What goes around, comes around.
And when it comes to racing, what goes around is usually someone’s car. Locally and nationally, while the season is winding down, some tempers may be heating up.
The suits at NASCAR headquarters must be beside themselves with glee on this Monday after Bristol. With just two races to go before the Chase begins, the top two drivers have decided to get a little old-school.
Carl Edwards nudged Kyle Busch aside with about 30 laps to go Saturday, then went on to take his second straight and sixth overall checkered flag this season. “Cousin” Carl said after the race he was just doing to Busch what Busch had done back to him in the past.
When Busch, who took some exception to the move, ran into Edwards’ car after the race was over, Edwards promptly dumped Busch.
Busch leads Edwards by 212 points in the Cup standings, and is the only other driver with more wins — eight — which means if the Chase started now Busch would be the top seed. But if Edwards wins out … they would be tied.
Again, NASCAR’s executives must be rubbing their hands with glee at the thought that these two, who clearly don’t like each other very much, are going drive the ratings through the roof just as we get to the Chase, as it were.
My take? I can’t speak to what happened between them before, but Busch really had nothing to complain about with that particular move by Edwards. That was — wait for it — a racin’ deal, nothing more or less.
But I’m not favoring “Cousin” Carl, either. Remember his on-camera incident with teammate Matt Kenseth last year? Google that, and watch Edwards’ face as he pulled up from swinging a fist at Kenseth … then tell me he was just goofing around. Last time I saw that look was on the schoolyard bully when I was a kid.
Big-time NASCAR has nothing on us locally. Last Saturday night in the Super Stock feature race rookie James Mugge and points leader Naima Lang did a little bumping of their own.
Lang ended up spinning, and falling far enough behind that he was no longer a factor in the race.
The upshot? The race before that pretty much the same thing happened but it was Lang knocking Mugge out of contention.
The beginning of a rivalry? Maybe, maybe not. Both are very competitive, with Lang having a breakthrough season with seven wins and Mugge is No. 3 in points and far and away the leading rookie.
One thing is for sure, I’m going to be watching them even more closely than before. That’s something NASCAR can relate to.
Locally I did pretty good, with defending champions John Carlson and Lane Sundholm winning the Figure Eight Nationals and Bomber division feature, respectively, at Evergreen Speedway. A third defending champ, John Zaretzke, won the Super Stock feature that I had picked Lang for.
Nationally … well it was a good weekend to be working on that bathroom.
My pick for the Cup race won by Edwards was Jeff Burton, whose race was over when he was collected in the big wreck triggered by Casey Mears. That pushed me back to about 30th in the Media Race for the Chase.
Hoping for a Richard Childress Racing sweep, I picked Scott Wimmer to win the Nationwide race at Bristol. Wimmer finished 6th in a race won by Brad Keselowski.
Driving a backup car because of a hauler fire, the Dancing Man, Helio Castroneves won the IndyCar race at Sonoma. I had picked Marco Andretti, who finished well back in 14th.
The inaugural European Grand Prix was won from the pole (Ed: go figure!) by Ferrari’s Felipe Massa. I had picked the other Ferrari driver, Kimi Raikkonen, who didn’t finish the race.
Three-time defending Evergreen Speedway Super Stock champion John Zaretzke won his second straight feature race and third overall. Zaretzke, who remained in second place in the standings, also won his heat race which helped to narrow Lang’s points lead to just 11.
NASCAR’s Carl Edwards seems to have regained his early-season form at just the right time. And he’s had pretty good success this season at the tracks where the final two races before the Chase will be held. Edwards won the February race at Auto Club Speedway and finished seventh at Richmond in May.
In keeping with prior tradition, I’m going to put Casey Mears in here for his honesty after causing Saturday’s big wreck in the Cup race. Mears didn’t hide behind the old “I’ve got to see the replay” excuse, and instead explained his spotter told him it was clear to move up the track — where he promptly ran into Michael Waltrip.
The audio of Mear’s quiet accusation on the radio — “I wasn’t clear,” — was a nugget I’m glad ESPN ran with.
Maybe things in Chip Ganassi’s IndyCar garage are just as muddled as they are in his NASCAR garage. It seems Ganassi was trying to woo Tony Kanaan away from Andretti Green Racing, and had all but cut ties with current Ganassi driver Dan Wheldon in the process.
But when Kanaan decided to stay at AGR, it left Ganassi with some egg on his face and a pretty ticked off former Indy 500 winner. If asked, Wheldon may stay around for next year because Ganassi gives him the best chance to win, but he’ll definitely be shopping himself around in the meantime.
Keeping with the theme here, I’m going to say Richard Childress probably should have given the Cup crew of the 07 car the courtesy of hearing from him — not reading in the paper — that they were going to lose Clint Bowyer in favor of Casey Mears next year. That’s not the way a winning organization works, is it?
On the NASCAR media web site, one of the rotating backgrounds on the login screen is a picture of Joe Gibbs Racing’s new Cup driver, Joey Logano.
In the photo, Logano is standing in front of a banner with the name of a famous brewing company, and the words “21 means 21.”
So which will Logano hoist first? A legal beer or the Sprint Cup?
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