The longest race of the year is coming up!!! If the All-Star was an indication, it's going to be a blue oval fest most likely. Hopefully for all you Chevrolet guys, Hendrick was trying out something that didn't work out like they hoped and will have something good for the 600.

Points Standings and Congratulations

First off, congrats to JuniorCar on his win at Dover! Let's see if he can carry that momentum to Charlotte, the 3rd 1.5 mile track, a segment he has covered with wins at Las Vegas and Texas this year. Plus, he has tied the poitns lead for the Segment and Overall, taking both leads due to his 3 wins this season.

The Overall Standings are looking like this.... these points are as of Dover.

Overall:

1) JuniorCar 1125 Leader
2) RocknSS 1125 -0
3) 77GP 1102 -23
4) Cowboy6622 1099 -25
5) montecarlo3831 1084 -40
6) KidSpace 1027 -97
7) BocaReject 1009 -116
8) lougreen03 990 -135
9) zjerry 953 -172
10) carlm54sl 374
11) 03JGMonte 100
12) Nocturnx 85
13) odessadude 73
14) dustybird3 34


Segment 2:

JuniorCar 215 Leader
montecarlo3831 215 -0
KidSpace 210 -5
RocknSS04 209 -6
zjerry 208 -7
BocaReject 201 -14
77GP 199 -16
lougreen03 198 -17
Cowboy6622 180 -35

There are ties for both ,but due to his wins, Junior Car gets it. I need to get my *** in gear... after winning segment 1, I have had 2 last place finishes.


Race History and Torino's (And how they got their asses whooped)

Yeah, I know you guys love reading about how great and wonderful the Torino was on the race track.. especially superspeedways (and in 1968-9-70 terms, this was one), yet the Torino's managed to get their asses whooped in '68 by the Dodge Chargers. Buddy Baker won a rain shortened Coca~Cola 600 in 1968 over the rest of the Ford's, who would round out the top 5. Charlie Glotzbach and Paul Goldsmith would carry Dodge to a 1-2 in the fall of '68. '69 saw the only thing saving the Ford effort come down to Junior Johnson and Lee Roy Yarbrough, who swept the place. Dodge's really gave Ford a run for the money at this track in particular for whatever their reason. Call it the hemi... yet Ford had better aerodynamics and was usually cleaning up superspeedways in '68 and early '69.

Anyone care to see some Superbirds and Doge Daytona's at Charlotte? Just under a minute... won't take long....

YouTube - ‪1970 Plymouth Superbird Highlights National 500‬‏

This week's race

So enough history already! This weekend... it's shaping up to be some blue ovals vs. either a Toyota or maybe a Chevrolet... so let's talk about who will be driving these Ford's, Chevrolet's and Toyota's.

What to look for in a driver

Being the longest race of the year... you want a guy who is patient. The really aggressive drivers tend to do well in the All-Star, not the long 600. You want a guy who will be aggressive at the right time... those guys like Kevin Harvick who just sneak in there at the end may be good picks. Guys like Keselowski or Kyle Busch who tend to be really aggressive may not... although Busch seems to be getting a little more mature ,whether I like to admit it or not...

Penske

So let's talk about why I didn't mention Dodge... Kurt Busch had a patented blow up in the All-Star, and Keselowski made a really good run in the Showdown, proving Dodge may be one of the best second-rate cars in the series. Yet when the top dogs were present in the All Star race, these guys didn't seem to make a whole lot of racket to me. I think Penske is having problems being the only Dodge team and having only 2 cars. Three seems to be the way to go.

Roush Racing

They obviously had something that worked in the All-Star, with Ragan winning the opener and Edwards, who as I said last week, is traditionally not a good driver at Charlotte winning. I was quite surprised. Greg Biffle and Matt Kenseth made a lot of noise too. That FR9 seems to be on top of the sport right now if we take this race alone. The Ford's were also good last week at Dover, which is a traditionally strong Ford track. Yet as history dictates, Charlotte isn't necessarily the best Ford track.. .tends to be a Chevrolet kind of place to me. Matt Kenseth won his first race here in 2000, and I think a conservative kind of driver who knows when to drive hard could come out on top of the 600. Plus, Kenseth is historically good at Charlotte... he ran 2nd here in fall '09 when Ford's were honestly at the bottom of their pit.

Childress Racing

I was surpirsed to not see much more out of these guys last week. They've got aggressive drivers, yet they didn't seem to really get it done. Harvick and Bowyer ran like 9th and 16th.... they need to get something together. The ECR engine is not to be underrated, as I have said for a while now.... don't get too caught up in this FR9 mania, watch out for the ECR. I think these guys will learn, and with Harvick tending to sneak in there at the end of a lot of these races, the extra 100 miles may be nice to him. Whether they will be there at the end of the 600 or not is iffy based on the All-Star race though.

Hendrick

I have bad news for the Hendrick guys.... they ran bad at the All-STar, which isn't a good sign, considering Hendrick has more All-Star wins than any other owner. Even still, although Jeff Gordon got his first win in this race, in recent years, it has been a place of bad luck for both Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson... as these video's can somewhat attest to...

Jeff Gordon in 2007...

YouTube - ‪2007 Coca Cola 600 Jeff Gordon Crash‬‏

Jeff Gordon in 2006....

YouTube - ‪Jeff Gordon Hard Crash 2006 Coca Cola 600 Lowes‬‏

Jimmie Johnson in 2010....

YouTube - ‪Jimmie Johnson crash 2010 Coca Cola 600‬‏

And the hits role on.

Jimmie Johnson used to call this his "home track", but since they took Lowe's off the wall and went back to just Charlotte, the horse shoe seems to have fallen out of his ***. Considering their runs in the All-Star, Hendrick picks are at your own risk.....

Plus, look back to how they ran at Las Vegas and Texas this year... the 1.5 miles just aren't good to Hendrick right now.... Dale Jr. has been carrying the Hendrick banner on these tracks this year. Mark Martin and Dale Jr. seem like good picks for the 600 as Jr. is having what may be a career year, best since Hendrick, and Mark Martin is a good long race kind of guy... but still... this place seems to be a Hendrick achilles heel.

Joe Gibbs Racing

They haven't been there this year... Hamlin hasn't run too hot on the mile and a halves, they had the engine problems on big tracks earlier in the year, and Logano's sophomore slump has become a junior slump. Kyle Busch was good in the All-Star race, and I think he is the only Toyota that has even run good on mile and a halves and big tracks this year.... I think the only Toyota to go with this week is Kyle Busch.

Michael Waltrip racing

Yeah, Reutimann won a 1.5 last year... won the Coke 600 in a rain delay before that... but I maintain that the only Michael Waltrip driver you should ever expect to see anywhere is Martin Truex in a cheesy NAPA commercial. Anything other than this is a surprise.

Earnhardt-Ganassi

I am almost willing to lay down $10 that Juan Montoya will not finish this race with 4 good fenders. Jamie McMurray won some big races last year... but that was last year. I don't expect any of these drivers to pull off much.

Petty Motorsports

The other Ford team... these guys were running good in that Showdown race... and Ambrose has a top 5 at Las Vegas and Texas!! That 9 might end up on my team this week.... hopefully he treats me better than Allmendinger at Dover. Considering the first time winners at this race (Jeff Gordon, Matt Kenseth, Casey Mears, etc.), I think this may be a week for one of these guys to win their first race.... hard to say which one though.

Red Bull Racing

Kasey Kahne has had some surprisingly good runs this year... considering everyone knows he's leaving at the end of the year, I'm surprised he is getting good equipmetn at all. I still wonder if Brian Vickers really has a handle on things again just yet. Trevor Bayne will proabbly need a while to get back used to these cars too.


My Picks and Summary

Not making them yet... but if you read everything above this, you'll know it's a hard decision to make. Several first time winners have come out of this race, guys like Jeff Gordon and Matt Kenseth... long shots like Reutimann and Casey Mears.... so I think I'm going to take a long shot, but I'm not sure who. Just make sure you consider my warnings against Hendrick... I may be wrong, I may not. Watch out for those ECR and FR9 engines.

 

Good post, When are you going to open up the pics thread. I am thinking hard on this one.
Edit: After reading post title I guess this is it. I will open for $10
1. Jimmie Johnson
2. Kevin Harvick
3. Matt Kenseth
Good Luck to all, I will be taking the lead soon in overall. Lookout Junior and Rockin..

 

Yeah, it's time to get some picks rolling in.

 

Alright... I'll go on back out there and make some picks....

Last time a Ford won a points race here? Mark Martin, 2002.

Jimmie Johnson's average finish, including his win in the Fall of '09 since this became Charlotte Motor Speedway again, like a 12.5 or something.

So I want to go with a long shot to win again... considering all the first time winners in this race in the past:

1) Marcos Ambrose
2) Carl Edwards
3) Kasey Kahne

Yeap... that's how we're going to roll.

 

Those picks are insane Duane! I don't expect Kahne to even finish. Peblo will definitely wreck - he'll be a full blown idiot because he's also slow.
I'm going to slightly amend my picks. Junior just don't seem to have the speed. I'd love to pick Martin as I agree he's a long race kinda guy, but McGrew can't keep a car handling for 600 miles over the day and night. Jimmy will be fine - he was fast at the end of the AllStar race.

1. Jimmie Johnson
2. Carl Edwards
3. Jeff Gordon

Last: Micheal MacDowell
1st caution: Peblo
# of cautions: 12

I hope it gets better. My vacation here in Concord/ Charlotte has been great and enjoyable, but the racing has not really been a part of the good times. We'll likely watch the Nationwide race from the hotel because we're not interested in attending another Pyle Buschit show (hilarious news about him speeding tho - kinda made me think of KidSpace). We have also scratched plans to go to the NASCAR HOF.

 

Here's my picks
1) Jimmie Johnson
2) Jeff Gordon
3) Mark Martin

 

Is the Hall of Fame too crowded or something? It's got some pretty neat stuff... my favorite thing is a wall of all the illegal parts they've confinscated off cars.... someone once ran a lead Gatorade in-car drinking system to move weight to the left side of the car. Sad to hear about you scratching that one.... sorry my home track isn't living up to your expectations too! (Although I really live closer to Martinsville... I claim both of them.

 

The HOF is too far from Concord. And I'm PO'ed at NASCAR because Pyle Buschit was given several positions during that truck race under caution. I also doubt the truck was legal. It had too much power - that's why he kept spinning the wheels on the restarts. There was one part where he closed about 10 cars lengths and drove around Hornaday battling Duescher - all on one pass down the back stretch. Bowyer was still 10 car lengths in front of him at that point, but I told my wife that the race was as good as over at that point. PB's truck was soooo much faster. Odd that Hornaday ended up with a big penalty.

I don't believe that the wrestling mentally ("love-to-hate") will really work here, but they sure want Pyle Buschit to win. It makes me feel stupid for throwing my money away on NASCAR. I was ready to strip the decals off the BudChev, but settled on scratching the Nationwide race and the HOF.

Then I went ahead and went to the NASCAR Hall of Fame today anyways. It was okay. I got lots of pics. And you wanna hear the irony? Guess who was there signing autographs? You guessed it ... Pyle Buschit

 

Brent, I gave up on buying merchandise years ago. Waste of money now IMO. Glad youa re having a good time. Enjoy the rest of the weekend. Been to about 5 600's in a row but the last one was probably 10 years ago.

 

You should have asked Pyle Buschit to sign his name like that for you... or ask him to sign a note pad for you as closely as he could to the way he signed that ticket earlier this week. The Hall of Fame is neat... but not as neat as it is cracked up to be, I'll admit. They say it's 4 floors... I count 3. But I haven't seen much in my life that was as cracked up as the people running it claimed. It's pretty neat in a lot of ways though..... look forward to the pictures.

I just don't know what incentive NASCAR has to let Pyle Busch win races. Maybe he just dumps a lot more money on his truck than everyone else? I can't help but think that one year when Bill Elliott won like 10 superspeedway races, fans called it rigged. When Petty won 13 straight in 1967, a lot of people probably called rigged. When Petty barely made 200 wins, the last few have been disputed (win 198 was with an illegal engine... some claim exactly 200 seems odd and just a good way for teh sport to publicize itself)... but people hate Kyle Busch, and they like Petty and Elliott... so I don't know what the heck this is about.

I know this is a wandering post... but still. Hope you enjoy the rest of your stay here in North Carolina. You can come up here and help me get the trim on dad's '68 Fairlane tomorrow in lieu of the Nationwide race, hehehee.