While the other 2 series had exciting races, the Sprint Cup series had a race that was to be determined on tire wear and strategy by the drivers and crew chiefs. Although Kevin Harvick led the most laps of the day, he failed to seal the win again. With a late race caution and old tires, Harvick opted to pit for fresh tires and just did not have a car fast enough to regain the lead.
Jimmie Johnson went on to win and get his "win and in" out of the way for the play offs. Cautions were few and then, mostly for tire issues and not wrecks. A lot of people would say the race was "boring" but it is good to see a race where strategy plays into the win.
The most chatter by spectators was from the recent announcement by Stewart Haas to change manufacturers from Chevrolet to Ford for next season. A lot of people are wondering why the switch when it has been Chevrolet that has given them their only championships. It will be interesting to follow and see if any of their drivers leave to stay with the Chevrolet teams.
Now it is off to the "west coast swing" which are some of the best tracks for Kevin Harvick. Lets watch and see if this holds true with the new less downforce cars they are driving this season. It will certainly be interesting the rest of the season.
Week 2 found several drivers from the cup series competing in the Xfinity series with the top four of six finishers being from the cup series.
Kyle "Rowdy" Busch was back to his antics of racing in every series so he can add to his "all-time" win total. He won the pole position and after leading most of the laps, went on to win the race. This race was exciting for the drivers and the spectators as well.
Too bad another week went by where a regular in the Xfinity series did not get his "win and in" in the play offs. It would certainly be nice to see the series drivers who are vying for a championship to be the winners in the races instead of the upper class drivers coming down and taking the wins away from the series regulars.
Hey NASCAR OFFICIALS, how long are you going to drag your feet and let the upper series drivers enter into the lower class races and take the wins from the regulars in each respective class? I, for one, would love to see Xfinity races where only Xinity drivers were vying for a win. Novel idea, huh?
Week number 2 of the new season is in the books and true to Atlanta style, it proved to be an exciting race. There were a few cautions, some from problems on the track and some from the caution clock.
John Hunter Nemechek scored his second career win, first win of 2016, and youngest person to win a series race at Atlanta. He got the lead very late in the race when Matt Crafton and Daniel Suarez were racing hard for the lead and Suarez was tapped from behind, Suarez then bumped Matt Crafton and the chain reaction began at the very front of the pack leading to many trucks being wrecked and John Hunter Nemechek snaking his way through the trucks crashing all around and taking the lead. After a lengthy caution, the race ended with a green-white-checkered finish and John Hunter victorious.
Even in the wake of a few "bad" looking wrecks, not one driver was kept for observation. All were treated and released at the infield care center.
Congratulations to John Hunter on his win and his berth in the playoffs.
Finally the 2016 racing season with the premier series in NASCAR began today at Daytona International Speedway.
This year sees a few new changes with the biggest being the field reduced from 43 cars to 40 and the development of giving charters to teams who are guaranteed spots in each and every race; one per charter per race.
As usual the first two spots were set by qualifying speeds and the rest of the field was set by finishing places in the duel races during speedweek.
The race pole was taken by the youngest rookie to ever enter the field, Chase Elliot, son of the great Bill Elliot. However, Chase's race was not to go as well as his qualifying did. He led the first few laps then was shuffled back in the pack and subsequently lost the back end of his car and was taken out of the race when his car nse dived in the grassy area of the inield. That ended his day but luckily he was uninjured.
That was only the first of the six cautions which happened during the race. Good thing, not one driver was injured during the race. /fortunately, there was not a "big one" during the race today.
So the first race of the season is in the books. The Camping World Trucks took to the high banks of Daytona International Speedway last night with a new rules package and more rookies than past years have seen.The NCWTS this year will have a chase format much like the Sprint Cup series has. A "win and you're in" will hold true for a lot of drivers. However, more than one win and it will guarantee a spot in the first round of the series playoffs.The one new rule that I am still not sure how this will impact many races is theimplementation of a "caution clock." This clock is set at twenty minutes and counts down to zero. If no caution occurs before the clock reaches zero, there will be a caution. If a caution occurs, the clock is reset to twenty minutes. This will occur during the entire race with the exception of the last twenty laps.The caution clock came into play in last night's race. There were about 6 cautions during the race with the last one occurring with only 7 laps remaining, which allowed for a great green-white-checkered finish. The "big one" did happen as is so typical of the super speedways and involved 18 of the 32 truck field. The last wreck occurred on the very last lap where several more trucks were involved including the number 4 truck of Kyle Bush Motorsports, which rolled and flipped a total of 13 times down the front stretch coming to the checkered flag.Luckily, no one was injured during the race and it proved to be the exciting start to the season that most spectators have come to expect.
Well the first race of the season for the Xfinity series is in the books and it was anexciting race to be sure. The Xfinity Series has also adopted a chase format much like that of the Sprint Cup series in which a "win and you're in" rule stands there also. It is also good that a driver can get in on points as well.There were about 6 Sprint Cup drivers competing in the Xfinity race today, There were not many wrecks and not one "big one" during the opener. The race was won by a Sprint cup regular and the highest finishing Xfinity driver, Elliot Sadler, finished fourth.Three out of four of the top cars were owned by JR Motorsports. In the top ten w=there were 7 Chevrolets, 3 Fords and only 1 Toyota, which was surprising since Toyota has been such a strong contender in the past.If this race was a prediction of the rest of the season, it is shaping up to be an exciting one.
Michigan certainly provided san exciting race to those in the stands as well as those at home. The truck race was dominated by regular NCWTS drivers throughout and was truly a joy to watch for those of us who are tired of watching the Cup drivers dominate every race.
Although there were several regular Cup drivers in the race, they were not the ones to keep your eyes on today. The drivers that were the ones to watch were Matt Crafton and Johnny Sauter.
As in many of the races, fuel mileage was the deciding factor in the race today. With a new crew chief on the box today, Johnny Sauter proved why he is leading the points race. It was refreshing to see the ThorSports trucks battling it out for the victory; with Sauter taking first, Crafton taking second and Ron Hornaday, another NCWTS regular, taking third.
A late race fuel stop for Crafton provided Sauter the edge he needed to secure the win. Even though Crafton had more than a 30 second lead when he pitted with only 5 laps remaining, it proved to be just what Sauter needed.
What happened to the cup drivers in the race? Joey Logano had splitter problems and finished several laps down and Kyle Busch, well, I have no clue where he finished, but it certainly wasn’t in Victory Lane.
Cautions were at a minimum in this race with only 1 and that was for Travis Kvapil who lost an engine early in the race.
I hope to see many more races like this in the lower series. It certainly was refreshing to see the drivers who normally race in just that series win the race and take the top spots. Cup drivers take note, the NCWTS drivers are back and coming for you when you race in their series.
Certainly for the first part of the race, it looked like Kevin Harvick would be the one all the drivers would be chasing. Although the front row was all Penske drivers to start, it surely looked like they would not manage to score a win for the "Captain."
Then with a caution for debris about two-thirds of the way through the race, Kevin Harvick, hit the debris and soon after was out of the race. then it looked like Dale Earnhardt, Jr. would score the win, but this was not to be the case. Instead, Junior gambled on fuel mileage and came up just about one half a lap short to score a second place finish and the one Penske driver, who failed to score a NSCS win last year, scored his first win since winning the NSCS Championship in 2012.
Kudos to Brad Keselowski on scoring this win. Brad struggled all last season and ended without making the chase or even scoring a win for that matter. It was great to see him in the winner's circle again. At least great to see him winning in the NSCS and not in the NNS.
It would have been great to see Harvick or Earnhardt Jr. score a second win on the season, but it was not to be. I sincerely think that both Harvick and Earnhardt Jr. will be great contenders for the NSCS Championship this year. Junior has greater focus this year and Harvick no longer has to compete with "Pop Pop's" grandsons for his attention and mone. He surely looks much less stressed this year.
The Nationwide Series is going to be a long season if the first three races are indicative of how the season will go. I am so tired of trying to watch a NNS race only to have it DOMINATED by a Sprint Cup regular.
I wish NASCAR officials would limit the number of races, especially when NNS drivers are vying for points, in a season instead of ALLOWING the Sprint Cup drivers to dominate the races.
How can the NNS drivers end the season with a champion when they have not been given the opportunity to win races when competing against drivers of their own caliber?
UNFAIR, yes it is. The NNS drivers are having to compete with drivers who have much more experience and that have dominated in the NNS races in the past and won championships and then moved on. That would be like taking a new hire - one who has never done the job or had management experience- and putting them in as the boss. How fair would that be to an employee that had been there for years and moved up the ranks. The same thing is true in the NNS. A driver that has moved on has noi business taking points away from the NNS drivers and thus maybe causing that driver a championship.
I am just about to give up on a sport that I used to love watching. I wish NASCAR officials would stop the Sprint Cup drivers from dominating in a field where they are far superior to those drivers who are trying to learn how tio move up the ranks into the Sprint Cup series.
I say let the truck drivers drive in the truck series, let the NNS drivers drive in the NNS and PLEASE let the NSCS drivers drive in their own series so that true champions can be crowned in all three series!
Phoenix saw a different winner than we saw at Daytona. Looks like Kevin"the closer" Harvick will be a force to be reckoned with this year. The Stewart-Haas driver, moved quickly to the front and never looked back, scoring his second win at Phoenix International Raceway.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. made a valiant attempt to get past the #4 car of Harvick, but fell short. Even though the Fords of Penske Racing took the front row, they failed to hold the lead for long.
Looks like the chase will be an interesting one this year.
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