(no subject)

Tommy Baldwin Racing

According to what they just said on SPEED, Riggs got out of Tommy Baldwin Racing because he refuses to do a start-and-park. I respect that. The guy is there to race. He refuses to do anything else.

On the flip side, that means Brian Simo, Mike Skinner and Patrick freaking Carpentier will be the drivers. *dances* Le Frenchy Person!

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NASCAR Predictions for Next Year

I'm calling this one now, because it seems terribly obvious.

So, Brad Keselowski won at Talladega. He's a solid driver and everything about him screams "give him a decent ride and he'll do great things in Cup". So of course, it stands to reason that Hendrick would be smart and fight like hell to have him in a car next year, because lord knows there's no way the boy is waiting another year in Nationwide.

Of course, Hendrick was stupid (or smart - jury's still out) and signed Mark Martin for next year already. Mark's driving great. But we all know how wishy washy the man is about retirement. Versus Brad, who has a long career ahead of him. So Hendrick is locked in with three drivers that'll be around awhile, but have a definite shelf life, and one guy who could retire at any moment, and he's not building for the future. Because we all know that Junior, Jeff and Jimmie will be at Hendrick until they retire barring a disaster.

So what happens to Brad? I've been thinking how Hendrick is displaying idiot tendencies by letting that one get away, especially since Brad's personality is more of a fit for Hendrick than Kyle's was. (Not to knock Kyle too much, but there are different corporate cultures, and Kyle is a much better fit at Gibbs, because Gibbs knows how to handle that personality better.)

And then it dawned on me. The obvious solution that still keeps Brad in the fold and at the same time provides him with great racing equipment and teammates of a quality caliber to learn from.

I predict that come 2010, Stewart-Haas Racing will go to three teams and Brad will drive the third car.

(no subject)

Dear Kyle Busch,

You know, we've had this discussion before. I could like you - could - if you'd get over your Junior obsession. It's going past angry-making into pathetic and desperate. Just because Junior's the prom queen and you're the smart/badass girl who guys seldom look twice at doesn't make it cool.

I have my issues, as a Junior fan, with the inability of the media to recognize if Junior does something wrong. But here's something I've noticed (being not focused completely on everything they say about just Junior) - after a certain point, when drivers have gotten to a certain age (over 30) and amassed a certain number of wins (generally over 10, which everyone needs to notice is actually rare among the current crop) and have had careers spanning several years (at least five), they get credit that other drivers don't. Wanna know why? It's this thing called maturity. There's a perception that the drivers in that group have put in the time and produced enough results to justify it not being their fault. Notice something - is it ever stated by the media that it's Mark Martin's fault, Bobby Labonte's fault, Tony Stewart's fault, Jeff Gordon's fault? More importantly, is it ever Matt Kenseth's fault, Greg Biffle's fault? It doesn't matter where they're running, that day or that season - the announcers give more to guys who've been around awhile. They won't say someone is washed up, but they also avoid saying anything is ever their fault. Jeff Burton is a poster boy for this - they jumped all over his resurgence when he went to Childress, but they didn't say it was his fault when he was running poorly at Roush.

So Kyle, just do me a favor and put a sock in it. Or hire me as your PR woman so I can smack you upside the head when you say shit like today's little tirade. I don't think I've seen anyone so obsessed in NASCAR in my years of watching (admittedly, post-Senior). To quote Steve Byrnes, I don't know why it's any of your business what's going on with Junior.

ETA: The quote. As ESPN writes it, then as SPEED reported it. The context changes, which is why I'm putting both up.

ESPN: #18-Kyle Busch said it point-blank: "It's never Junior; it's always the crew chief." Busch fired that opening volley of driver reaction Friday morning to Hendrick Motorsports' dismissal of Tony Eury Jr. as #88-Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s crew chief on Thursday. Asked about Eury's replacement, Lance McGrew, with whom Busch worked in the Nationwide Series at Hendrick in 2004, Busch expressed pity for McGrew. "He's got his hands full, I guess, having to deal with what's going on," Busch said. "And if Junior doesn't run well, then he [McGrew] is going to be the 'problem' again." Still, Busch said he understood the move to bolster the driver who replaced him at Hendrick last season, both because of Earnhardt's star power and Busch's salary issues. "You've got to make the most popular driver in the sport competitive, so you gotta do what you gotta do, I guess," Busch said.

SPEED: "You've got to make the most popular driver in the sport competitive, so you gotta do what you gotta do, I guess. He's got his hands full, I guess, having to deal with what's going on. And if Junior doesn't run well, then he [McGrew] is going to be the 'problem' again. It's never Junior; it's always the crew chief."