All Purpose NASCAR Thread

Busch's "I hate this place" fit in with his brash, punk persona, but Mark Martin has basically said the same thing for a while about Daytona. I think plate racing in general is either hate it or love it.

Although you're right, the way Busch blurted it out was sort of surprising.

 

How is there not a serious air of suspicion around Johnon's win? His crew chief gets caught cheating and then he wins. That should be sending up red flags left and right.

 

Because they stripped that car. Took three hours for it to go through inspection. And honestly, it's not like it was that much better than the other leaders. He just happened to be out front at the end and things shook out right.

 

After the race, Ryan Newman was wondering out loud whether Johnson's car would make the post-race inspection. I don't think his tongue was too far into his cheek, either.

 

dog, I understand that. But I remember the outcry back when Sosa was caught with a corked bat. People were wondering how many of his homers were hit with a doctored bat. I'd think there'd be something along those lines in the NASCAR circles. I'd think there'd be talk of his win being tainted. Instead, all I'm seeing on the wires are columns defending Johnson's win as being clean.

 

Hendrick Motorsports hasn't won as many races and championships as it has by being stupid. After Knaus was suspended, that organization would have made damned sure that everything on all of its cars was totally spotless just in case one of them won the race.

That's why if the 48 hadn't been clean, it would have been a bigger shock than if it had been illegal.

 

So is it too big of a stretch to wonder if other Hendrick cars might have been cheating over the years?

And why is cheating in NASCAR looked at with a wink? Is it the whole "If you aren't cheating, you aren't trying" mindset?

 

It's clean because the 48 made it through post-race inspection, or you would have heard about it by now. It's happened in the past, next-day stories come out saying team fined or suspended because of post-race inspection failure.

I saw all but the first eight laps of the race and thought that overall it was one of the better Daytona 500s at least in the last several years (and this is the first year I can remember where I didn't have someone to pull for - since Rusty's gone). The finish could've stood a little more excitement, but there was plenty of action. More different leaders than any other Daytona 500, more than 30 lead changes and more than usual amount of cars finished on the lead lap. The crashes piled up in the end but there really wasn't ONE wreck that took out 19 guys like there normally is.
And the weather with the cloud cover and fog, combined with the twilight finish, made for interesting picture on tv, too. Like something out of a movie.

Sure would be nice to see Rockingham next, instead of California though. Much closer, better racing at the old NCS.

 

Jack Roush is a dick. I remember when Roush falsely accused the 24 team of soaking their tires the year Gordon won 13 races.

 

This is unrelated to Roush being a dick, but every time I look at him, I can't believe he's still alive.

That plane rescue story still blows me away. I just can't believe he survived that.

(I know that was off topic. I haven't really ever seen him be a dick, so I don't know about that).

 

I think a few others have answered this pretty well, but I'll add one thing -- pre-race inspection. Not only did Johnson's car get a thorough inspection after the race, but it also got one prior to the race.

Cheating in NASCAR is like holding in football. If officials really wanted to, they could bust drivers every race.

Have I mentioned yet that NBC's race coverage blows? If not, I'd like to take this opportunity to do so.

NBC'S RACING COVERAGE BLOWS. That is all.

 

Man, you've got no idea. I was around the night all that went down. I've talked to Roush and the guy who rescued him from the pond in Troy. You wanna talk lucky? The first thing Roush should've done after leaving the hospital is buy a lottery ticket. To first survive the initial crash and then wind up landing in the pond of a guy who's a retired rescue diver, that ain't just lucky. It's other-worldly.

Funny story about that night. All this shit's happening fast and we're trying to get in the paper. It's also a high school football night, so we're slammed. Reporter on the scene in Troy ends up relaying the stuff to one of our desk guys. In doing so, he mentions that it's also Roush's 70th birthday that day.

I swear to God, the original lede on the story from this guy was: "Jack Roush celebrated his 70th birthday in a unique fashion."