The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

H

HardScrabble

Guest
Not a terrible race for Texas where the second groove may be working in following the resurfacing of a couple years ago........Time will tell.

The Good -
-------------Two tire call for the Alltel team, a call practically everyone deemed unwise. When Jr got past on the restart it appeared that indeed it would not work out. Ryan's car came in a few laps later and no one had anything for the Dodge.
--------------Jeff Gordon and Dale Jr's run for second place. A nice battle between using two different grooves effectively.
--------------Mark Martin's run from way back in the starting field. Mark was consistently among the fastest cars on the track, expecially late in a tire run.
--------------Jeff Green finished on the lead lap. Doesn't sound like a big deal, but I do believe that is the first time a RCR car has managed it since Daytona.

The Bad -
--------------NASCAR had a questionable call on the Jeff Gordon - Matt Kenseth deal when Busch got back onto the lead lap (not to mention Saturday's black flag). But there are some things which make me wonder if it was as out of line as some claim. We can talk about it if ya'll want.
--------------Dale Jarrett's continuing luck. Seems DJ gets involved in any mess that happens within a quarter mile of him.
--------------Several engine failures for good cars. Bill Elliott, Tony Stewart and Johnny Benson all seemed to have good runs going, Bill an expceptional one, and the engine failures put an effective end to it.
--------------Elliott Sadler gets a bad set of tires or something and greets the wall. He was also among the strongest of the strong up to that point.

The Ugly -
--------------It came out all right, but the photographer up by the concrete barriers who came way too close to being a big story when Skinner crashed hard into them. That came too close to being real bad. Might nee to rethink where those folks can be.
--------------Pit road incident, again. Ward apparently got a late decision call from the CC and dove into the pits at the last second. Not cleanly and two other cars pay a part of the price.
--------------Hate to say it but Steve Park. Twice his car spun with no contact. Either the car is simply so bad it won't hold the track or Steve is just getting behind on his wheel work. Seems to be too common of an occurence to continue writing it off to "one of those deals".


We can only hope that next week the "Ugly" list contains no more that past weeks.
 
I would like to add Fox's coverage to the bad. I really thought they did a terrible job this week. I would have liked to have seen what happened to Nemechek, and was it Biffle that got black flagged for loose sheet metal? What caused that? Did he make contact with someone? They showed us what the piece that fell off his car was for but not what caused it to get like that. And who pinned JR in his pit on one of the early pit stops that caused him to loose so many positions? I just thought their coverage was lacking!
 
They said waht happened to gregs car at the cutaway car. Jeff exspalined that the wind turbulance around the car just riped the metal way somehow. I also think they said it was greg who got black flagged and the sheet metal was the reason.
Now Joe I have no idea, they might not have had a view of is crash!
 
--------------NASCAR had a questionable call on the Jeff Gordon - Matt Kenseth deal when Busch got back onto the lead lap (not to mention Saturday's black flag). But there are some things which make me wonder if it was as out of line as some claim. We can talk about it if ya'll want.

Whats the deal with that? From what I understood you race back to the line, no leader decides judgement.
 
During one of the #1 excursions into loop the loop land, Greg went through the grass to avoid a tangle. He tore the inner liner out of the fender and the crew attempted to tape the outer fender down. The tape would not hold and the outer fender was ripped loose by the air, resulting in a black flag. This was covered in depth by the cut away car as mentioned.

I remember seeing some of Joe's encounter with wall, maybe not all of it. He smacked it good, they did show the wheel gouges in the wall later. They also interviewed Joe as soon as he came out of the medical center.

As to Jr being caught up in the pits, I don't remember that at all. I do know he had one slow stop because they put a spring rubber into the car. That adds several seconds to a stop at best.
 
The Gordon - Kenseth deal at first glance seemed like a make it up as ya go kind of deal. The rule in Winston Cup has always been that the yellow flag takes effect when the leaders get to it, dot period end. But a couple of things happened that give me pause to wonder if the policy on that has changed. Realize that just because a bunch of fans are not aware of NASCAR's policy on some things does not inherently mean that the competitors are unaware of them. So here the things that give me pause:

1 - Immediately after taking the yellow Jeff radioed to his crew that he did not know what NASCAR would have to say about the deal, but he wasn't just gonna give those guys their laps back. The question is, if NASCAR has no policy that Jeff was unaware of, why would he even wonder what they would say? If as many scribes here would have you believe, the rule is run to the flag and only a "gentlemen's agreement' is to be considered, he would never question NASCAR having anything to say, at least not before the incident was even over for intenets and purposes. He dem well had some info we did not.

2 - Again, immediately after taking the yellow he gave the position back to Matt. No one came on the radio and suggested it, he just did it. I know that later he said that was because he did not intend to race Matt to the yellow, but he said no such thing on the radio at the time. Poiliticking after the race is a different critter.

3- The common taters later announced that in the drivers meeting it was stated the leader controls the lap back deal........I do not know if any of them (the common taters) were at the meeting, probably not. We have to assume that the story they got was second hand and perhaps only a part of the story. We can hope that during this week someone will make the policy clear, though if the truth be told we, as fans, have no real need to know.

Should NASCAR's policy now be that racing back to the flag on a yellow is now in control of the leader, a can of worms is open without doubt. There are far too many what ifs and buts involved. Most obvious being what if it within 3 or 4 laps of the finish. But taken as given at this point, I conclude that something has been discussed between the competitors and NASCAR, though I have no clue what the details are.
 
The Biffle deal- Yes they did show on the cut away car what metal was flapping and all that but I don't remember them showing the actual incident that caused the metal to rip away to begin with.
Nemechek- Yes they did show the tire marks and yes they did interview Joe, but they never showed what happened for him to hit the wall, they showed it from someones in car camera but you really could not see anything but smoke.
JR's pit stop- It was an early caution, and they were showing the leaders crossing the line and you could see down pit road and JR was just sitting there and one of the commentators made the comment that Jr got boxed in and that was it, nothing else was said, they went on to talk about the leaders.
Just IMO this was not one of the best broadcasts I have seen.
 
I thought Foxs' coverage was great, IMO they continue to get better every week. Towards the end of the race there were very few commercials, which is great! As far as the yellow flag deal .....i think it is long over due that they eliminate racing back to the line when there is a yellow. This would also improve the safety aspect , too many times there are guys running too fast to get the leader at the line and just miss a huge crash or get into one. I know this would shut the door on a lot of guys making up laps, but what is more important...safety or the "gentlemans' agreement BS." ??
 
If I heard it right. According to Hammond and Waltrip. There is no rule about racing back to the line. What Gordon done was legal. It was against the so call Gentlemen agreement But that's all. Is Nascar making up rules again. :D :D
 
The Good: Jerry Nadeau finally gets some good fortune to go with his good rides, and comes out with a strong 4th place.
-- Jeff Green not only just finishing on the lead lap, but getting his first top 10 finish of the season.

The Bad: Jamie McMurray losing a potential top-5 after having a lug nut fall off on the final pit stop, and ending up 10th.
--Terry Labonte seemed to have a top10 finish in the bag before the caution in the middle of pit stops; he ended up 16th.
 
Originally posted by HardScrabble@Mar 31 2003, 09:45 AM

--------------It came out all right, but the photographer up by the concrete barriers who came way too close to being a big story when Skinner crashed hard into them. That came too close to being real bad. Might nee to rethink where those folks can be.
I was a photographer for over 22 years. The photographer was where he was supose to be. Beleve me if na$car thought he was in danger they would have moved him. He was watching the cars and moved when they came to him. Most of the tracks (especlly the new tracks) because of the insurance companys have lousy sight lines for the photographers. They all cater to the TV now. Remember ll the photos you see in the newspapers and magzines come from photographers. Remembner if they can't get good sight lines to get good pictures becaue of bariers, fences or "You can't stand here" the stories of the races in the newspapes and magzines would be very dull and you wouldn't know what the TV was to busy running commercils to show you.
 
We can hope that during this week someone will make the policy clear, though if the truth be told we, as fans, have no real need to know.

yeah, good info though HS.
 
My two cents...

The good...Jeff leapfrogging Tony in the points standings, Another very good finish by Matt Kenseth and several other of my favorites

The bad...The group of cautions that really seemed to bog the race down, Jimmie Johnson losing a cylinder and hurting his finish

The ugly...Greg Biffle, I think he should get this award every week as I haven't seen anything that ugly in a long time. But seriously, the crap NASCAR pulled on that yellow flag deal was complete :bslfag:
 
Good points Tiny,

But if the photog had gotten himself squashed, half the universe would be calling for NASCAR's head for letting him be there. No way it would be anyone else's cross to bear, someone would likely sue big time, and then no telling where the photographers would be forced to go, maybe the parking lot..........
 
We had to sign a paper saying we wouldn't sue and knew wht we were doing. For years I stood at lots more dangerous spots outside the first turn at Charlotte before they built stands there.

The insurance companys have aready taken awy ll the best spots.
 
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