Well, that was quite a weekend of racing nationally.
Locally, the weather got the best of it, with both the Northwest Tour and Northwest Sprint Car Racing Association events canceled, but I’ll steal someone’s line and say any day at the racetrack is a good day.
All of my picks this weekend had problems, so I didn’t add any wins to the Grand Slam of Prognostication.
Mike Skinner, my choice to win the Craftsman Trucks Kroger 250, gambled with pit strategy and ran out of gas late in the race while running in the top five. He finished 29th.
Tony Kanaan, my choice to win the GAINSCO Auto Insurance Indy 300, was leading near the end when he was caught up in the spin of Ernesto Viso, a rookie driving for one of the former Champ teams. Kanaan fell to an eighth-place finish.
Kyle Busch had rear end troubles a little more than halfway through the Goody’s Cool Orange 500, spent some time in the garage and finished 38th, 57 laps down.
My Dad, who picked a 1-2-3 Job Gibbs finish with Tony Stewart, Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin, gained some bragging rights at the homestead when Hamlin finished first and Stewart placed fifth.
What did we learn from the ‘Clip and Homestead?
1. Don’t count Hendrick out yet. All four Hendrick Motorsports drivers finished in the top 10, and Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson were in the top 5.
An aggressive pit strategy and some great driving at the end put Hamlin in Victory Lane for Toyota’s second Cup win, but it easily could’ve been a HMS Chevrolet.
2. Every IRL race won’t be as smooth this year. Homestead went fairly well, with the former Champ Car teams looking mostly OK while tackling an unfamiliar track.
Still, a big part of me wonders if it wasn’t a case of everyone being on their best behavior for the start of what could be an up-and-down year.
No one expects the former Champ-ers to be competitive on the ovals this year, but will tempers flare at some point when: a. Another IRL driver gets wrecked (see Kanaan, above) or b. Some ex-Champ driver gets fed up with being out of the mix.
3. Gender equality continues to make progress at the top levels. It was great to see Chrissy Wallace make her Truck debut this weekend — she finished a respectable 18th — and the rear tire changer for Brendan Gaughan’s Ford was also a woman, whose name I didn’t catch.
Still, I think FOX went overboard in trying to hype up Wallace’s debut. At times, they made it sound like she’d never driven a car before, much less a race car.
You know that isn’t true: even with her family connections — you can’t throw a stone at a NASCAR race and not hit a Wallace, it seems — she’s put in time at short tracks.
Her Web site (www.chrissywallaceracing) says Wallace has “nine years of continuous racing throughout many series including bandalero’s, legend cars, thunder roadsters, go-karts, arena cars, and Late Models.” It goes on to say she won five late-model races in 2007 at Hickory Motor Speedway in North Carolina.
Granted, her family name played a big role in getting her the shot, but Wallace deserved credit for what she’s done already.
There are a lot of women involved in local racing — as drivers, car owners and crew members — so Wallace, along with Erin Crocker, Danica Patrick and — from back in the day — Janet Guthrie, to name just a few, are role models.
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