“I look at the table below and ask myself which driver should be ahead in the NASCAR points right now? Which one should be in position to qualify for the Chase for the Nextel Cup?

Kasey Kahne, right?

Well, Mr. (or Mrs.) NASCAR fan, you know the answer already. It’s Jeff Gordon. And, it’s not because Kasey Kahne self-destructed at the end of the Allstate 400 and the AMD at the Glen races.

Bonus Points

It’s all about bonus points baby! Jeff Gordon has scored 110 bonus points to Kasey Kahne’s 45 bonus points. The Dupont team is doing everything that it takes to be in the top ten after Richmond. Smart racing.

NASCAR statistics for Bonus Points earned and Laps Completed.”

Were you booing or cheering?

It was interesting to hear the equal amounts of contempt and joy from the stands.

If you watched the Busch Series race today at Michigan International Speedway you know what I’m talking about. What a fun race that was. The cars were running 4 and 5 wide and the intensity was high.

Robby Gordon

Robby Gordon has to be the most misunderstood (and under estimated) racer on the NASCAR circuit.

Maybe its just me. I hear talk about how ‘Robby races everything’, but I never see it, so I guess I don’t appreciate it. On the rare occassions we get to hear him he is usually a quote machine. He was, without a doubt, the driver I was rooting for.

And the buying Robert Yates Racing rumor? I’d never thought he had that kind of money. Guess it’s true, I don’t know Jack Robby.

Dale Earnhardt Jr.

When Dale Earnhardt Jr. raced his way up to 2nd place with his 4 fresh tires and several laps to go, I doubted that Robby’s older tires could keep him ahead of Little E. While they were racing hard, Carl Edwards drafted right up to them and squeezed underneath to make it 3 wide. Then the caution flew.

Edwards restarted in the top spot.

Carl Edwards SMACKDOWN

With a few laps to go, Edwards was running the high line with Robby behind and below him and Dale Jr. directly behind Carl.

You could see it coming. Junior and Gordon were gonna work Edwards over like Scotty 2 Hotty & Rikishi in a WWE tag team wrestling match.

I was thinking Juniors new focus was no longer winning the race, but to get Edwards loose and let Robby sail on to victory. Your nose up the guys tail in front of you in the turn at Michigan is the recipe for a loose car.

Now I’m not saying that Dale Jr’s intent was to wreck the boy. But, at 185mph sometimes things happen faster than you anticipate.

NASCAR Lite

The Busch Series is becoming the NASCAR Nextel Cup drivers little playground anyway.

NASCAR drivers can go out and put there cars out on the line without fear of it ruining them in the points. It’s just for fun. Now, I’m not gonna lose any sleep over what Junior did. I hope he doesn’t either. Carl Edwards was hot, sure enough. But, he was plenty dumb for banging into Dale on the cool down lap. With Junior’s hand out the window, that could have turned into something bad. It was a classic moment on the in-car shot though.

That hit FREAKED Junior out.

It’s All Good

I was happy to see that Edwards had cooled down by the time he was interviewed. I’d like to have a transcript of the meeting with NASCAR after the race. Honestly though, people need to stop messing with Carl. Haven’t they seen how buff the dude is?”

Elliott Sadler & Ray Evernham came out swinging this weekend at Michigan International Speedway with an outside pole qualifying lap.

You know the comparisons are going to be made, so let me lay ‘em out for you in advance.

Jeremy Mayfield’s start positions for the last 3 Michigan races are: 18th, 11th & 5th. Not too bad really.

Elliott Sadler’s start positions for the last 3 Michigan races are: 32nd, 8th & 18th. Not as good as Mayfield’s. I’d say that Elliott’s qualifying run is not just having a better car than he had at Robert Yates Racing, but also of him turning up the heat for this weekends race.

Dave Newton at nascar.com is picking Elliott to win the race this weekend. While our fantasy race pick leader, Cami Starr, is also at least willing to roll the dice on him. The common thought is that Evernham is giving Elliott one well tuned car to race in. If there is any merit to the ‘this driver (aka Kasey Kahne) is getting the better cars than that driver (aka Jeremy Mayfield) I’d bet it all that Elliott is driving one of Kasey’s cars.

Everyone involved in the NASCAR dirt drama these past two weeks has something to prove. Ray Evernham has pride to recover for him and his organization. Elliott Sadler wants to show the new ‘boss’ that he is the man. Bringing home the trophy would be just the thing for the Evernham organization. In fact, I know that my face would be all smiles if Elliott Sadler crosses that finish line first.

It’s just too bad that Jeremy won’t get the opportunity to prove anything. He’ll be at home doing laps on his tractor.”

In Texas we race on dirt. Okay. Sometimes its packed clay, but even then you get chunks of it thrown up on you in the stands.

In the NASCAR ranks we currently have a little dirt being dished up also. A scoop reporter at heart, John Newsome (aka The Spotter), has linked to some juicy tidbits to feast on.

What was he smoking?

Well it was marijuana. Plus, a little blow up the nose. Rock candy. Cocaine. Yup. That’s the word on Shane Hmiel. Now that doesn’t rank up there with ‘have-to-know’ information, but I’ll admit having a little curiosity on what the drug was that got him banned from NASCAR for life.

A little hanky panky going on?

Well, according to Jeremy Mayfield the answer is: “YES.”

One little Ms. Erin Crocker seems to have caused the heart and mind of Ray Evernham to wander away from the business at hand (namely Jeremy’s race team) a little too much this year. He didn’t say it as plainly as that, but his words imply it. Now, I’m not sure I’m ready to jump on that bandwagon against Ray. Such is the nature of working relationships between male and female. I met my wife at work and we caused a few smirks and smiles ourselves. Although, I wasn’t already married at the time.

I’m not as talented or succinct as my buddy Marc (Full Throttle) as he sums up a good bit on The Mayfield Sage™

Me? I’m here for the party.”

With 22 weeks of NASCAR racing in the books for the 2006 season, there are some very surprising names in the list of drivers that are hot and drivers that are cold.

Hot NASCAR Drivers

Ok. I’m not really talking about Carl Edwards and how hot my daughters think he is. I’m talking about Happy Harvick. Kevin Harvick is the hottest driver in NASCAR right now. Over the last 5 races his average finish is 4th. He has completed 99.03% of the laps run so far this year, just slightly behind Jimmie Johnson and Matt Kenseth. Kevin Harvick finished 10th in the 3M Performance 500 already in June at Michigan International Speedway, and I fully expect him to continue his hot streak at least through Michigan and Bristol. If you have him on your fantasy race team, it’s a good bet that you should keep him there. If you don’t, he may already be too pricey to acquire.

More Hot NASCAR Drivers

Denny Hamlin is hot. He is averaging an 8th place finish over the last 5 races. Michigan and Bristol finish averages are 12th and 14th respectively. So, if Denny’s on your fantasy race team, you’ll do good keeping him there.

Kyle Busch is hot. He is averaging a 6th place finish over the last 5 races. Michigan and Bristol have not been real good to Kyle, so his current hot streak may be fixin’ to cool down.

Cold NASCAR Drivers

It’s been a heck of a year for Greg Biffle. He is currently 3rd on my list of coldest NASCAR drivers. The Biffster has an ice-cold 22nd place average finish over the last 5 races and a bitter cold 32nd average finish position over the last 3 races. No doubt Greg’s value has plummeted across most of the fantasy NASCAR games over the last 5 weeks. If your up for the risk, maybe you should put him on your team since he does have an average 10th place finish at both Michigan and Bristol.

Another surpise on the Cold list is the self-destructive Kasey Kahne. Kahne has an average start position of 3rd and and average finish position of 30th over the last 3 NASCAR races. Kasey won at Michigan in June, finished 4th at California Speedway in February, even a very respectable 10th place at Bristol in March. Kahne, like Biffle, might be a good low-cost pick up for your fantasy team if your feeling like a risk taker.

“For the last six weeks now, I’ve been tracking the Fantasy Racing picks of a handful of the NASCAR online media community.

Fantasy Racing Experts

The (some willing & some unbeknownst to them) participants are:
ESPN’s Scott Engel; Frontstretch.com’s Cami Starr & Mike Neff; NASCAR.com’s David Newton, Dave Rodman, Marty Smith & Ryan Smithson; Yahoo! Fantasy Sports’ Jerry Bonkowski, Bob Margolis, Jonathan Baum, Dan Beaver & the Yahoo! Fantasy NASCAR game community as a whole.

Cami Starr is by far and away the leader of the pack! The average finish position of the driver she has picked to win the race is a nice low 12th. The other participants picks have been not so good. But, such is the whole science game of picking the race winner anyways. I’ve found it’s a combination of statistics, gut and luck. Heavy on the gut and luck. As the NASCAR race results for the last six races will show you, the winner has not been the one most expected to win.

If you haven’t been over to The Frontstretch, check ‘em out. I’m new to the site and have been really enjoying the variety of great NASCAR articles.

Give Your Fantasy Racing Picks

If anyone else with a NASCAR website wants to join in the Fantasy Race Picks, I’d love to have you for the remainder of the year.

Heck, I’d even encourage you to try out my free NASCAR Driver Head-to-Head and give your feedback on how useful it is and what could make it better. Send email to me[at]onebadwheel[dot]com.”

Kevin Harvick

Kevin Harvick wins the AMD at the Glen. Harvick is having an impressive turnaround season. This win will keep him rated as the Hottest Driver in NASCAR over the last three races for the second week in a row.

Tony Stewart

Tony Stewart’s second place finish is par for him as well. He has the best average finish at Watkins Glen of any driver for the last 4 years.

Kurt Busch

Unfortunately, Kurt Busch’s day ended pretty much according to his past statistical history as well. Before today’s AMD at the Glen race, Kurt Busch’s average start at Watkin’s Glen was 7th. His average finish was 26th. That’s a drop of 19 race spots on average, pretty much right on for his 1st to 19th place finish today.”

The family and I vacationed in Elyria, Ohio a week ago. Not the mecca of anything spectacular, except that it’s where I spent the first 16 years of my life. We stayed with my brother (Rick), his wife (Kithy) and my nephew (Ricky) for the 5 days we were there.

How does this fit in with racing and the title of this post?

Local Shorttrack Racing

My father raced every weekend at Lorain County Speedway, which I’m sad to say just closed down about 6 weeks before we flew to Ohio. It was a 1/4 mile asphalt oval. Occasionally, on the big race weekends, we would ride in the bed of my dad’s truck and haul his race car out to Sandusky Speedway, in Sandusky, Ohio.

I loved Sandusky Speedway! It’s a 1/2 mile asphalt track that always had a big crowd and lots of cars. My father raced (street?) stock cars, next level up from the bombers or whatever they called them back then. He raced something like a 1972 Chevelle back in the late 1970’s. I think there was one more class of stock cars above him.

In addition to my love for watching my dad race, I was in awe of the Sprints and SuperModifieds. The power those cars have is awesome. What is it? Like 800 hp on a 1100 pound car? Amazing.

So, in anticipation of our trip to Ohio, I happened along the Sandusky Speedway website. Lo and behold the feature story is about Dave Shullick Jr. Wow! Dave Shullick (senior) ruled the SuperModified series back when I was a kid.

ISMA Hymiler Nationals

Hearing that name and seeing the pictures of the track was all it took to know that no matter what, we were going to Sandusky Speedway that Saturday night. Much to my surprise (and delight) it turned out to be the Sandusky Hymiler Nationals weekend, with a 100 lap feature event for the ISMA cars.

The track was everybit as exciting as I remember it and the Sprints and SuperModifieds put on an outstanding show. ISMA drivers from all over the NorthEast where there. Plus, a couple of young stud Sprint drivers that my daughters ogled every chance they got.

The pictures in this post are:

The #94 and #62 back from the late 1970’s at Sandusky Speedway. I really think that the #94 is Dave Shullick.

A picture from the 100 lap ISMA feature event.

I’ve posted more pictures of the races on my personal site.”