2012 NASCAR in HDTV - Page 3

They happen all the time but you can't see them during the day races. You see them all the time at the night races.

I LIKE the way this Vegas race is starting!

Jr looks awfully impressive so far.

1. Greg Biffle (125) Wins
2. Kevin Harvick (-10)
3. Denny Hamlin (-12) (1)
4. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (-18)
5. Matt Kenseth (-23) (1)
6. Carl Edwards (-23)
7. Tony Stewart (-25) (1)
8. Martin Truex Jr. (-27)
9. Joey Lagano (-27)
10. Mark Martin (-28)
11. Paul Menard (-36)
12. Kyle Busch (-38)

1. Greg Biffle (157)
2. Kevin Harvick (-9)
3. Matt Kenseth (-12)
4. Martin Truex Jr. (-18)
5. Denny Hamlin (-20)
6. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (-20)
7. Tony Stewart (-27)
8. Clint Bowyer (-31)
9. Joey Lagano (-31)
10. Paul Menard (-34)
11. Jeff Burton (-37)
12. Ryan Newman (-39)

Wins

Tony Stewart, Brad Keselowski, Denny Hamlin, Matt Kenseth

I think we're seeing the end of the race now. 3:45pm Texas time. Rain has arrived, and it doesn't look like it's going to end anytime soon.

Race has been called offical winner Tony Stewart*

*Rain Shortened Victory

1. Greg Biffle (195)
2. Kevin Harvick (-7)
3. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (-17)
4. Tony Stewart (-18)
5. Matt Kenseth (-19)
6. Martin Truex Jr. (-20)
7. Denny Hamlin (-24)
8. Clint Bowyer (-39)
9. Jimmie Johnson (-39)
10. Ryan Newman (-40)
11. Paul Menard (-47)
12. Joey Lagano (-49)

Wins
Tony Stewart - 2
Brad Keselowski - 1
Denny Hamlin - 1
Matt Kenseth - 1

Good top 5 finish for Dale jr. In the right place at the right time.

Stewart pissed off a couple of people on that drive to the front, but in hindsight, it was definitely the right thing to do to get to the front ASAP and then hang on as long and hard as possible and pray for the rain.

Well I think there were a few pissed off drivers today too Mac. Good finish for Dale jr though, all things considered.

1. Greg Biffle (226)
2. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (-6)
3-6. Martin Truex Jr., Tony Stewart, Matt Kenseth, and Kevin Harvick (-12)
7. Denny Hamlin (-16)
8. Ryan Newman (-24)
9. Clint Bowyer (-34)
10. Jimmie Johnson (-37)
11. Carl Edwards (-47)
12. Brad Keselowski (-51)

Wins

Tony Stewart - 2
Ryan Newman - 1
Brad Keselowski - 1
Denny Hamlin - 1
Matt Kenseth - 1

NASCAR is off for Easter Weekend (Sunday April 8th) Texas is next race Sat night April 14th at 7pm.

That Reutimann issue sure was strange. I'm not sure I buy the line that the engine quit after NASCAR finally black flagged him. But I put most of the blame on NASCAR for being way too slow to black flag uncompetitive cars and for giving way too many incentives to the teams to keep crappy, uncompetitive cars out on the track.

At the very least, it seems to me that green-white-checker restarts should only include the cars that are on the lead lap. Everyone a lap or more down should have their finishing position locked and giving an "official" finish and taken off the track.

BTW, does anyone know for certain why Jr was so pissed off at Newman that he rammed him after the finish?

I can understand Bowyer being mad him for being bumped as he went into the corner, but I didn't see Newman do anything that involved Jr in any way whatsoever.

Have you heard the expression: "Start & Park"? Apparently NASCAR lets owners with low low budget cars get on the track just to get owners points or something like that. I agree though, too many junkers are allowed on the track, but I'm betting it's got more to do with pressure from sponsors.


Sure, why not? I agree again, and besides, NASCAR changes the rules almost quarterly anyway so...


There was very little camera coverage of that, but I saw Dale with a thumbs up out the window, so I don't know that he was pissed off at Newman.

I never saw a "thumbs up" only Jr bashing into Newman's right front fender and then waggling his finger at him. Unfortunately, I've already deleted my recording, so I can't go back and check.

I also thought it might have been a "congrats tap" at first. But after watching it a couple of times it looked like an angry ram to me.

Maybe I can't tell when Jr is angry or happy. Does anyone have a screen cap of Jr giving a thumbs up?

I don't have a screen cap, but I thought it was "thumbs up congrats tap" too.
Plus, in his post race interview, Reutimann was the only one he voiced displeasure at.

It was a thumbs up.

I was watching it live it was a thumbs up.

The only reason Reutimann was out there was they needed 1 more point to be locked in the top 35. So blame that on the top 35 rule.

You know only having the lead lap cars do the G-W-C is an intersting idea.

Yeah, I guess that looks like a thumb there...

I thought I saw a bunch of index finger pointing too. I guess I was wrong, or maybe Jr was just pointing out the location of victory lane to Newman since he's never been there at this track.

Yeah that's the type of rules I was thinking about when I said that NASCAR gives way too many incentives to the car owners to keep crappy uncompetitive cars out on the track.

After I posted the G-W-C idea, I realized that the car owners would have screaming hissy fits it that rule was ever implemented since they want their car on the track when the checkered flag drops because that's the best chance to make it on the highlights clips for all the sports shows. So I think it's more likely that hell will freeze over before having that rule implemented. But I still like the idea.

If nothing else, it'd minimize the way too common "accordion" pile-ups that take out eight or more cars and take forever to clean-up on the G-W-C restarts.

Here's the In-Car

Thanks. Looks like I can't tell the difference between Jr being happy and mad.

Why is that, exactly? One of the big complaints this year was that there weren't enough sponsors, and yet NASCAR insists on running 43 cars out there every week even though the last batch of them are start-and-parkers. I've never understood why it's important to have what they call a 'full field' every week if some of them have no intent on finishing the race.

They may have a contractual obligation with the tracks to run a certain number of cars. Also, I don't think Nascar wants to give the appearance of any economic downturn.

Having said that, I agree that there should be some sort of change. One idea that I thought might work and actually spice up the show for the midfield is to cut the field in half at the midpoint of the race. This would give a race within a race. You would also have some excitement to see who makes the second half of the race. The cars that are parked at the midpoint would still get their points based on their position on that lap. The start and park guys might be more inclined to race to midpoint, since it would be a shorter race for them. Of course, the guys up front would not have to worry about back markers ruining the race. Nascar probably would not like it, because the lack of traffic would create less excitement from slowing front runners to difficulty passing. F1 calls these guys "moving chicanes".

There's probably lot's of reasons. One that I can think of is that NASCAR surely gets "membership" fees for every car and the track owners get "entry" fees for every car. So NASCAR certainly doesn't want to do anything that would discourage anyone from building and entering a car. In fact, they want to encourage as many people to build cars to make as much money as possible for themselves and the track owners.

If they were more aggressive about black flagging cars a bunch of those owners would just give up. A lot of those crappy cars don't have the money to rent a track for testing, so running laps in a race is their testing time. If they can't run laps in a race, they don't have any chance at getting better, so why bother to build a car at all?

The Nationwide series should really act as some kind of PGA-like Q-school where all these uncompetetive teams go to learn the sport and only advance to the Sprint Cup series when they meet more stringent qualifying criteria (although a good case could be made that the PGA qualifies way too many pros too, so that's probably a bad example).


I'm sure that someone that understands the behind-the-scenes financials of NASCAR could come up with even better reasons why way too many uncompetitive cars are allowed in the Big Show.

Basically there's the have and have nots in the sport. Roush, Hendrick, Childress, Gibbs and Penske.

And then there is everyone else. And the gap between have and have nots is getting bigger (very baseball like).

So a lot of the smaller have not teams have folded or downsized(Red Bull, Petty went from 3 or 4 cars down to 2, Ganassi is down to 2 etc). Well when they do that, these small timers go and buy their cars and run them out there and collect purse money. Most of the start and park guys are running cars that are 1-2 years old. Even if they wanted to run the entire race, they would be so uncompetitive it would make no financial sense to spend the money on tires.

How to fix it? I doubt they can anytime soon. The little guys don't have the bucks to upgrade and try to run with the big boys, and those same big boys also dominate the Nationwide races (Sadler drives for Childress, last year's champion is in a Roush car etc).

I have been a casual NASCAR fan for many years... since the Earnhardt Sr. and Gordon feuds. Over the years I have been surprised by the 43 cars and if you look at virtually any other auto racing series it's even more impressive. Not to mention the two lower series and their numbers. However I don't think the lesser financed (smaller) teams are less competitive nowadays than they have been for a long time. Of late the larger teams have even gone as far as to sell them brand new engines, cars and whatnot where in the past they had to develop their own or buy used. I'm sure they don't have the numbers but what they have should be more competitive.

Regarding sponsors I have read about the degree of tracking... a firm reports how many seconds of air time each car receives. This is why they stay out late... to lead a lap. Use different pitstop cycles, etc. To some degree the less competitive teams fill a void... with their reduced budgets they can afford to accept less sponsorship money. Which allows smaller sponsors to still use the platform since there is no way they could fund/sponsor a title contender.

1. Greg Biffle (273)
2-3. Matt Kenseth and Dale Earnhardt Jr. (-19)
4. Martin Truex Jr. (-20)
5. Kevin Harvick (-24)
6. Denny Hamlin (-31)
7. Tony Stewart (-39)
8. Jimmie Johnson (-40)
9. Ryan Newman (-48)
10. Clint Bowyer (-58)

Wins

Tony Stewart - 2
Greg Biffle - 1
Ryan Newman - 1
Brad Keselowski - 1
Denny Hamlin - 1
Matt Kenseth - 1

Record setting race last night. Average speed 160 mph over the 501 miles. Two cautions for debris. No wrecks other than a couple cars tagged the wall.