Rating the AAA Texas 500: 3 Stars ***

Sprint Cup Series championship contenders Jimmie Johnson and Brad Keselowski spiced up the end of an otherwise stale race Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway. Thankfully, the championship was in play or Sunday’s race might have received worse than its 3 Star Rating.

Johnson and the #48 team trotted out their dominating ways quickly last weekend. Johnson smoked the field in qualifying, beating second-place Greg Biffle by more than 0.10 of a second. That doesn’t sound like much, but it was the largest difference between any two top-40 qualifiers.

Johnson then went on to lead the first 100 laps, and he did so with more than a four-second advantage over second place. Then NASCAR had to throw a debris caution to give the field a chance to keep Johnson from stinking up the entire show.

Overall, Johnson got the necessary results by leading 168 laps and winning the race. But his challenger, Keselowski, put up another strong fight at a track he previously hadn’t finished higher than 14^th.

Keselowski finished second Sunday and nearly stole the win. He took two tires twice while the rest of the field took four tires, and he even roughed up the #48 car a little by bumping him on the frontstretch to take the lead on the penultimate restart.

That last section of the race is what saved the AAA Texas 500 from a lower rating. The first 275 or so laps were very boring. For whatever reason, the intensity level jumped dramatically after the final debris caution of the day on lap 275 and continued to the checkered flag.

Alas, Johnson still ended up in Victory Lane and extended his lead in the championship standings to seven points. The lead would’ve been just two points if Keselowski had won and Johnson finished second.

That means Johnson will head to Phoenix, the second-to-last race of the season with a lead that is longer than an eyelash. If Johnson beats Keselowski again next week, the #48 team will strut into the final race at Homestead with another sizeable lead that would require Johnson to finish well outside the top 10 to even have a chance to lose the championship.

Still, Keselowski has put up an admirable fight throughout the Chase, and the entire season for that matter. Whether or not Keselowski wins the championship, this season could be a sign of things to come in the future for him and the # 2 team, provided their switch to Ford next year goes smoothly.

In any case, the series will head to Phoenix next week for what could easily be another Johnson-Keselowski show. There might be a non-Chaser jump in the top five or pull off Kasey Kahne’s feat from last year when he won a race that was dominated by the 2011 championship contenders, Tony Stewart and Carl Edwards.

Kyle Busch could pull that off this year. Remember last year at this time he didn’t even have a ride after NASCAR suspended him following a truck series wreck with Ron Hornaday Jr. at Texas.

Busch finished third at Texas this year and could pull off an upset win next week, but otherwise the championship race will likely be the sole focus of the weekend.

Have a great week, everybody.

Rating the TUMS Fast Relief 500: 3 Stars ***

A week after his team pulled off a fairly big miracle to stay in championship contention, Jimmie Johnson put together a vintage performance Sunday at Martinsville Speedway to put him back in that all-too-familiar position atop the points standings. The final short track race of the season gets a 3 StarRating.

Johnson now leads Brad Keselowski by two points after Keselowski finished in sixth, which was actually a terrific finish considering he started 32^nd and never had a car capable of contending for the lead. However, the overwhelming sense around the sport is that another championship for Johnson is just a formality.

For the sake of the sport, hopefully Keselowski keeps the top of the standings tight going into Homestead so there would be a real chance he could rise up and beat the five-time champion. If not, 2012 could go down as one of the more boring seasons in recent memory.

Anyway, Sunday’s race was about as typical of a Martinsville race as possible. Cautions fell fairly regularly throughout the race while allowing for some long green-flag runs, the end of the race got shuffled up by a late-race wreck and the #48 car ended up in Victory Lane.

Martinsville is one of the few tracks in NASCAR where the final caution creates an agonizing decision for crew chiefs in terms of whether or not to pit. Maybe it’s because Martinsville is one a half-mile track, but the tire wear is ideal. The lap times do fall off during a run, but they don’t drop so much that taking four tires every stop is a given.

Keselowski stayed out on the final stop to try and steal a win, but he faded to sixth. But that’s also part of what makes Martinsville a great track. The tires wear enough that it is difficult to stay ahead of cars with four fresh tires, yet not enough to have everyone follow the leader into the pits.

Martinsville is also a place that allows for some new faces in the top 10. Aric Almirola put together his second straight fantastic race. He led much of the early part of the race at Kansas before tire issues derailed his day. He then backed up that performance Sunday with a fourth-place finish.

The top 10 actually contained four non-Chasers, by far the most in any Chase race this season. Kyle Busch finished second, Almirola fourth, Brian Vickers eighth and Bobby Labonte ninth. But don’t expect that to continue next week at the 1.5-mile Texas Motor Speedway.

The season is down to the point where just a few drivers still have a chance to win the championship, and they will most likely perform as though they are the best in the sport.

Johnson and Keselowski will likely run well inside the top 10 and even the top five most of the night. Other contenders such as Clint Bowyer and Kasey Kahne will absolutely have to be at the front of the field throughout the race, finish in the top three and have some help in the form of less-than-stellar races from the top two drivers.

In any case, it is no longer premature to talk about who the real contenders are going to be for the championship. Johnson and Keselowski look to be the two drivers who will face off at Homestead, while Bowyer and Kahne will be close enough to catch a bit of a draft from the front two, but they needed more outstanding races earlier in the Chase.

Either way, this is one of the most intense times of the year.

Have a great week, everybody.

Rating the Samsung Mobile 500: 2 Stars **

The year of the long green-flag run continued Saturday night at Texas Motor Speedway in a 500-mile race that closed with a 351-mile green-flag run that included four green-flag pit stops. However, there wasn’t much action in those 500 miles so the first night race of the season gets a 2 Star Rating.

Greg Biffle and Jimmie Johnson were the stars of this show. Johnson led a race-high 156 laps but Biffle caught him with 30 laps to go to cruise to his first victory since October 2010.

Although Biffle went 49 races between wins, he has been in contention several times and has run extremely well so far this season. He leads the points, and it was just a matter of time before he reached Victory Lane.

The #16 team could really be on to something. The Biff has two wins at Kansas Speedway, the site of next week’s race, and the Roush-Fenway Racing Fords of Biffle, Matt Kenseth and to a lesser extent Carl Edwards have run well at each intermediate track on the schedule.

Right now Biffle and the #16 team have the look of a group that will seriously contend for the championship. Edwards and Kevin Harvick have started recent season in similar fashion to Biffle this year and each finished in the top three in the final standings. Don’t be surprised if Biffle is in that position this year.

As for Saturday’s race, the action wasn’t thrilling by any means, but at least it was a legitimate race. NASCAR officials didn’t get trigger happy throughout the race and throw cautions for debris to bunch up the field. Sure, that would’ve made for closer racing at times, but NASCAR should be a sport first and entertainment business second.

In the days before every lap of every race was televised, plenty of races finished with a margin of victory that was more than three seconds. The problem lately has been that people complain and complain and complain that the racing isn’t close enough, so then we end up watching reality television where the producers, or in this case race officials, influence the outcome of the event.

The other aspect of racing Saturday’s race the green-flag racing showcased was that there are still differences in the cars’ setups. Drivers complain nearly every week that they can’t pass because everybody is running the same speed. Well, some of that is because the cars all have the same basic body shape, but another reason is because there aren’t many extended green-flag runs in modern day NASCAR races.

At least the drivers had a hand in the outcome of the race at Texas. Biffle actually had to save his equipment so he could make a final push to get past Johnson for the win. That’s the type of strategy that won David Pearson so many races. That is an aspect of auto racing that shouldn’t be lost.

Sunday’s race at Rockingham also forced drivers to really drive their trucks rather than ride around at the same speed all day. The wonderfully abrasive surface at the Rock created solid, good racing.

NASCAR didn’t grow in popularity during the 1990s and 200s because of weekly photo finishes. It grew because people enjoyed watching drivers manhandle their cars through 500 miles at high speeds.

Sunday’s Rockingham race showed how fun racing can be without all of the heavy dependence of aerodynamics. It wasn’t a wreckfest and the finish wasn’t particularly close, but the trucks weren’t all running the same speeds because the tires wore outs so quickly.

While it’s nice to have the big, fancy palaces of speed such as Texas Motor Speedway, this weekend may have stirred memories of why we all fell in love with racing in the first place. The 200-mph race at Texas was fine, but the 130-mph race at Rockingham was just as fun, if not more.

Have a great week, everybody. Next up the trucks and Cup cars will be at another 1.5-mile giant in Kansas that will likely produce a race very similar to what we saw Saturday night in Texas.

This April weekend spotlights NASCAR’s two worlds

As 43 Sprint Cup Series and 43 more Nationwide Series cars sped around Texas Motor Speedway on Friday and Saturday night, NASCAR fans were treated to big-league stock car racing in the 21st Century.

When 36 Camping World Trucks Series trucks take the green flag Sunday at Rockingham Speedway, fans will once again experience racing as it was in the 20th Century. Well, besides the fact that it will be trucks and they will race under a few different rules than in the old days at the Rock.

For the first time in nearly a decade, NASCAR will be able to embrace the rich excess of the 2000s while at the same time pay tribute to the good ‘ol Southern racing fans loved from the 1960s through the 1990s.

Texas Motor Speedway, the site of the Cup and Nationwide races this week, is a track that sums up just about everything that has changed in NASCAR since it last raced at Rockingham Speedway in 2004.

Texas is a big, 1.5-mile oval that can seat more than 190,000 people in one of the largest metropolitan markets in the country, sitting just outside of Dallas. Rockingham is a small track slightly more than one mile in length that seats 34,500 and lies in a town with a population less than 10,000 people.

Texas Motor Speedway opened in 1997 on a huge, flat open piece of land that is about as scenic as the parking lot at a mall. Rockingham Speedway opened in 1965 and sits in the hills of southern North Carolina.

NASCAR’s roots are in those hills in North Carolina, but its money is now in places such as that open space near Dallas. About the only similarity between the two tracks is neither has been repaved in the last five years.

When NASCAR left the Rock in 2004, it was the first year of NASCAR’s new title sponsorship with NEXTEL, a telecommunications company that has since morphed into Sprint. It was also the first year of the Chase, NASCAR’s oft-debated playoff system.

For many, 2004 was the beginning of the new modern era. Sure, the changes were coming years in advance, but NASCAR took the path of the future when it reached the 2004 fork in its history.

The sport went from a Southern passion sponsored by tobacco company Winston to a nationwide sport that tweets, competes in huge cities such as Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas and Kansas City and is sponsored by a telecommunications company.

The changes in the sport in the last eight years will surely show up Sunday during the truck race. That will be the first NASCAR race at Rockingham to feature double-file restarts, wave-around cars and lucky dogs. Shoot, if we’re lucky maybe there will even be a debris caution.

However, when the trucks fire up on that crowded pit road at the Rock, it will mark another important time in NASCAR’s history. For years now, many fans have felt pushed aside as NASCAR charged into larger and larger markets with shiny new racetracks that ended up all looking the same.

Now it will be those fans’ turn to enjoy a slice of what made them racing fans in the first place. As in the old days, tires will probably be at a premium and the chances of a fuel-mileage finish are incredibly low considering most of the drivers will be seeing one of the toughest tracks in the country for the first time.

In any case, this weekend offers something for everybody. The NASCAR on FOX Digger generation can enjoy the races at Texas Motor Speedway while the generation that remembers not having races on television can enjoy NASCAR’s return to Rockingham Speedway.

Let’s hope this is just the start of similar weekends that can take fans down the memory lane side of the fork in the road.

Now the other Busch might lose his ride

Just two weeks removed from watching his brother Kyle barely hold onto his job at Joe Gibbs Racing because of wreckless behavior, Kurt Busch put his own job in jeopardy.

Busch was caught ranting at Dr. Jerry Punch as he waited to start an ESPN interview after transmission problems sent him to the garage early in the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway.



Even after NASCAR levied a $50,000 fine and Busch, his owner Roger Penske and sponsor Shell/Pennzoil released their apology statements, rumors persist that Penske might release Busch in the next couple of weeks.

This isn’t the first time Busch has lost his mind and used disrespectful language to a reporter, or members of his own team, so why might this episode get him kicked out of the #22 car? It’s the same problem that plagued his Kyle Busch after he intentionally wrecked Ron Hornaday under caution during the truck race at Texas Motor Speedway.

It’s the reputation he has built.

Kurt Busch has always had his moments where he gets upset and does something that draws a fine from NASCAR, or at least the ire of fans and people involved in the sport. Busch routinely cussed out his team over the radio during races this season and has even taken his owner to task during the middle of a race.

This particular deal at Homestead wasn’t that incredibly different than much of Busch’s behavior throughout the season, and that’s the problem.

Kyle Busch had delivered payback on drivers before, but NASCAR and his sponsors threw the book at him this time because he kept pushing the envelope too far. Well, Kurt Busch has done the same.

In 2005, Busch was suspended by his then-owner Jack Roush for the final two races of the season after he was pulled over on suspicion of drunk driving. Since that point, Busch has had off-and-on controversies with other drivers, as has Kyle Busch.
Whether or not Penske fires Busch, who just completed his second year of a five-year contract, is yet to be seen, but don’t think it is a foregone conclusion that Busch will be gone.

Joe Gibbs worked incredibly hard to protect Kyle Busch throughout his ordeal after the Texas wreck and managed to keep him in the car even when his primary sponsor, M&M/Mars, pulled its stickers off the car for the final two weeks.
However, Penske isn’t Joe Gibbs, and that could hurt Busch in this situation.

Overall, it’s amazing that both of the Busch brothers continue to find themselves embroiled in a mess of their own making. At some point every driver either grows up and becomes a long-time figure in the sport, or he gets shuffled out.

NASCAR’s famous saying to drivers in the hauler after a controversial incident is, “You need us more than we need you.” While it might be tough to think of NASCAR without the Busch brothers after they have been grabbing headlines since Kurt Busch entered the Cup Series in 2000, the sport can go on without both of them.

Penske Racing can also go on without Busch. Brad Keselowski had a great season in the #2 car and finished fifth in the points standings, and there are three drivers who have won in the Cup series that don’t have a ride lined up for 2012: David Reutimann, David Ragan and Brian Vickers.

Plus, other young drivers such as Trevor Bayne and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. are having a difficult time finding a consistent seat in the Cup series. Make no mistake, Penske could easily fill the #22 car with a qualified driver.

It’s a shame the Busch brothers can’t figure out how to handle themselves in a respectful manner. People have said ever since they entered the sport that they are incredibly talented, but they have to mature. Well, they haven’t matured, and Kurt just finished his 11th full season while Kyle completed his seventh. At this point, doubts start to arise that they may never mature.

In an era where sponsorships are difficult to find, the Busch brothers could become two of the biggest flameouts in the history of the sport.

NASCAR re-blurs line for aggressive-driving penalties

Just one week after NASCAR figuratively drew a line in the sand when it punished Kyle Busch, it quickly went back and erased that line when it let Brian Vickers walk free after Sunday’s race at Phoenix International Raceway.

Vickers pushed Matt Kenseth into the Turn 3 wall on lap 178, taking Kenseth out of the race after he took Kenseth out of the championship battle two weeks prior at Martinsville.

Regardless of previous incidents between these two drivers, Kenseth won the pole, had one of the five best cars in the field Sunday and had a very good chance to win the race.



But, Vickers made sure that didn’t happen, just as Busch ended both Ron Hornaday’s race at Texas and his chance at a championship when he ran Hornaday into the wall under caution during the truck race.

NASCAR brought the hammer down as hard as it ever has on Busch after his incident, but it did absolutely nothing to Vickers at Phoenix. It didn’t even park Vickers for a lap or two.

There is certainly precedent for penalties in that type of situation. Even Carl Edwards had to sit out the rest of the spring race at Atlanta in 2010 after he flipped Brad Keselowski, although Edwards didn’t receive any further penalties beyond probation.

What’s different in this situation? Well, the wreck happened under green-flag conditions. Busch did his damage after the caution came out, but the Edwards’ Keselowski wreck happened under green.

NASCAR has done a better job in recent years of staying out of driver feuds, but it may have missed one here. The wreck sure looked intentional even though Vickers denies it.



Maybe NASCAR shouldn't drop major penalties on Vickers as it did in Busch’s situation but this is twice in the last three weeks, and at least three times this season, counting the race at Sonoma when Vickers put Tony Stewart up on the tire barriers in Turn 11.

Plus, Vickers has raced with this type of aggressiveness for much of his career. Most people remember Vickers first win at Talladega in 2006 when he wrecked Jimmie Johnson and Dale Earnhardt Jr. on the last lap, but he also spun Mike Bliss coming to the finish line in the Sprint All-Star Challenge in 2005 to grab that win even though it doesn’t count in the record book.

While Busch might get a lot more publicity about his aggressive driving-style and ill-timed payback, Vickers has had his fair share of overly aggressive moments.

The drivers previous records aren’t that different, and all of the Edwards-Keselowski incidents have happened under green-flag conditions, so where exactly is that “know it when we see it” line that triggers penalties?

NASCAR has done well to put more of the police work in the drivers’ hands, but there has to be some consistency. The sanctioning body is dishing out these penalties like a bad home-plate umpire. An umpire might have an odd strike zone, but as long as it is consistent batters generally keep quiet.

Well, NASCAR has dealt with these three particular situations in three completely different ways. NASCAR has always ruled as a mostly benevolent dictator over the sport where everyone has to play by the rules as NASCAR decides them, but it would do the sport well if NASCAR would rule with more consistency.

That would not only help the credibility of the sport, but it would also prevent backlash from fans and others in the sport when these situations happen.

But, backlash means people are at least talking about the sport. We just spent an entire story devoted to the controversy these rulings create.

Maybe any news really is good news.

Kyle Busch thought he might lose his ride

Plenty of people speculated that Kyle Busch might end up losing his ride after his incident in the truck race last week at Texas, and it turns out the driver thought the same thing.

“Was there a point in which I thought, ‘Do I have a ride?’ Of course there was,” Busch said. “Yeah, I thought that.”

However, Busch said Gibbs never suggested to him that Busch might be fired even though his sponsor, M&M’s/Mars, chose to pull its sponsorship in the final two weeks of the season. Interstate Batteries will grace the hood of the #18 at Phoenix and Homestead.



Busch also said he wasn’t surprised by the penalties NASCAR threw at him in the wake of the incident where he intentionally drover truck series championship contender Ron Hornaday into the wall under caution.

For Busch to not be surprised by NASCAR’s ruling, that means the leadership at Gibbs must have gotten to him quickly after the incident because Busch certainly didn’t sound remorseful in his TV interview right after the wreck.

“If I just lay over and give up everything for Ron Hornaday that is not Kyle Busch's fashion.” Busch said. “I’m sorry it was Ron Hornaday and he is going after a championship, but you can’t blame this all on one person.”

Well, NASCAR did blame it on one person, and Busch quickly joined the rest of the world in understanding what he did was wrong.

Busch said there has always been a gray area within NASCAR rules that everybody tries to push both in how the cars are built and the extent of drivers’ actions on the track.

“With the crew chiefs, with car chiefs, with our body hangers back at the shop trying to figure out how far we can go, you go that far and you push the envelope,” he said. “Sometimes you get slapped, or maybe a little bit worse than that, and I think we saw that this past weekend.”

Jimmie Johnson said drivers have a feeling of what to expect when they are involved in an altercation and they generally try to steer clear of the other driver until he gets to pit road or the garage area, although Brian Vickers still drove by Jamie McMurray at Martinsville when McMurray was sitting on the track waiting to run into him.

Jeff Gordon was in a similar incident with Jeff Burton in last year’s fall race at Texas that led to a fight between the two on the backstretch but weren’t penalized. He said he disagrees with the idea that NASCAR doesn’t have a clear line established for on-track incidents.

“You just saw it. That was the clear line,” he said. “When you know that you didn’t do the right thing, then you know there are consequences.”

One of those consequences is the danger of losing a sponsor.

Gordon said crew chiefs and drivers are expendable to some extent, but sponsors are absolutely not because they have the money that keeps the sport rolling. He said he thinks Busch will lose his sponsor if a similar situation happens again.

Finally, Gordon said he believes this might finally be the incident that wakes Busch up to where he will make some real changes in his decision-making.

“If this doesn’t teach him the ultimate lesson, than nothing will,” Gordon said. “I would certainly have to believe that this would be an eye-opening experience.”

NASCAR finishes the Kyle Busch situation

Believe it or not, life could be worse for Kyle Busch.

Sure, NASCAR smacked him with a $50,000 fine and put him on serious probation for the rest of the year, but Busch will race this weekend at Phoenix International Raceway.

For that, he should be plenty thankful. Plenty of people would have him banned from all racing facilities for the final two weeks of the season.

The NASCAR leaders were obviously very upset with Busch’s actions Friday night in the truck race at Texas when he intentionally wrecked championship contender Ron Hornaday.

In the “Boys, have at it” era, it takes a lot to get NASCAR angry, but Busch certainly provoked the big dog enough so that it came and took a big bite out of him.

NASCAR has lots of different penalties in its toolbox, and it is pretty judicious in choosing the right penalty for the job, but Busch got the sledgehammer Saturday morning when NASCAR President Mike Helton announced Busch would be forced to stay out of his cars for the rest of the weekend.

But, the NASCAR brass kept the door open that additional penalties might be on the way for Busch.

All things considered, Busch made out about as well as possible with a fine and probation.

Many people thought NASCAR might park Busch for the final two races of the season. While parking a driver for the remainder of a race weekend after an incident in an earlier race isn’t unprecedented, a full-blown suspension for multiple races because of aggressive driving is, and NASCAR certainly already made its point.

Yes, what Busch did Friday night was obviously wrong, but the core emotions behind his actions were no different than what many drivers have felt throughout NASCAR history. Unfortunately for Busch, he made a really stupid decision at a very bad time.

Now, this doesn’t mean Busch is in the clear. His primary sponsor, M&M’s/Mars was upset with the situation, and has expressed those concerns to Joe Gibbs Racing. Why does that matter? Sponsors have the money, and therefore have power.

If M&M’s believe Busch has gone too far and no longer represents its brand in a positive manner, Joe Gibbs Racing might be faced with an extremely difficult decision. Keep Busch or keep the sponsor?

Also, don’t forget about the probation side to this penalty. Probation is often overlooked as just words that have little meaning behind them, but not this time. NASCAR made sure everyone understood that it means business with this one.

“If, during the remaining NASCAR events in 2011 there is another action by the competitor that is deemed by NASCAR officials as detrimental to stock car racing or to NASCAR, or is disruptive to the orderly conduct of an event, the competitor will be suspended indefinitely from NASCAR,” according to the statement accompaning the penalty.

Make no mistake, that competitor is Kyle Busch.

NASCAR doesn’t usually add a clarification to its probation penalty, but this time we all know what Busch won’t be doing if he is involved in another ruckus. He certainly won’t be racing.

Hopefully the situation is over with this ruling. Busch likely will be very careful in the next two weeks to mind his manners and try to win back some much-needed respect in the garage area. That might be his biggest penalty.

Rating the AAA Texas 500: 3 Stars ***

If it wasn’t a two driver race for the Sprint Cup Series championship coming into Sunday’s race at Texas Motor Speedway, it certainly was leaving the track. The eighth race in the Chase gets a 3 Star Rating, but it defintely helped stoke the coals for a great championship battle.

Tony Stewart has been simply amazing since the Chase began. He is now just three points behind points leader Carl Edwards and picked up his fourth win of the season Sunday at Texas. Oh wait, that’s his fourth win of the Chase, as well.

My, what a difference a couple of months can make. Stewart said he and his team didn’t even deserve to be in the Chase after a ninth-place finish in August at Michigan, and he was one of the final drivers to hold on to a Chase spot based on points, considering he had no wins at the time.

Now he is the leading challenger in the fight for the championship. Edwards may lead the points standings and have finished second Sunday, but Stewart has all of the momentum right now. Stewart is on a Jimmie Johnson-type run in this Chase, and we’ve seen how that has worked out the past five years.

Speaking of Johnson, we can now put a fork in his bid for a sixth-straight championship. He currently sits 55 points out of the lead in sixth with just two races to go. And with the way he ran Sunday, that #48 car is not running well enough to win a championship even if he was in contention.

With the new points system this year, it has taken a full eight races to separate the Chase drivers to put the championship battle in a manageable perspective. The standings are more fluid under the new system, and a driver almost has to prove they can’t run up front for several weeks before people feel comfortable ruling them out of the Chase.

Now the stage is set. It will be Edwards vs. Stewart in what looks to be a thrilling run to the finish. Yes, there are three points separating the two drivers, but they might as well be tied. Whoever finishes better in these next two races, even if it by just one position, will in all likelihood win the championship.

It will be tough for fans to come up with something to complain about as far as the championship picture is concerned this year. For those tired of Johnson, he won’t be a factor in the final two races. It was actually kind of shocking how little attention he received throughout Sunday’s race. Kyle Busch almost got more air time and he wasn’t even in the race. Maybe we’re just used to it all being about the #48 team during this time of the year.

Stewart and Edwards have also not raced conservatively lately, and Stewart has put his foot to the floor since the Chase started. He has taken chances, and for the most part they have all worked out.

That should make these next two weeks plenty exciting, especially with the unknowns about the track at Phoenix heading into next week. Hopefully the track is racy so these two championship contenders can go at it without any outside factors coming into play.

Enjoy the finish to the season, folks. It’s going to be a good one.

Reaction to Kyle Busch's penalty

NASCAR finally did it.

After nearly two years since NASCAR delivered the “Boys, have at it” edict, one of the boys has pushed the envelope too far.

Kyle Busch and Ron Hornaday got into a dust-up early in the truck race Friday night at Texas Motor Speedway. Hornaday got loose and squeezed Busch into the outside wall, but then Busch came back during the caution period and intentionally wrecked Hornaday and ending the night of both cars just 14 laps into the race.

NASCAR went ahead and told Busch he couldn’t go back out on the track for the remainder of the race, but it didn’t matter. The #18 truck was destroyed.

However, NASCAR came back Saturday morning and took a much more drastic step in the situation. They told Busch he could not race in either the Nationwide race on Saturday or the Sprint Cup Series race on Sunday.

Let’s try and sort out some of the issues involved in this situation, because there are plenty.

First, Busch intentionally wrecked a fellow driver. OK, that has happened before, and it has even happened under caution. Remember last year’s Chase race at Texas? Jeff Burton dumped Jeff Gordon under the yellow and the two drivers literally fought about it on the backstretch.

Another recent incident many people look back to for perspective on this situation is when Carl Edwards intentionally wrecked Brad Keselowski in the 2010 spring race at Atlanta.

Yet another factor that could be weighed into this decision is that Hornaday was in the thick of the truck series championship battle with just one race remaining after Texas. However, drivers in a championship battle have been wrecked before, even intentionally. Shoot, Brian Vickers took out Matt Kenseth on purpose just last week at Martinsville.

What’s the difference? The driver’s history.

Kyle Busch is the bad boy of NASCAR and has been since he joined the sport in 2004. Every year Busch either says something or does something that stirs everybody up and we have debates like the one this weekend.

So, was NASCAR right to park Busch for the rest of the weekend? That answer will be debated long after Sunday’s race and maybe even long after the season comes to a close.

Many people will say Edwards deserved a suspension after not only wrecking Keselowski at Atlanta, but then wrecking him coming to the white flag later in the year during a Nationwide race at Gateway.

After all of that, NASCAR still had to penalize Busch this weekend. Unfortunately life isn't fair, pal.

Contrary to public opinion, the sanctioning body has probably been a little soft in its punishments throughout the years. This was only the third time a driver has been parked during a weekend since 2002.

But, before we give NASCAR a hard time, and plenty of people still will regardless of its decision, the great part about this sport is how the competitors are able to police the sport among themselves.

The most telling sign that NASCAR made the right decision is the drivers and former drivers’ comments that Busch certainly deserved this penalty. Some, including Kyle Petty and Dale Jarrett, think he might deserve a harsher penalty that spills into the coming weeks.

Should other drivers have received similar penalties in the past? Maybe, but past possible errors shouldn’t change what the correct answer is in this particular instance.

Rating the Samsung Mobile 500: 4 Stars ****

The Sprint Cup Series battened down the hatches for a windy one in Texas on Saturday night where a long winless streak was broken. No, not THE winless streak, but Matt Kenseth visited Victory Lane for the first time in 76 races. The first Texas race gets a 4 Star Rating.

Kenseth simply dominated the night. Many questioned if somebody would find the magic setup after all the practices took place during the daytime, and the #17 team certainly found it. The best car definitely won this race.

Kenseth’s journey to take the checkered flag first wasn’t without drama, however. Fuel strategy almost negated his team’s strong effort as both Kurt Busch and Tony Stewart tried to stretch the fuel mileage but both came up empty, in the literal sense for Stewart, who limped across the line in 12th after running in the top-five on the final lap.

This was a thinking-man’s race, and the one with the most strategy of the season so far, which is good. Strategy creates suspense, and makes every move that much more crucial.

The race, with exception of the debris caution on lap 208 that directly led to the Mark-Martin-Martin Truex Jr. wreck, was pretty clean, overall. And while the field did get spread out in the second half of the race, several drivers were able to stay close to Kenseth and keep him from running away. I don’t think that would’ve been possible in the days of the rear wing. Kenseth wouldn’t have been touched all night.

So now we’ve got three intermediate-track races under our collective belt, and it looks as though everyone but the Fords have some catching up to do. It took a long time for the new Roush-Yates engine to be developed, but it is sure paying off now. Fans of Roush-Fenway Racing and Richard Petty Motorsports should be ecstatic after Saturday because every single Ford in both of those camps spent time in the top 10.

Aside from the Roush gang, the folks at Richard Childress Racing also still have their program running close to full speed. Clint Bowyer was about the only other driver to even catch a whiff of Kenseth all night, and once again, Paul Menard came on strong late for yet another top-five finish.

Interestingly, Jimmie Johnson had a rough night. The #48 team missed the setup for the start of the race and never could quite get the car dialed in. No worries, though, Johnson will be right there at the end of the Coca Cola 600 next month in Charlotte, the next night race at a 1.5-mile track.

Now its time to strap in and go on the ride that is racing at Talladega Superspeedway. Doesn’t just thinking about it make your heart beat a little faster?

After the racing we saw at Talladega last year and at the Daytona 500 this year, it would take something really stupid to happen for this not to be an absolutely amazing race. Get fired up, it’s Talladega week!

500 miles at night usually brings good, solid racing

A 500-mile race like the one coming up at Texas on Saturday night is an endurance test, even today with all of the fancy engine and cooling technology on the cars, and this type of race is also nice because people don’t have to panic and be up on the chip at the very beginning of the race.

So to begin the first of the season that hasn't been run on Sunday afternoon, it’s time to shine the cars up and go racing under the lights.

The daylight portion of the first half of the season is over, and NASCAR will turn on the lights Saturday night to begin a stretch of the schedule where six of the next eight races are at night.

For the first time in several years, every race up to April has been at the 1 p.m. local time start since Phoenix moved into the second spot on the schedule and Fontana took the final March weekend.

As come the night races, so does the second stretch of the season. Yes, we had an off week in the second weekend of March, but that was still in the middle of the early season.

We are now getting close to the point where the season is no longer considered new and it is time to hit the long grind that is the summer stretch. If the All-Star Race is included, there isn’t another weekend after Easter without Cup racing until the weekend of July 24.

This weekend is also the second 1.5-mile speedway of the season. The Fords were incredibly strong at the other mile-and-a-half track of the season, Las Vegas, and Carl Edwards won the race, and Greg Biffle certainly could have if he hadn’t had problems in the pits.

If the Ford power shows itself again this weekend, and it looks like it will, as David Ragan was fastest in practice Thursday, this could really be a dogfight into the summer among the Chevrolets of Richard Childress Racing and Hendrick Motorsports and the Fords of Roush Fenway Racing.

The Joe Gibbs Racing camp has struggled with engine issues early this season, but once those get worked out the Gibbs cars will be fighting for wins, as well, and they have in several races already.

So sit back and enjoy the first Saturday night race of the season. It should be a show. These 500-mile races at tracks such as Texas, Atlanta and Charlotte always seem to bring out some of the best racing, a large part of which is because of the length of the race.

People love to say they want the drivers to drive like crazy from the start of the race, but a large part of a race is also about the flow that develops in green-flag runs, similar to the pace of a baseball game.

Don’t worry, there will be plenty of cautions throughout the night and at night’s end everyone will be on their feet cheering or yelling at the TV, but the journey there is important and it’s part of the fun.

Rating the Goody's Fast Pain Relief 500: 4 Stars ****

After a long day filled with some hard hits and another late pass for the win, Kevin Harvick ended up in Victory Lane for the second time in as many weeks. This year’s edition of the spring race at Martinsville gets a 4 Star Rating.

If people thought Harvick had a fluke 2010 season when he contended for the title along with Denny Hamlin and Jimmie Johnson, he is quickly proving that he is a serious threat to be a consistent title threat to the #48 team.

Also, Harvick has now proven he can win on any type of track on the circuit. He won two of the restrictor-plate races a year ago, he won at Michigan last August and California last week, and now he mastered a short track with his win at Martinsville.

Plus, the #29 team has had just three DNFs in the past three seasons combined. Consistency mixed with a few victories is a quick way to the top.

But, let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. Other drivers have won multiple races early in a season and gone on to have sub-par seasons from that point on.

As for Sunday, this was a pretty typical Martinsville race. It was a barnburner like the past few have been, but the racing was close at the end and nobody completely dominated the event.

With two green-flag pit stops, the record for lead changes at Martinsville, which was 25, was smashed as the lead was swapped 31 times. That makes the third race of the season that has set a track record for lead changes, not a bad start to the season.

OK, so now on to the elephant in the room — Dale Earnhardt Jr. almost won the race. A win from Earnhardt Jr. at Martinsville would have been a total shock, but it also would have started a ton of talk about how Earnhardt Jr. is all of a sudden a title contender, which he very well could be. There just seems to be a pretty thick line between coming close to winning, and actually winning. However, Earnhardt Jr. has had good cars pretty much every week, and Steve Letarte has done a fantastic job as crew chief so far.

While one popular driver surprised in a positive way, another continued to disappoint. Denny Hamlin fell all the way to 12th after running a strong race but getting held up with pit issues.

The Joe Gibbs Racing engine shop got the engines to last the entire weekend this time, but the must have also sacrificed fuel mileage to do it. It stands to reason that the engineers would not run the engines so lean this weekend, which would use more fuel, but it definitely played a part in Hamlin’s race because he always had to pit before the rest of the field and it cost him when he got caught a lap down on the final caution and had to take the wave around.

So, next week it’s on to Texas for one of the fastest tracks on the schedule. Last year’s races at Texas Motor Speedway had their fair share of pushing, shoving and hand gestures, so it should be interesting to see if the drivers and teams play nice this time around.

Rating the 2010 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series: 4 Stars ****

The 36-race trek that began and ended in Florida in 2010 ended the same as the past four years with Jimmie Johnson on stage in Las Vegas delivering his acceptance speech for winning the Sprint Cup. However, the way he got there was vastly different than in the past. The 2010 Sprint Cup Series season gets a 4 Star Rating.

This season had its ups and downs. But, there were plenty of ups and the downs weren’t nearly as low as past seasons. The restrictor-plate package this season produced the best big-track racing since the early 2000’s, and the change to a rear spoiler instead of a wing made the racing better at many of the other tracks the series visited.

Finally, the championship finally came down to an all-or-nothing shootout among Johnson, Denny Hamlin and Kevin Harvick in the final race at Homestead. Last year at this time complaints surfaced everywhere in the NASCAR community. One year later, that same community is relatively content. Whether the head NASCAR administrators agree or not is yet to be seen. I’m just saying, this is one year where change is nothing but a bad thing.

So, let’s take a look at the breakdown of ratings throughout the season, which excludes the two non-points events and the reader’s choice edition for the fall race at New Hampshire:

5 Stars: 5 races

4 Stars: 10 races

3 Stars: 14 races

2 Stars: 6 races

1 Star: no races

2010 was the first season Monday Morning Crew Chief has not handed down a 1 Star Rating and, once again, we had five races of ultimate excitement.

Other than the Daytona 500, which was unfortunately delayed by a pothole, the beginning of the season got off to a rather slow start. The three races following Daytona at California, Las Vegas and Atlanta did not get above a 3 Star Rating. The short tracks, however, ignited the fire to really get the season started.

As we have seen in the past, the 5 Star races tend to be at short tracks or restrictor-plate tracks. However, this year one intermediate track made the cut.

The first 5 Star race of the season came at Martinsville in the Goody’s Fast Pain Relief 500, as Denny Hamlin brought home another grandfather clock as he sliced through the field in the final laps and came out on top after a crazy green-white-checkered finish where Matt Kenseth had the lead in Turn 1, but Jeff Gordon punted him out of the way in Turn 3 to allow Hamlin to squeeze by for the win. This race would prove to be Gordon’s best chance at a win, as he was merely feet from the white flag before the final caution flew.

The next race worthy of a 5 Star Rating was the historic Aaron’s 499 at Talladega that had everything. This race smashed records, as twenty-nine drivers swapped the lead 88 times. However, that wasn’t enough for this race. The first race with three attempts at a green-white-checkered came down to a drag race between Jamie McMurray and Kevin Harvick. As the pair came through the tri-oval, Harvick timed his move perfectly and pulled underneath McMurray to take the win by inches. This race had to end in a photo finish; it was just that kind of a day.

The third 5 Star race of the season came at the other restrictor-plate track, Daytona, in the Coke Zero 400 and the final race on the old pavement. This race had only 47 lead changes, but drivers ran in tight packs while they held onto their cars through the bumps to make for a great race. Only 17 cars finished on the lead lap in this one, and 19 cars got caught up in the “Big One.” Kevin Harvick continued his restrictor-plate racing domination as he brought home the “other” trophy from Daytona this season.

Nearly three months went by before the next 5 Star race rolled around and, once again, it came at Talladega in the Amp Energy Juice 500. With just four races left in the season and Jimmie Johnson, Denny Hamlin and Kevin Harvick locked in the tightest Chase battle in its history. Although Hamlin fell a lap down and Harvick suffered front-end damage in a wreck, all three came out of the race with a shot at the title. In addition to the championship drama, there were the second-most lead changes in series history, 87, and Harvick nearly pulled off the win, but the caution flew on the final lap when A.J. Allmendinger flipped upside down and Clint Bowyer happened to be in the lead. Another photo finish, but it happened in Turn 1, not the finish line.

The final great race of the season came at Texas in the AAA Texas 500. All kinds of stuff went down in this one, including a fight on the backstretch, a bird through a windshield and a mid-race pit crew swap. All of this happened while Denny Hamlin took the points lead with two races to go. The season all kind of came together in this one race. The drivers showed emotion, the racing on the track was close and the points battle was as close as possible.

So, with a great year under its belt, hopefully NASCAR can build on that momentum and carry the excitement on through next season and beyond. The championship battle was close this year, and there is little reason to think it won’t be that way again in 2011.

Throughout the offseason Monday Morning Crew Chief will have a variety of articles about news, rumors and opinions. With testing at Daytona this year, there will only be a few weeks where cars won’t be on the track. Hopefully the offseason blues will be a little less dark this time around. Thank you for reading this season and have a terrific holiday season.

Rating the AAA Texas 500: 5 Stars *****

A terrific race at Talladega is followed up with possibly an even more exciting race at Texas. The final 500-mile race of the season included a record amount of lead changes, a new championship leader and there was a fight. Texas gets a very well-deserved 5 Star Rating.

What more can this sport offer right now? We have an incredibly close championship battle between Denny Hamlin, Jimmie Johnson and Kevin Harvick, 5 Star excitement in back-to-back races and the emotion is back. Football is great, but right now every week is hold-your-breath excitement at the race track.

As he said earlier in the season, all Hamlin does is win. He brought home trophy #8 and now leads the points standings by 33 points with two races to go. For the first time since 2005, somebody other than Johnson leads as the series heads to its penultimate race.

Along with the Chase excitement, plenty of action took place on the track, not the least of which was the backstretch throwdown between Jeff Gordon and Jeff Burton. After an altercation coming out of turn 4 before the caution flew, Gordon drove up alongside Burton to express his displeasure (he wasn’t the only one Sunday who exercised his freedom of expression) for what had happened. Burton then turned Gordon straight into the wall and both cars came to a rest on the backstretch. What happened next was a scene straight out of a movie.

Gordon walked down the backstretch to meet Burton where the two dropped the gloves and had at it. There have been several feuds between drivers this season, but this one takes the cake. There have even been drivers get out of their cars on the track and yell and push each other, but this fight brought back images to the finish of the 1979 Daytona 500 between Cale Yarborough and the Allison brothers.

The other driver who had issues expressing his displeasure Sunday was Kyle Busch. First, he gets spun out and, while trying to stay on the lead lap, speeds on pit road. Then as he sits in the pits for his penalty, not-so-subtly tells the NASCAR official he or she is #1. That cost him two more laps in the pits and took him completely out of contention.

Finally, the other unusual occurrence during the race happened when Chad Knaus replaced his own pit crew with the #24 team after Gordon wrecked. Now, this is a team that has won the past four season championships, and their crew chief decided to replace them in one of the most important races of the season. It’s incredible. Granted, the #48 crew struggled early in the race and the #24 group was flawless on the final three stops. Still, it added another dramatic element to the race and now the rest of the season, as the #24 guys will pit the #48 car the rest of the season.

So now the stage moves out west where the wild show goes to a one-mile track that acts like a short track. There’s nothing better to follow up a highly emotional race such as what took place at Texas. If people aren’t tuning in now, it’s not NASCAR’s fault. This sport is on top of its game right now.

For everybody who loves this sport, congratulations. These are the moments that make us remember why this sport is so great. The competition is as tight as can be, and the tension will only climb now that Johnson is behind. These next two weeks should be fascinating. Enjoy.

Rating the Samsung Mobile 500: 4 Stars ****

After way too much rain over the weekend, stock cars were finally able to return to the track Monday for a long, but good, day of racing. The wait was worth it, however, and the Sprint Cup race gets a 4 Star Rating.

What Denny Hamlin did Monday afternoon was simply remarkable. Less than three weeks after having knee surgery he was not only able to run the entire race, but he beat 42 other drivers with two good legs.

Before the season started, Hamlin was the popular pick to challenge Jimmie Johnson and the #48 team for the championship. Shortly thereafter reports surfaced that Hamlin had torn the ACL in his left knee while playing basketball. So, many thought, the 2010 challenger to Johnson went down even before the season even started. After seeing Carl Edwards deal with his broken foot a year ago, expecting Hamlin to run up front consistently was nearly a pipe dream.

Then comes Martinsville, one of the most physically demanding tracks on the circuit, and Hamlin wins the race after announcing the surgery. Fine, he won before the surgery, which was amazing, but now it will be a few months before we see him near the front again. Not so. Hamlin overcame a bad qualifying run and made his way up to the front of the field in the final half of the race. Then, with several really strong contenders in the top five with Johnson, Kyle Busch and Greg Biffle, Hamlin was still able to come out on top. That, folks, is simply remarkable.

Along with Hamlin’s win, the other storyline Monday was how the spoiler would handle on a fast, 1.5-mile track, and the results were very encouraging. The racing at Texas looked a little more like the racing we all used to know and love. It looks like drivers will be able to, once again, nudge the car in front of them up the track without even touching them. Jeff Gordon did it to Johnson and Tony Stewart before they eventually collided and triggered a massive wreck.

Gordon had a very interesting day overall. He has Texas Motor Speedway figured out, with winning last year and leading a ton of laps in this race, but contact with other cars eventually ended his day. I will say, it is nice to see Gordon and Johnson go at it for once and not come out talking about how much respect they have for each other. Gordon went so far to say after making contact with the #48 that Johnson gets “treated different than everybody else.” Should make for an interesting week at Hendrick Motorsports.

After a nine-car pileup in Texas, things only get bigger and better as the series heads to Talladega Superspeedway this coming weekend. This is one of those races where it is generally a good idea to strap down your TV set because this race usually has people talking for at least two weeks after the checkered flag falls. Will there be a yellow line controversy? Seems like that happens every couple races there. Now, the addition of the spoiler looks as though it may make the restrictor-plate racing even better. I can’t wait.

Rating the Dickies 500: 4 Stars ****

The last 500 mile race of the season brought with it plenty of intrigue as the points leader crashed on lap 3, opening the door for someone to jump back into the Chase. Whether or not somebody actually does have a chance to catch Jimmie Johnson is yet to be seen, but the race at Texas gets a 4 Star Rating.

Obviously, the big news coming out of Sunday’s race was that Johnson wrecked. However, the fat lady was still singing in victory lane at Texas. Johnson still has a larger lead in the standings than he did at this point last year, and if he were to lose the championship, it may be one of the biggest meltdowns NASCAR has ever seen. It is still going to be tough to beat the #48.

The race itself was pretty clean Sunday. It was nice to once again see a different face in victory lane, and fuel mileage races are always exciting at the finish. I want to thank NASCAR for not throwing a debris caution during that last run because I am sure there had to be something on the track with all of those wrecked cars out there trying to maintain minimum speed. That caution at halfway for the hot dog was pretty lame, but otherwise the race played out the way it should have. What made the fuel mileage race surprising was the fact that everybody pitted later in the race this year than Carl Edwards did in the same race in 2008. In that race he was able to run 69 laps after his final stop, while this year nobody made it more than 63 laps That makes Sunday’s race all the more surprising.

Also, there were some great paint schemes on the track this weekend. A.J. Allmendinger’s Petty blue Ford was beautiful, as was David Ragan’s blue colors for the Boys and Girls Clubs of America. Sunday’s winner, Kurt Busch, also had a very cool paint scheme with Operation Homefront on the hood. Plus, Busch won Michael McGee $1 million because McGee picked Busch to win the race. I’d say those two had a pretty good day.

Next week the series heads out west for the final time in 2009. Mark Martin is primed to have a very good race after dominating at Phoenix in the spring. If Johnson for some reason has another bad day, things could be pretty interesting heading into Homestead. Have a good week!