark Martin's #5 Impala SS beat Montoya's back to the line and the 50 year on championship chaser was declared the victor. The crowd erupted with cheers. But that isn't where the excitement starts.

There were several incidents through the day as well. The first involved several cars and was started when the 19 Stanley Tools Dodge of Elliott Sadler was tapped by the 20 Home Depot Camry of Joey Logano. This sent Sadler spinning, collecting the #55 NAPA Camry of Michael Waltrip, the #98 Menards Ford of Paul Menard, the #82 Red Bull Toyota of Scott Speed, along with several others. Speed and Menard sustained the most damage with the other cars sustaining next to none.

There were other smaller incidents, like the shoving match between Montoya' s #42 and the #31 of Jeff Burton. Montoya drove into turn three over his head and slid into Burton's CAT Chevy. Burton is not someone that you typically want to aggravate either. He'll race you clan until you hit him. Then the courtesy goes out the window. Under the subsequent caution, for an unrelated incident, Jeff hit the rear of JPM's car for some well deserved payback. There was also an incident between Marcos Ambrose's #47 Bush's Baked Beans Camry and AJ Allmendinger's #44 Dodge. AJ hit Marcos and almost wrecked the Aussie phenom (thus spilling the beans. ha ha). Then Marcos found "Dinger and returned what he started. Marcos jacked the 44's rear tires off the ground and showed him who's boss. Ambrose, like Burton, is very well liked and respected, but if you race him dirty, you'll regret it.

But the incident everyone will remember involved an unlikely duo. David Reutimann and Dale Earnhardt, Jr went into turn three side by side. Jr didn't give Reutimann a whole lot of room and David's #00 Aaron's Dream Machine slid up into his #88 AMP Energy Chevy sending it into the wall and rendering it unraceable. Junior got out of the infield care center, got on camera and preceded to throw Reutimann under the bus. "Some guys you can't race side by side with" Junior said. "I know that he can't hold his line and I should've know that... David just ran out of talent." Oddly enough, Reutimann was never given an interview to apologize and explain his side. Everyone will tell you that Junior was right and Reutimann is the idiot because he can't drive and he races for Michael Waltrip Racing and his team stinks, but that is not the case. Reutimann is one of the cleanest racers out there and one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet. The fact that he is being accused of wrecking someone intentionally is absurd. I'll give Junior some credit and think he was just mad and didn't mean what he said but Reutimann would never run someone over without a very, very, VERY good reason. That wreck was not all Reutimann's fault.

Onward to Dover. Can Mark Martin parlay a victory at Loudon into his first championship, or can someone else turn the tide in their favor? That's why they run the races. We'll find out on Sunday afternoon.

Sylvaia 300 Weekend

The Chase for the Sprint Cup finally starts this weekend. After 26 races, the 12 drivers who will run for the championship have finally been determined. And while some still consider Jimmie Johnson's #48 team the perennial favorite to win it all after the Homestead season finale, there are at least five other drivers who can dethrone Johnson and capture the upset.

Lets start with Johnson's teammates, Mark Matin and Jeff Gordon. They have much more consistently than the 48 in the last few races and have some momentum heading into NASCAR's "playoffs". The Stewart Haas Racing team of Tony Stewart runs the same engines and chassis as Johnson, and can easily run on par with the three time defending champ. Another team with no pressure is the Miller Lite team of Kurt Busch. They will be contenders because he and crew chief Pat Tryson will part ways at seasons end, with Tryson heading to Michael Waltrip Racing's #56 Camry. All they will be focusing on is how to net the cup in Miami.

It is still too early to tell who the champ will be, but as for this weekend's winner, I wouldn't bet against Greg Biffle's #16 3M Ford team. They are the defending winners of this race and are looking for their first win of the season. And don't be surprised if the polesitter Juan Pablo Montoya is the victor on Sunday afternoon. But with the championship on the line, anything is possible.