Champs, Class and Chumps
It was a great weekend if you’re a fan of NASCAR. Championship weekend provided exactly what NASCAR envisioned when they created the new Chase format. A weekend of Champions, Class, Chumps, and Crazies.
Champion: Jimmie Johnson
It’s always cool to witness history. Sunday we all did. Jimmie 6-time became Jimmie 7-time. He joins the sport’s biggest stars, Richard “The King” Petty and Dale Earnhardt as the only 7-time Champions in NASCAR history.
For most of this race day the 48 car looked everything except a winning car. Chad Knaus, perhaps the greatest Crew Chief the sport has ever known, kept working and adjusting the car until it finally had some speed. In the end it still wasn’t enough as they needed a late race caution to capture the much needed track position.
After Joey Logano and Carl Edwards, who was the class of the Final Four most of the day, got tangled up it became a two car race. Defending NASCAR Sprint Cup Champion Kyle Busch and Jimmie Johnson would seemingly duel for the victory. Busch’s handling faded on his car and Johnson held off the charging Joey Logano for his 7th Championship.
Perhaps Logano says it best when he said recently about Johnson, “You want to hate the guy but he’s just so dang nice that you can’t.” Nice guys do occasionally finish 1st.
Class: Carl Edwards
The class of the contenders, Edwards while attempting to block a hard charging Logano ended up crashing his car and damaging Logano’s was a shining example for all of us to follow. We are so use to seeing drivers run out of their cars and either high tail it to their haulers to hide or charge to the other teams pit stall to voice displeasure.
Edwards did run out of his car and he did run to the 22 teams pit stall but then we all saw what Carl Edwards is all about. He shook the hand of Joey Logano’s Crew Chief, Crew Chief Todd Gordon and wished his team well. He explained it was a racing incident and he nodded and shook hands with many of the 22 team’s crew.
On his way back to the garage Edwards spotted a longtime fan of his who was in tears. Edwards stopped. Walked to the fan, hugged her and gave her a fist pump to brighten her spirits.
Pure and utter class.
Chumps: Cole Whitt and his team
With a 3 lap shootout looming to crown the Xfinity Champion on Saturday, Cole Whitt and his team decided to forgo a pit stop (He had run out of his tire allotment) and stay out on the track while all the leaders pitted. Thus, Whitt’s number 14 car was now sitting on the pole for the restart.
Other teams lobbied Whitt’s Crew Chief, Ben Leslie to take the inside and get out of the way but the 14 car ignored the pleas. The result was an underperforming middle of the pack car getting involved in the battle for that circuits championship.
The other contenders, Elliot Sadler, Justin Allgaier and Eric Jones were none too pleased with Whitt and his team.
“I’d love to hear the explanation from him and his Crew Chief”, said a visably upset Eric Jones after the race. “It just didn’t make any sense staying out there on old tires with four championship guys behind you.”
Understand Whitt’s point about being out of fresh tires but my God man, Get outta the way. He has to do that in that situation.
Crazies: Some Twitter Idiots
After the Xfinity race and Daniel Suarez was crowned the Xfinity Champion, some idiot so called fans took to twitter to post some vile, racist tweets. Suarez, a 24 year old Mexican, taught himself how to speak English by watching cartoons.
Idiot twitter twits quickly responded by posting such idiotic post as “go back to Mexico”. “deport him,” and other sickening nonsensible garbage. It was a classic of example of all that can be wrong with social media.
The NASCAR fans quickly responded to these idiots by defending Suarez and blasting these racist mean spirited tweets.
Daniel Suarez and one of the nicest, sweetest, and kind people you will ever find. The sport, the world needs more like him. Shame on all of those who think otherwise.
Thanks for reading. Listen to WTBQ radio on Monday and Friday mornings at 8:45 as I join Frank, Taylor and the Morning Show gang to discuss all the current happenings in NASCAR. You can also follow me on twitter @JimLaplante
