So this weeks set of races was quite interesting in the very least (well the accidents were anyway) and there are many things that I learned by watching.
The NCWTS race was decent. The series is so watered down that there are only around 15 trucks that are actually competitive enough to stay on the lead lap by lap 50. The race started off well--there was some pretty good racing for awhile for the first few spots. And then when it started to spread out things went sour. SPEED's coverage is pretty bad at looking past the leaders and covering battles of trucks that are out of the top 10. I was surprised how long Rick Crawford stayed in the lead when he eventually went down a lap later in the race. I feel bad for Ricky Carmichael for giving up his career in (Motocross??) and coming to NASCAR when it's evident he needs some racing luck and some experience to perform well. The race was pretty anticlimactic because the final race for lead was only a few laps after the final caution. Congratulations to Johnny Sauter, who seems to have finally found a series that he belongs in.
Let me just say that ESPN must be pretty embarrassed about harping on the subject of rain coming through its entire forecast and it never completely came. Although it was nice to see the Nationwide Series have a green flag run of over 100 laps to start the race, the green flag pit stops made a lot of drivers' days much worse (Allgaier running out of fuel, Keselowski caught speeding on pit road in four segments). Kyle Busch was as good in the NNS as Jimmie Johnson was in the NSCS. We can complain about the complete domination, but realistically if my favorite driver (Jeff Gordon) led as many laps as JJ in a race, I wouldn't mind the domination. It was really refreshing to see Clint Bowyer and RCR win a race again. Even though they won at Daytona, it was a restrictor plate victory, which doesn't seem to be the same as any other race win. As for the Keselowski/Hamlin crash, Hamlin should have given Kes. some room. Kes. could've also backed off a little and waited until they were clear of lap traffic to get around Hamlin. However, the incident happened and they both handled the incident pretty poorly. Kes could've said something different that would've shown more maturity. However, Hamlin's reaction was totally uncalled for. The NNS isn't your personal playground and if you walk into a race with that kind of arrogance and superiority, you're going to be getting mad like this a lot.
Is it me or is there always a competition caution on laps 25-35 when the series heads to Dover. Tony Raines should've waited about 20 more laps. He would've finished 42nd instead of 43rd by taking a position from Logano. Logano's crash was nothing more than a typical Dover incident, although I was surprised he went up the track with as much force as he did, especially because of the abundance of banking to catch him. It's too bad that some cars went out of the race at lap 34. Newman and Kurt Busch both led laps, something both haven't really done this season. Michael Waltrip always blows a tire and hits the wall, or cuts an oil line and slips on his own oil and hits the wall. It always seems to happen. Poor Kyle Busch, he is either dominating a race or getting worse as the race goes on. And Dover was another example. I was surprised how good Jeff Gordon was through laps 200-330 or so. ESPN said he took JJ's set up, but when is Steve Letarte going to learn that JJ's setup (while fast) is too loose for Jeff? One other day, I'll go on a rampage about how Letarte is the wrong crew chief for Jeff. Then Gordon had an awful pit stop, got back to like 6th and had contact with Newman and his day was basically over. When they have great pit stops they have an awful car, but when they have a great car, they have awful pit stops. Congratulations to Jimmie Johnson for having a far superior car than anyone else in the vicinity of Dover Int'l Speedway.