This year's phenomenon, Danica Patrick, finished 12th, two laps down to the leader last night. With 20 laps to go she was running 15th. She didn't pass anyone; three cars ahead of her either had engine failure or ran out of gas. Her teammate, who is racing on four wheels for his first year, was running in 9th when he ran out of gas.
At one point Denny Hamlin was complaining that his car was so bad it was "undriveable." He was running in 7th at the time, ten seconds ahead of Danica, who was in 13th and said her car was "a little loose." Rusty Wallace said of her, while she was still just one lap down and in 14th place, that she was "getting a little racy at times," and was "holding her own" and doing really well. He would say that if she was pitting on every lap.
Someday, I hope soon, we will get a female driver in NASCAR who is a competitive driver, and not merely a media darling and swimsuit model.
A little while later Hamlin's engine blew up and his car literally was undriveable, so handling was the least of their problems. Not long later his teammate's engine blew up, so it seems that Joe Gibbs' race team might have an engine problem. God knows his football team had... Never mind.
Announcers told us at one point that Austin Dillion had led 169 laps, which is a nice trick, since only 167 laps had been run in the race at that point. He went on to win the race, and then failed inspection. His car was too low in the rear, which would make it much faster than a legally configured car. We are waiting to see in what manner NASCAR will penalize the team.
No surprise the media misfits got the lap count wrong with Dillon. The week before Adam Alexander said they had complete 60 laps but the screen showed 67 laps.
ReplyDeleteWe have a competitive female driver. Johanna Long. Unfortunately, she's not in competitive equipment. And despite that, she's managed to finish well ahead of NASCAR's celebrity spokesmodel in several races.