Rating the Irwin Tools Night Race: 5 Stars *****

Now that’s some good old-fashioned Bristol racing. The annual night race at The World’s Fastest Half-Mile was a slugfest that brought out the beating and banging that made Bristol Motor Speedway famous. The track changes worked. The Bristol night race gets a 5 Star Rating.

Denny Hamlin got the win in rather mundane fashion, but everything that happen up to the final run was stuff we hadn’t seen in the Sprint Cup Series in quite some time.

Sure, the finish at Watkins Glen was exciting, and Jimmie Johnson’s blown motor with five laps to go at Michigan prevented a matter-of-fact finish, but everyone got up on the wheel from the drop of the green flag Saturday in Bristol.

The bump-and-run returned to Bristol after track owner Bruton Smith decided to shave off the top groove of the track to create less racing space. His hope was to bring back a narrow groove that forced drivers to bump each other for position. Smith got what he asked for, although perhaps not in the way he envisioned.

Instead of the reconfiguration sending everyone hunting for the bottom of the track, the drivers spent all night fighting for the very top of the track, right where Smith took away the banking. But the passing dynamics that existed at Bristol before Smith installed progressive banking in 2007 still came back with a force.

It became impossible to pass on the low side throughout the night, so drivers had to nudge (or forcefully push) each other out of the way to gain a spot. That’s what gave us the most memorable part of the night.

Matt Kenseth and Tony Stewart battled for the lead on lap 332. Stewart got a run on the high side, but Kenseth didn’t leave him much room. They started trading paint and eventually slid across the frontstretch and crashed into the inside wall.

Stewart jumped out of his car and waited for Kenseth to come around pit lane. As Kenseth came around, Stewart threw his helmet off the front of Kenseth’s hood and then turned around to salute the fans.

That’s the kind of stuff that has been missing from the sport of late. Notice that Stewart was not called to the NASCAR hauler after the race and won’t receive any penalties for his actions.

Some people will moan and groan that Saturday night’s race wasn’t “real racing” because there were 13 cautions and wrecks all over the place. That’s fine. Those folks can watch “real racing” at tracks such as Chicagoland, Kansas and Fontana. Saturday night’s race was fun, intense and has fans a lot more pumped up about NASCAR than any race this season outside of the Watkin’s Glen finish.

Hopefully the momentum from Bristol will carry on to Atlanta and Richmond to finish the regular season. All of a sudden the monotonous races from the first half of the season seem like they are far in the past.

That’s a good thing as the Sprint Cup Series heads to Atlanta Motor Speedway for its Labor Day weekend race. The points standings heading into the final two races before the Chase are as tight as ever, and that should make for exciting finish to the season.

Have a great week and blessed holiday weekend, everybody.

Don't blame David Reutimann or Danica Patrick, blame the system

David Reutimann single-handedly changed the finish of the Sprint Cup Series race Sunday at Martinsville Speedway, albeit accidently.

Reutimann caught some serious heat from fans and people in the sport after stopping on the frontstretch with four laps to go. His car was obviously down on power several laps beforehand, but Reutimann and his team decided to stick it out and hope they could limp to the finish.

Unfortunately, the car didn’t make it and NASCAR officials had to throw a caution. That caution set up a green-white-checkered restart that ended up with the top three drivers all day, Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson and Clint Bowyer, wrecked in Turn 1 while Ryan Newman went on to win the race on the following restart.

Obviously, everybody was upset that Reutimann’s caution caused a mess that ruined the days for the top three cars and gave the win to what was a 10th to 15th-place car that day.

However, Reutimann was a man caught between a rock and a hard place. NASCAR only guarantees starting positions for the cars in the top 35 of the owner points standings. Reutimann’s #10 car was right on the edge and would’ve made the top 35 had he completed one more lap. Instead, he sits one point out in 36th and will have to qualify in on time in two weeks at Texas Motor Speedway.

Many people looked at the #10 car as the car Danica Patrick will race in five weeks in the Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway. That’s true, and her big-money sponsor Go Daddy certainly doesn’t want to risk her missing the race because she didn’t qualify fast enough.

But, five weeks is a long time to make up one point.

Make no mistake, that #10 team wanted to be in the top 35 in points heading to Texas for their own sake. Sure, there might be some sour consequences for the entire Tommy Baldwin Racing organization if Danica Patrick doesn’t make the Southern 500 field, but they also have to take care of their own business. Missing a race does nobody any good.

Let’s move the situation forward and say a driver on the cusp of a Chase spot needed one more point to make the playoffs in the final race at Richmond but had a motor coming apart. Would people crucify that driver if he didn’t make it around and brought out a late caution that changed the end of the race? Or, would they praise that driver and say he pushed it to the limit and tried as hard as possible to make the Chase?

Either way, the situation Sunday was not a good one, but NASCAR’s current system creates desperation for teams on the top-35 bubble. More than any previous situation, Sunday’s events should have given proper fuel for the top-35 rule haters to scream from the mountaintop.

NASCAR doesn’t have a perfect system right now, and it may even be part of the reason those teams on the bubble can’t find any sponsorship. Who would want to sponsor a car that might not even race on Sundays?

It would be nice to have teams race straight up each week to make a race, but there is too much money involved. Imagine if Dale Earnhardt Jr. crashed in qualifying and missed a race. That wouldn’t be good for business.

If there is anything positive to take out of the situation late in the race at Martinsville, it was proof that NASCAR teams and drivers put their full effort into what they do. Sure, the start and parkers don’t race to win, but they park early in a race so that some day in the future they will be able to race for the win.

Tommy Baldwin Racing is a perfect example of a team that had to build through start and parking. Right now the organization still isn’t strong, but it is moving in the right direction.

People will say what they want about points racing and drivers taking it easy, but that might be a little bit more of a myth than some people would like to believe. If they have a chance to race for the win, no driver is going to sit back and let someone else win.

Wins in the Sprint Cup Series are extremely difficult to come by, and the absolute joy of winning a race should be plenty of motivation for drivers to give it everything they have.

Reutimann didn’t have a good day Sunday, but he did give it everything he had. Keep that in mind if something similar happens late in the season to a Chase contender.

Danica Patrick takes unusual route to Daytona 500 starting grid

It wasn’t easy, but Danica Patrick has a guaranteed starting spot in this year’s Daytona 500 before Speedweeks even begin.

Patrick’s owner, Tony Stewart, worked out a complicated deal with Tommy Baldwin Racing that will allow Patrick’s #10 car to use last year’s owner’s points for Baldwin’s #36 car.

But, Patrick will technically share her ride for the length of the season with David Reutimann. Since Patrick will only compete in 10 Sprint Cup Series races in 2012, the deal between Stewart and Baldwin allows Reutimann to run the other 26 races.

This is a great deal for Patrick and her Stewart-Haas Racing team. Patrick is guaranteed to race in the 500 and won’t have to put up with the incredible spotlight she would’ve been under during Speedweeks as she tried to qualify for the race.

The situation also works out pretty well for Tommy Baldwin Racing. Patrick will run under the TBR name, so that organization will receive the owner points for all 36 races the #10 car runs. Since this is almost certainly a one-year deal, TBR will have a guaranteed spot if it wants to bring back the #36 car in 2013.

Although everything appears to have worked out for those two organizations, this deal did little to help Ruetimann or his teammate Dave Blaney, who will now have to race his way into the 500 field.

Unfortunately, NASCAR’s rules facilitate these problems.

Those who hate the top-35 rule will only scream louder in the wake of this announcement, and they have a legitimate reason.

The top 35 cars in owner points from the previous season are guaranteed starting spots for the first five races of the following season. The rule is designed to protect big-time teams from missing a race if they don’t qualify well.

However, the consequences of that goal reverberate in strange directions each offseason. Too many teams shut down and too many new ones are born each year for the top-35 rule to be effective.

In the past, teams have purchased owners points from teams that shut down. Well, NASCAR outlawed that and in turn created a system where teams have to be really creative, as Stewart was in this instance, to find a way to assure their new teams will have a guaranteed spot in the first five races of the season.

Many people will say NASCAR should abolish the top-35 rule. That’s fine, but it’s not going to happen. There is way too much money invested into the top teams in the sport to risk having one of them miss a race.

There isn’t an easy answer for this problem, but it is something NASCAR needs to seriously review. The sanctioning body has responded to issues in the sport very well in the past few years, but this one might be more difficult.

First, most people will only care about this issue during Speedweeks and then forget about it until the season starts again next year. Others will maybe care for the first five races, but as the season goes on the top-35 rule usually only affects the small, minimally sponsored teams that don’t factor into the finish of a race anyway.

Maybe this is just a necessary evil in the sport, but there is something wrong when a former race winner has to share his ride with a rookie just because of sponsorship dollars.

Joey Logano the big winner in latest crew chief shuffle

The crew chief dominoes continue to fall this offseason as Tony Stewart got his right-hand man back on his team and Joey Logano might have found his winning partner.

Longtime crew chief of the #20 car Greg Zipadelli announced his move Friday to Stewart-Haas Racing where he will serve as competition director and interim crew chief for Danica Patrick.

To fill Zipadelli’s old spot atop the #20 pit box, Joe Gibbs Racing promoted Jason Ratcliff to be the crew chief for Joey Logano in 2012.

Ratcliff moves up after seven years as crew chief for the #18 Joe Gibbs Racing Nationwide Series team.

Two major names in NASCAR, Stewart and Patrick, may have gotten the man they wanted for their team, but Logano might be the driver who benefits the most from this switch.

Don’t get me wrong, Zipadelli will likely be excellent in his job as competition director and crew chief for Patrick. Zipadelli has been one of the best crew chiefs in the sport for more than a decade, and he will surely mesh well with Stewart and his organization.

Believe it or not, the Zipadelli-Stewart duo was not far behind the Gordon-Evernham and Johnson-Knaus pairings.

Stewart won 33 races and two championships with Zipadelli as his crew chief, the most success any driver not named Jimmie Johnson has had since Stewart entered the sport in 1999.

However, life has not been so wonderful for Zipadelli since Stewart left to form his own team in 2008. A young Logano jumped into the #20 Home Depot Toyota full time in 2009 and went on to win one fuel-mileage race that year. He hasn’t won since and has not finished higher than 16th in the points standings.

The adjustment had to be difficult for Zipadelli. He went from calling the shots for one of the greatest drivers of his generation to trying to develop the best thing since sliced bread. The problem was that normal sliced bread isn’t that amazing.

Logano has talent, no doubt, and he has won nine races in his four seasons in the Nationwide Series. But he came into the Sprint Cup Series as an 18-year-old who had not even competed in a full Nationwide Series season, and at times he has looked overwhelmed on the Cup side.

NASCAR drivers, like any other professional athlete, need time to develop. That’s a large part of why the truck and Nationwide series exist. Sure, Stewart achieved success in NASCAR pretty quickly, but he a substantial background in other forms of racing and was 28 years old by the time he was a rookie in the Sprint Cup Series.

Logano won't reach that age until 2018, and he still has a very bright future ahead of him.

That’s why it is important for Gibbs to bring in a guy such as Ratcliff now to work with Logano. Ratcliff has worked with plenty of young drivers, including Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin, during his time in the Nationwide Series and would figure to be a much better fit than Zipadelli for a driver such as Logano.

This is the type of change Logano needed. He obviously wasn’t getting anywhere fast in his current situation, and now he might have the chance to settle in and steadily develop as the top-tier driver everyone thought they would see when he first entered the Cup series.

The #20 might not compete for a championship in 2012, but it should be toward the front of the field a lot more often.

For his sake, Clint Bowyer needs to stay at RCR

Carl Edwards announced he will return to Roush-Fenway Racing in 2012, Danica Patrick announced she will go to NASCAR full-time next season and Dale Earnhardt Jr. has all but announced he will stay at Hendrick Motorsports long term.

But, the Silly Season isn't quite finished.

While it seems most of the NASCAR rides are accounted for in 2012, there is still one nagging situation that won’t wrap up. Clint Bowyer still needs a contract for next season.

When Edwards announced he would stay in a Ford next season, the talk was that everybody else would stay in their current ride, including Bowyer. Reports said Bowyer and Richard Childress were close to a deal and just hammering out sponsorship for the full season.

Now, less than a month later, it sounds more and more like Bowyer might not return to the #33 car. Reports are that the organization is still having trouble securing sponsorship, and Bowyer doesn’t want to take a pay cut.

Both of these problems are understandable. The sponsorship issue has been a problem throughout the sport for several years, and it’s tough for a driver who has been in the Chase three of the past four years to accept a pay cut after Edwards just signed one of the largest contracts in the history of the sport.

With all that said, Bowyer still needs to come to an agreement with Richard Childress Racing, even if it means a pay cut. Sure, he might get more money if he jumps ship and finds a ride at Richard Petty Motorsports or Joe Gibbs Racing, but the #33 car will be better in 2012 than any of his other options.

Bowyer started in the #07 at Richard Childress Racing in 2006 as a rookie, but then moved to the brand-new #33 team in 2009 after Casey Mears came in to drive the #07.

The 2009 season was a bad one for the entire RCR organization as none of its four teams made the Chase. However, it downsized to three teams in 2010 and every car made the Chase.

By leaving RCR, even though it is struggling mightily at the moment, Bowyer would put himself back in a similar position to his 2009 season. He would most likely drive for a start-up team as the third or fourth car at whatever organization he chose. Those teams don’t typically challenge for a Chase spot, much less contend for a championship.

It would feel like he’s starting over, and he would likely have to spend a few seasons waiting for the team to develop into a contender.

Richard Childress Racing might have stretches where the entire organization struggles, but as Kevin Harvick found out when he re-signed with RCR following the 2009 season, it comes back with a vengeance. Harvick nearly won the 2010 championship.

Right now RCR might look like it’s in trouble and can’t keep up with the other big teams, but when this organization figures out what is wrong, it generally rises to the top of the sport.

Even if Bowyer misses the Chase this season, the #33 team could easily be in the Chase and battle for a championship next season. That might not be possible at any of Bowyer’s other options.

With Austin Dillon contending for a championship in the truck series, RCR has options if Bowyer bolts. Right now Bowyer needs Childress more than Childress needs Bowyer.

Even if it means a lower salary, Bowyer needs to stay at RCR if he wants to be a contender in 2012.

Kasey Kahne Makes his Move

With a surprising, and early, move to begin the 2010 Silly Season, Kasey Kahne has signed with Hendrick Motorsports to drive the #5 car in 2012. That’s right, 2012. Two years away.

That leaves Kahne, and Budweiser, without a ride for 2011 at the moment, not that Kahne should have a tough time finding a ride for next season. A few different scenarios could play out here.

Kahne could move to Stewart-Haas Racing for next season since that is a satellite program of Hendrick Motorsports anyway. Or, the ever-possible move of JR Motorsports to the Cup level could happen next year.

Think about this, Danica Patrick signed a two-year deal to drive the #7 car in the Nationwide series, leaving her with the option to move up to the Cup series in 2012. One of the questions that has cropped up with Kahne making this move is what Budweiser will do. In all likelihood, it will not stay at Richard Petty Motorsports. This is just another blow to an organization that has, for the most part, struggled since Kahne won six races for what was then Evernham Motorsports in 2006.

The way thing are shaping up, no matter what Kahne does next season, JR Motorsports would become a Sprint Cup team with Patrick in 2012, taking the GoDaddy.com sponsorship from Hendrick’s #5 car. That would leave Budweiser with the opportunity to hop on the #5 car with Kahne in 2012.

So, if Kahne goes to Stewart-Haas in 2011, Budweiser would likely follow and then move to Hendrick in 2012. If JR Motorsports becomes a Cup team in 2011, Kahne could go there and essentially trade sponsorships with the #5 car when Patrick moves up the following season.

All of this is speculation at this point, but Kahne will be fine. He just signed a contract with the best team in NASCAR. Maybe this shows just how much better Hendrick Motorsports is than everybody else in the garage if a driver is willing to wait basically two years before having the chance to actually drive one of its cars.

As for Kahne moving, the surprise isn’t that he will be leaving RPM at the end of the season. That was expected, especially with the terrible start to the season that has him sitting 26th in the points standings. The surprise is the fact that he signed with the best team in racing, even when they didn’t have a spot open for him. Kahne is a top-tier driver and, although through very long-range planning, has cemented himself as a title contender for the next decade.

However, not that he was on the path to a title this season anyway, this does kind of put the nail in the coffin for his 2010 title hopes, and probably 2011 as well. But, once he gets in the #5 car, Kahne could be a real title threat for many years.

So, welcome to Silly Season. Remember when driver movement wasn’t discussed until, at the earliest, August or September? It’s April, and we just had a deal go down for something that can’t even happen for two years.

Many people expected this to be a big free agent offseason with two big names in Kahne and Kevin Harvick in the final year of their respective contracts, but a move this early is a shock to the system.

Strap down your driver/team charts, folks, because this Silly Season could, and already has been, huge and could play a big part in aligning the power structure in NASCAR for the next several years.