The Speeding Bullets: Jeff Byrd 500 '11

• Congratulations to Kyle Busch on getting his second weekend sweep in a row at Bristol.  Bristol has become Kyle's House like Charlotte for a while was Jimmie's House.  He dominates there any opportunity he gets and has too many impressive statistics at the track to be named.  The most impressive one of all though in my opinion is that he has won four out of the past five Cup races in Thunder Valley; that is something extremely difficult to accomplish.  Busch seems to have more maturity and a different way about him than he has had in the past couple of years.  If he wants to win a championship, he needs to get to the point where he can have a consistent top ten finish each week instead of every race being hit or miss as it is now.  Kyle should just try to learn from his brother Kurt; the guy is leading the points with four top tens so far in the first four races of the season...

• Carl Edwards got a solid second place finish and gave Kyle a run for his money.  He just didn't have the car to beat Busch, so the only way he could have overtaken was to use the bump n' run.  Carl didn't want to knock him out of the way with ten laps still to race in fear of possible retaliation, and that was probably a smart strategy considering the fact that Kyle did have a faster car.  At first I questioned Edwards' decision but then decided he made the right choice after seeing that in the 2002 night race Jeff Gordon waited to make his memorable maneuver on Rusty Wallace in the final four laps.  Rowdy better watch his back though because Carl made it clear after the race that he intends to give him a little trouble in the next couple of weeks...

• Jimmie Johnson came home in third which was kind of disappointing for him after leading the most laps, but Kyle hinted at the fact in victory lane that he let him lead most of those laps.  The three-man battle between Busch, Edwards, and Johnson reminded me a lot of the three-man battle a couple of years ago at Dover between Biffle, Edwards, and Kenseth.  This observation brings up the point I want to make that I think when Bristol was reconfigured it was basically turned into Dover.  Just ask yourself why Jimmie used to suck at Bristol for most of his career but suddenly he started winning and getting top five finishes there like the flip of a switch.  The answer: because Johnson is dominant at Dover and Bristol has now become a half-sized version of the Monster Mile...

• Maybe the fact that Bristol has become Dover can explain why the place seemed half-empty during Sunday's race.  I have never seen Bristol that empty before and was shocked in the prior weeks when I saw ads on t.v. trying to sell tickets for the race.  At first I would have blamed the problem on the economy, but then I thought about how full the first three races of the season were.  So the problem must be the racing.  People want the old Bristol back, and the track will continue to have a problem selling out unless something is done to fix the issue...

• RCR's three anchor teams continued to struggle on Sunday while Paul Menard continued to rise to the occasion.  Menard has tentatively become the guy keeping RCR in contention, and if he keeps up the good work he just may have an opportunity to make the Chase.  On the other hand, Clint Bowyer and Jeff Burton looked as pitiful as ever, two guys who usually are good at Bristol.  Kevin Harvick is the monkey in the middle as he managed to rebound and finish sixth after an incident earlier in the race but doesn't have the same touch he did last year.  As a whole though, RCR needs to take a good long hard look at what has been going wrong while it is still early in the season and they still have some room for error...

That's all from Bristol.  Next week, NASCAR goes back out west for their lone Cup race at Fontana.  It will be interesting to see if attendance is any better now that the track only has one event.  Jimmie Johnson came close to victory this week at Bristol, and I think that out in California is where he will get the cigar...

The Speeding Bullets: Kobalt Tools 400 '11

• Congratulations to Carl Edwards on breaking his two-race losing streak.  He may not have had the best car out there, but his team got the job done when the money was on the line.  Taking notes from what Tony Stewart did earlier in the race and putting them to use at the right time is what got him to victory lane.  Watching him do his signature back flip at the start finish time is always exciting and never gets redundant.  Now, Carl can officially say that he won a race at Las Vegas fair and square unlike the scandal from a couple of years ago...

• Tony Stewart put his emotions into words when he said that second place sucks, but still he had a great day nonetheless.  The two-tire strategy was brilliant; where his team screwed up was getting four tires on the last pit stop.  Tony did his experimenting earlier in the race and found what worked, and once he discovered his race-winning formula he just needed to stick with it.  His car was stellar enough that I don't think Carl could have caught him even if he had been running on some of the same tires for over 100 laps...

•  Carl and Tony weren't the only guys who had noteworthy results.  Juan Pablo Montoya came home in third and Aussie Marcos Ambrose followed up in fourth.  Dale Earnhardt Jr. managed to cross the finish line in eighth which is unusual for NASCAR's Most Popular Driver; typically it's more like 28th.  After all of his struggles last season, Brian Vickers rose to the occasion with his first top ten finish in a very long time.  It's nice to see he's making a steady recovery...

•  Jeff Gordon and Kyle Busch were the dominant drivers at Phoenix, but this week their experiences were just the opposite... they were the ones doing all of the burnin' and crashin' and smashin'.  And coincidentally, race winner Carl Edwards was in their same shoes last week when he was turned around and sent back to the garage.  So far this season, most of the top drivers have been extremely inconsistent.  It will be interesting to see if their results level out as the year progresses...

• Trevor Bayne finally got a top 20 finish after his remarkable Daytona 500 victory.  He ran a clean race and stayed out of trouble just as he did a couple of weeks ago.  He started to prove on Sunday that the win in the Great American Race was not some kind of fluke.  I'm pretty sure he got more airtime than the leader of the race did, as FOX was trying really hard to promote its Daytona 500: An American Dream show that airs next week...

• I don't know if it is just me, but the FOX crew seemed to be extra off their game during the telecast.  Larry McReynolds spent the whole race talking about how their was going to be a caution in the final ten laps, and guess what??? there was no caution.  Darrell Waltrip said that this victory was Carl's first one in over 70 races when the guy won the last two races of the 2010 season.  If DW is going to run his mouth, he at least needs to know what he is talking about.  And all of the commentators were going on and on about how great of a move it was for Tony Stewart to take four tires on the final pit stop, and that decision was what lost him the race...

That's all from Sin City.  NASCAR will head back to the east coast for an early off-week and then will journey into the Bristol Coliseum for a gladiator clash.  The Speeding Bullets will be back in two weeks to discuss all of the drama that unfolds in Thunder Valley...

The Speeding Bullets: Subway Fresh Fit 500 '11

• Congratulations to Jeff Gordon on breaking his 66-race winless drought and visiting victory lane for the first time in almost two years.  For a while I was questioning whether he still had winning in him or whether his career was just starting to go downhill.  He got caught up in an accident with Carl Edwards early in the race, but his car came out of it undamaged and dominated the rest of the afternoon.  Phoenix has been one of Gordon's tougher tracks over the years as shown in previously only having one victory there; no one would have guessed that on Sunday though.  It's a rare treat to see Jeff in victory lane these days, and it's also a nice reminder of older times.  He's on a Drive To End Hunger; now he has finally ended his own hunger...

• Kyle Busch almost pulled off his second trifecta this weekend.  He totally destroyed the truck and Nationwide races and looked as if he was going to be unbeatable in Cup as well, but he couldn't hold off Jeff Gordon in the closing laps.  You think he would eventually feel fatigued from doing so much.  So far his extremely high energy level has prevented that from happening.  He was very apologetic to Carl Edwards for somewhat causing the accident that ruined his chances for the day; we'll just have to see how Carl responds though...

• Jimmie Johnson started 28th and wasn't too great for most of the race but still managed to come home in third.  He has had remarkable success at Phoenix and amazingly hasn't finished outside of the top ten there since 2005.  That's why I am kicking myself for switching Carl Edwards out for him at the last minute on my fantasy team.  The faulty decision taught me something; never doubt Jimmie Johnson at Phoenix no matter what...

•  Sunday's race was the wildest show I have ever seen at Phoenix.  There was a Big One on a one-mile track and just crash after crash.  Matt Kenseth seems to be the guy being blamed for starting the whole thing, but he's been known as somewhat of a troublemaker in the past.  Brian Vickers was totally outraged at Kenseth for turning him around and has already made it clear that he intends to pay him back...

•  Trevor Bayne had a lot of pressure on him this weekend after his extraordinary achievement at Daytona and all of the sides that came with it, and he seemed to crumble under all of it.  It is always a bad sign when a drive crashes his car in practice on Friday.  Trevor probably felt like a loser crashing a second time during the actual race, but he needs to keep his head held high and remember that no one is perfect...

• It was cool to see Winter Olympian Apolo Ohno give the command.  Lately, the grand marshals have been quite dull when saying the most famous words and some haven't even said anything at all (yes, I am talking about Kim Kardashian at Las Vegas last year).  Subway sure got their money's worth out of that race with Ohno and Edwards.  FOX even went as far as drinking out of Subway cups in the Hollywood Hotel and playing that special promotional clip before the race started...

That's all from the Valley of the Sun.  The next couple of races will be very interesting as tempers have started to flare.  Next week, we head on a five-hour car ride north to Sin City to see who will roll the dice on Sunday.  I know it's a five-hour car ride because one time my family had to make the miserable drive when it was impossible to fly into Phoenix...

The Speeding Bullets: Daytona 500 '11

• Congratulations to Trevor Bayne on getting his first Sprint Cup victory.  The fact that it came in the Daytona 500 makes it even more remarkable.  To top it all off, at only 20 years of age, he is now the youngest winner ever of the Great American Race.  History was made on Sunday in more ways than one, and it will be a day that this young man will remember for the rest of his life.  The Daytona 500 may be the only race he ever wins, but it is the one race that every driver wants to win more than any other.  FOX said during the broadcast that Bayne doesn’t even have a sponsor for the whole season; I don’t think he’ll have that problem anymore though…

• Carl Edwards is the guy that everyone is asking “Where did he come from”???   He ran mid-pack all race long but had a power surge in the final Green-White-Checker and got pushed by David Gilliland to a second place finish.  At the finish line, he was right on the bumper of Bayne and was almost able to overtake him.  If the line were down in turn one like it is at Talladega, then we might have had a different winner of the Great American Race...

• Trevor Bayne wasn't the only no-name driver who had a terrific day.  Just look at the results, and you will see that five of the top ten finishers are guys you normally don't see up there.  David Gilliland finished third, and he was a start and parker for most of last season.  Bobby Labonte came home in fourth, and he is a former champion who has just lost his spark over the past decade.  Regan Smith and Paul Menard crossed the line in seventh and ninth, respectively, and they were frontrunners throughout the day who haven't had a huge amount of success in the past.  Old timers Bill Elliott and Terry Labonte even managed to finish in the top fifteen...

• In addition to seeing some new faces toward the top of the field, it was also nice to see Jimmie Johnson falter.  His hopes of a second Daytona 500 came to an end in the early Big One.  Don't get excited though after only one race that this may be the year his championship streak comes to an end.  You will probably be having completely different thoughts after next week's race at Phoenix...

• After the past two Daytona 500's being effected by rain and holes in the track, we finally got to watch one on a bright sunny day with no problems in sight.  There was a record setting number of 16 cautions, but that was partly due to all of the great racing which made this 500 one that will stand out in peoples' memories...

• I noticed that FOX has decided to start using their NFL music in their NASCAR broadcasts.  I guess they finally realized the stuff they have used the past couple of seasons has gotten too cheesy.  I think the best solution though is for them to go back to the theme music they were using in their early years when the ratings were much higher...

That's all for the Daytona 500 edition.  Next week, NASCAR goes out west to Phoenix for a duel in the desert.  This will be Jimmie's chance to redeem himself after his Daytona performance.  Of course, we all hope that he will just get into even deeper of a hole...

The Speeding Bullets: Preseason Edition '11

Hello, my fellow bloggers.  I know I haven't been around the blogosphere in quite a long time.  You've probably been wondering what happened to me.  To answer your question, it's been a combination of loads of school work, Cross Country, and just taking a break from racing.  I'm to the age now where I have to figure out where I want to go to college and what I want to do with my future.  But I'm back.

As part of my return, I've decided it's time to let the people who read my posts know who I really am.  So I'm going to give you a choice: you can either call me Gonger as you always have, or you can call me my real name, Brent.  If the decision is too difficult and you need to flip a coin, I'm down with that too.

Now, I'm going to write my first edition of The Speeding Bullets in ten months, since the Phoenix race last April that Ryan Newman won.  So, shall I pick back up where I left off with last April's Texas race???  If I did that, you might miss the green flag of the Daytona 500 because you would still be reading this post.  It'd probably be a better idea to do a 2011 preseason edition instead, so that is what this blog is going to be.

First let's talk about the changes that were made during the offseason:

• The 43-1 points system.  NASCAR changed to this format to supposedly "reward winning", but in my opinion the only thing it accomplishes is making the points system easier to understand.  The best way to reward winning in my books is to give the race winner 100 points and the second place finisher only 50 points.  You've got to make it a big enough difference where the runner-up finisher is crushed about being the first loser and not talking about how he had a good points day...

• NASCAR also decided to add a wild card element to the Chase by giving the 11th and 12th spots to the drivers in the top 20 who have the most wins at the Richmond cutoff.  Now, I like this idea a lot.  It actually rewards winning contrary to the new points system.  I'm pretty sure this change was sparked by Jamie McMurray winning the Daytona 500 and the Brickyard 400 and still not making the Chase...

• The most bogus idea of all was deciding to use practice speeds to decide the qualifying order and the starting grid when there is a qualifying rainout.  Are they really going as far as trying to hype up practice and boost its ticket sales???  Practice is just supposed to be practice.  Instead for a qualifying rainout, NASCAR should take the top 43 drivers in points and arrange the starting grid by giving the 43rd driver in points the pole position and makes the points leader start last.  It would be interesting and humorous at the same time...

Now it's time to transition and talk about what's happened so far during Speedweeks...

• I tuned into the Bud Shootout with 22 laps left, and it took me half of those laps to figure out that it was Kurt Busch who was driving the Pennzoil car and not Kevin Harvick.  Even with a new driver, the Pennzoil car still took the checkered flag for the third year in a row.  Maybe instead of the Budweiser Shootout, the Pennzoil Shootout would be more appropriate...

•  Denny Hamlin's wild maneuver at the end of the race proved once again why I strongly dislike the double yellow line that is used at restrictor plate tracks.  First, it sent Carl Edwards flying into the Talladega fence and then there was the whole controversy when Regan Smith attempted the same type of maneuver on Tony Stewart that fall.  I know Denny lost the race anyway, but there is just something wrong with listing him as finishing 12th...

• I don't know why but the grass on the frontstretch seemed extra green.  Maybe it was because of the contrast with the dark black pavement, or the bright Saturday night lights, or simply because they put new sod down over the offseason...

• Dale Earnhardt, Jr. won the pole for the 2011 Daytona 500.  The race also happens to be the ten year anniversary of his father's death.  Is it some special sign???  No Junior Nation, not this time.  Guess what, the pole sitter of the Great American Race never ends up winning and usually doesn't even come out of there with a top ten.  There are some tracks where starting up front means everything, but at Daytona it means absolutely nothing...

That's all for the preseason edition.  I'm going up to Michigan for Winter Break, but I'll be back with bullets for the Daytona 500.  Hope it's a great season of racing, and we'll all just try to forget that Jimmie won the past five championships...