February 9, 2010
By Allen Madding
In the weekend’s Bud Shootout, Tony Stewart appears to be picking up where he left off last year. His car was quick, and he was willing to stick it into the tight spaces to get it up front.
Despite qualifying on the front row for the Daytona 500, in the Bud Shootout, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. also seemed to be continuing his 2009 season. The car was ill-handling, and he was battling with it lap by lap. Last year the restrictor plate races were the only places where Junior showed any glimmer of hope and even that magic was not showing Saturday night. The television broadcasters have continued to give him a good deal of attention despite his lack of performance over the last season, but with Danica coming into NASCAR, one has to wonder how long that will last.
Increasing the size of the restrictor plates gave the cars more throttle and a tad more speed. Most drives indicated the extra throttle was more than the chassis setup could handle in the turns. In years past they could enter the corners without lifting off the accelerator, called “flat footing”. With the bigger restrictor plates, the extra speed entering the corners caused a push condition where the car does not want to turn and instead plow towards the outside wall despite how much the driver turns the steering wheel. Most drivers indicated they had to lift off the throttle entering the corners to make the car turn and maintain their lane.
Kurt Busch has had a rough go of it at Speedweeks so far. He had a car destroyed in Bud Shootout practice and then knocked the front clip off after being spun from contact with Mark Martin. Martin quickly accepted responsibility for the contact. Busch summed up his week by saying, "It’s been pretty tough. I’m making more laps in the ambulance than I am on the track."
The green-white-checker or as NASCAR demands it to be called, “The shootout out style” finish in the Bud Shootout worked out to be the biggest crash of the night, but we all expected that when they waved the yellow, right?
Harvick won the Bud Shootout for his second consecutive year. He endured a lackluster season in 2009 and word is he has not re-signed for 2011. Perhaps this is a good start of the year for the No. 29 team.
The big talk for the weekend was Danica Patrick’s debut in a stock car at Daytona in the ARCA Series Lucas Oil Slick Mist 200.
Patrick got spun by in the tri-oval area by former Formula one driver Nelson Piquet Jr. When the car slid back onto the track, it was sliding backwards for the outside retaining wall. Many braced to see the backend of the No. 7 Go Daddy Chevrolet to be destroyed. But Patrick did a phenomenal job of righting the car and not hitting anything. A move so impressive that Kyle Busch remarked, “I will say... Nice save Danica.” on Twitter and even Marty Smith tweeted, “Danica Patrick just made a sick save, man.”
And, if the save was not impressive enough, Patrick restarted in 20th position after the spin and marched back to a 6th place finish. In fact, the spin almost ignited her as she seemed more aggressive after the spin than in the whole event.
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