I did not have the opportunity to make it to a track this weekend, but I did get a chance to catch the final laps of the two Brickyard events on Saturday and Sunday. In the Nationwide event NASCAR's double-wide restart screwed Elliot Sadler out of a likely win, and perhaps even the series championship when he was black-flagged for "jumping" the final restart. All angles of the replay clearly showed that Sadler was getting a solid shove from behind before he ever pulled ahead of leader Brad Keselowski who was starting next to him, despite the fact that he was, you know, the "leader". And it also looked like Keselowski may have been playing a little cat and mouse game with him as well.
After the race Sadler protested the call and, well you can read about it here if you'd like. The bottom line is this, put the leader out front and pair them up on back, or go back to the old days when the lead lap cars started single-file with lapped cars to the inside and you wouldn't have this problem. Some short tracks have adopted this double-wide restart as well, but they need to do a better job of enforcing the rules on it as I have seen occasions where the second-place car is the first one to the start-finish line, and there is no "giving back the position" when that happens. If you clicked on the link make sure that you check out the picture at the bottom. I didn't know that Keselowski was French!
On Sunday I tuned in to ESPN just in time to watch the final twelve laps of action (?) as Jimmie Johnson won his fourth Brickyard 400. It was sad to see all of the empty seats around the speedway, but I have to say that when I attended this event about six years ago I found myself dozing off during long green flag segments, because not only is the track not conducive to side-by-side racing, but you can only see them go single-file past you in your line of sight before having to wait another forty-five seconds until they come back into your line of sight......single-file. Yes, it is cool that the Stock Cars run at Indianapolis, but I have to wonder if it is even a profitable event anymore based upon the number of tickets sold.
After Johnson took the checkered flag I pulled up the 2012 King's Royal featuring the World of Outlaws on the DVR. This two hour show was presented very nicely as it included all six heat races, the C-Main, the B-Main and the A-Main along with a nice amount of side stories and interviews sprinkled in. Earlier this year I panned the presentation of the Show Me 100 noting that there was no mention of the qualifying events that set the field in the first place, and for jumping camera angles too often. This telecast still jumped camera angles a little too much, but at least you maintained a concept of what you were watching and it proved that some of the most intriguing racing of the night often occurs during the heats and the "last chance" race. Ralph Shaheen did his best Ken Stout imitation a couple of times, but he recovered nicely by describing what he was hootin' and hollering about, while Brad Doty and Bobby Gerould did their usual stellar job as well. There seems to be a ton of young kids making some noise in dirt track racing right now, but it was still one of the ageless veterans who earned the crown as Doug Wolfgang anointed King Sammy Swindell.
Morgan and I have attended the PowrI Midget event at US 36 Raceway in Osborn, Missouri, two of the last three years, but we were unable to make it down last night. You can watch the action here with some nice work from KCCheeseVideo. It looks like it was great night of racing although the high heat obviously played a factor in the stands being much less than full as they have been in the past. Watching this video made me wonder about having such a nice production up for viewing on YouTube the next day. If you have never been there before, watching this event on the well-manicured highbanks of US 36 would likely make you think about marking this show on your calendar to be there next year. Or, if you are like me and have to consider a three and a half hour drive on a Sunday night, would you instead stay home next year knowing that you could likely watch it on your computer for free the following night? There has been a proliferation of internet video coverage of dirt racing over the past few years and while I am sure that we can all agree that it is pretty cool, I cannot help but wonder what the "net effect" is on actual attendance.
The updated All Iowa Points have been sent off to our Webmistress Sue and once she has them uploaded you will see that we have a new leader in the Modified division. In fact I believe that this is the first time ever that Chris Abelson has been at the top of the list during a weekly update as he now leads a tightly grouped pack of at least nine drivers who still have a shot at the title. The Stock Car race has tightened up as well with eight drivers now within thirteen points of leader Damon Murty. Matt Greiner has the biggest move up to second while Jerry Miles tries to keep the title in Outlaw Super Bomber" land as a follow-up to Timmy Current's 2011 championship as he is just three points back in third. Skylar Prochaska has forged a tie with Clint Garner in the 360 Sprint Car points as we head into the opening of the Arnold Motor Supply 360 Nationals at Knoxville beginning this Thursday night and in the Hobby Stocks former champions Devin Smith and Shannon Anderson are trying to outdistance Scott Pippert. Just one month of regular season action remains for drivers to position themselves for the Fall Specials season.
I would like to thank all of you who have stopped in to see what is on the Back Stretch as the month of July has established a new record for the most page views of this blog in a single month topping the previous record breaker of this past April. Hopefully you will continue to join me in August for coverage of the Southern Iowa Sprint Speedweeks, plus a road trip to Kansas and California later in the month.
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