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Track Tough On Even The Best

Four former champions make up the top four points positions in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series standings.

For that to continue into next week, the four champions – Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Kurt Busch and Tony Stewart – must tame the unpredictable Talladega Superspeedway.

The statistics suggest that’s easier said than done. All four have had their difficulties at Talladega. The track ranks near the bottom of each driver’s statistical success list.

Jeff Gordon

Lowest Avg. Driver Ratings

                            Driver

Fox’s broadcast of that Sunday’s Food City 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup race earned a 4.1 overnight rating and a 10 market share from Nielsen Media Research, Street & Smith’s SportsBusiness Daily reports. The rating is 18 percent lower than the 5.0 Fox earned for the race in 2008. This report came from Scene Daily and the Jayski.com web page. The final ratings were pretty much the same story. The good news is that the Cup race at Bristol was a sellout due to the fact that the front office worked hard to make it happen.

Bristol used to be about tempers and pay backs… not so much this Sunday.

What happened to the sheet metal hanging off of cars that barely resemble anything drivable?

No fights or angry words…what has become of this track?

Our ruthless Racing Maniac leader is out this week and I am but a pathetic substitute.

So…until I sub again,

Southern Tundra aka Carolyn Brewster

Camera or Super Star: How ‘bout neither. Digger, NASCAR’s most annoying rodent, is selling his junk not only on Fox.com but also on DW’s website. That makes two more cyber stop I’ll never make.

Staff photographer Steve Langley captured some great images of the cars on the track at Bristol this past weekend. There’s pics from both the Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series… check ‘em out!

CLICK ON EACH PHOTO FOR A LARGER VERSION

Bristol is my favorite track on the circuit. I love the beatin’ and bangin’ of short track racing.

But where was that in the race?

The one time any minor beatin’ got started they told the crew chief to calm the driver down or he’d be parked.

If I hadn’t had company to watch the race I’d have switched to basketball… the race was that boring to me.

As far as that goes, there’ve been five races and five mostly uneventful boring races.

I’m sure the reason for this can’t be the no (cough) testing rule. Teams are still testing so it’s not that.

Is it the cars or tracks? Nascar just taking to much control of things?

Mark Martin had a great weekend going for him, in the top with practice speeds, winning the pole, and running up front during most of the race. Then, the unexpected happened, hurtling his car into turn one at the Atlanta Motor Speedway during the Kobalt Tools 500 race, his car took a slide into the outside retaining wall that left his car crippled from the damage sustained when he backed his car hard into it at top speed.

Here we go, it’s Vegas time and with two races down and three to go, some teams may need to step it up to stay in the top 35.

One driver that may be in trouble is the Joe Gibbs #20 car of Joey Logano. He had a rough Daytona race that ended with him finishing 43rd after being involved in an accident. California was a little better when he started the race 34th and finished in the 26th position.

But the fact remains, Logano is currently sitting in the 37th place in points and once again heading to another track that he has no experience in a Sprint Cup car; Las Vegas.

(above photo by MotorSportsNews[dot]Net(work) photographer Steve Langley)

Here are a few tidbits that are floating around here after the Bristol race:
1) Kyle Busch really acted like an immature young twenty-something after the race when he ran into Carl's car to show his displeasure int he way Carl passed him - wait a minute ... he is a young twenty-something ... oh, just forget it (but I think Carl won't).
2) Kasey Kahne can't catch a break. That was a huge wreck. Man. I also feel sorry for some of those other guys too like Hornish, and Robby Gordon.