The third race of the 2010 Chase finished up Sunday and it was not without controversay. First off, congratulations to Greg Biffle and his #16 Roush Fenway team. After two disasterous races at Loudon and Dover to kick off their Chase, a win in Kansas would be the perfect remedy to get them back within striking distance. And after starting 5th, running in the top 10 most all day and leading three times for 60 laps, the #16 Sherwin Williams 3M Ford pulled into victory lane at days end. But despite this dominate performance from "The Biff", he is not what everyone is talking about this week.
No, not a lot of people are concerned with lap 267. Instead, the media is blowing what happened on lap 152 out of proportion. Lets start at the begining. On lap 52, David Reutimann was spun out by Kyle Busch, sending the back end of the #00 into the outside wall. This took away any chance that the Aaron's Dream Machine had of winning the Price Chopper 400. This was also the third time in four races Reutimann has been taken out of a good run. Kurt Busch dumped him in the first fifteen laps at Richmond and Ryan Newman did the same in the first 25 or so at Dover.
That is also why Reutimann's crew chief Rodney Childers told his driver over the radio to eihter start hitting people back or the team would need a new crew chief. Reutimann would erase his reputaion as the series punching bag on lap 152 when he slid up into Kyle's #18 car, slamming the rear of the M&M's Toyota into the wall and spinning out his own car in the process. At first glance, it appeared that Busch would just need a new set of tires and that Reut had just made himself look like an idiot. But the damage was done. The whole rear suspension of Busch's car was destroyed, the rear end housing was bent, the truck arms were bent and the 18 team's top 5 car was relegated to a 21st place finish one lap down. Reutimann's potential top five car was strapped with a 35th place finish, eleven laps down to the leader. But just why is this so controversial?
Well, Busch said after the race that Reutimnn could have "wreck me in any of the first 26 races next year. That would've been fine" because he was in the Chase and "racing for something" implying that Reutimann wasn't since he isn't a Chaser. This ignited a firestorm of controversay in the media that hasn't been seen since Busch dumped Dale Jr at Richmond in 2008.
My opinion as a fan of D-Reut since his rookie year in 2007, and even if I wasn't, I have no problem with what happened. Reutimann was wronged and had his shot to win taken away. And he may have done just that since he won at a similar track, at Chicagoland Speedway, earlier in the year. Another key to this whole incident was that Busch, although he did so in his post race interview, never got on his radio and told his spotter "Tell the 00 that was my fault" or "Tell him that was an accident" or even "Tell him I'm sorry." Any other driver would have done that. But Busch drives like he owns the track. He has been known to run through drivers on his way to the front of the pack , as well as for the win and Reutimann assumed that he was just the next victim since he had not heard otherwise.
There was also the aspect of using cars for payback, a practice frowned upon by many crew cheifs and crew members (for obvious reasons). Media memebrs were talking about how the 18 crew and Joe Gibbs Racing puts so much effort into their cars and didn't deserve to be taken out like that. So I guess that Michael Waltrip Racing's cars don't cost as much as the ones that JGR builds. MWR works just as hard, if not harder, than the Gibbs organization to build race winning cars for their drivers and that first wreck will be just as costly to them as the second wreck will be to JGR.
But feuds between drivers on and off the track have been an ongoing theme this season. Ever since Robin Pembeton uttered the now infamous words "Boys, have at it" back in January, the competition, as well as the tempers have been red hot. Heres hoping that this season ends with the same excitment and passion that it started with.
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