June 28, 2009
By Kim Roberson
Kim Roberson
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What an insane week this has been.
We’ve said farewell to Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson, I have gotten into a debate on some people's thoughts on a violent overthrow of our Government (I’m not for it by the way), and dealt with the worst subway crash the DC area has ever seen.
I never would have imagined the week after a road course race THAT would be something that almost everyone was content with.
Fans have complained for eons that NASCAR doesn’t listen to what they want. NASCAR has ruined the sport. So on and so forth.
However, it appears that their decision to take the fans suggestion and do double-file restarts is paying dividends.
I know several people who would rather have a root canal, without Novocain, than watch a road course race. However, even they were sucked into the action last week at Infineon…and in the end, they loved the race.
Now we have people saying that a road course race should be in the Chase…and not just because they are road course fans.
I am seeing people giving last week’s race four stars…”It was one of the best Sonoma races I have ever seen!” was a comment I heard more than once. “The drivers actually got to race!” commented others.
With as much good racing as we have seen in the last two weeks thanks to these double-file restarts, you have to wonder why it took NASCAR so long to do it. It was a fairly common sense decision in my opinion. Let’s re-start everyone in order. No confusion as to which driver is a lap down or where the first place car is, buried behind the guys at the tail end of the lead lap. The guy starting next to you is the guy you are racing for the next spot in the finishing order. And that knowledge seems to lead to some pretty good racing.
I can’t wait to see how it works next weekend in Daytona. Now that should be some exciting racing!
I also want to say congrats to the King. I have never seen Richard Petty in Victory Lane. His last win as a car owner came 4 years before I became a fan. I have met the King several times and he is just like you would imagine: friendly, always a big smile and a kind word coming from under the big black cowboy hat. The smile, which is always big, seemed even bigger last Sunday as he and Kasey Kahne posed for pictures with the Sonoma trophy between them.
Yes, I have heard some minor grumbling about “Why is the King standing there with a driver who is sponsored by Budweiser and with a trophy with a bottle of wine in it when he is so against alcohol sponsorship?”
Richard Petty might not officially own the #9 Budweiser car but his name is on the team, and his face is the one that people associate with “Richard Petty Motorsports”. His driver’s might not be eligible for the Coors Pole Award, but it doesn’t mean that when a driver for his team wins, he shouldn’t celebrate, even if there is alcohol involved.
Richard has been around a long time and he is well aware of his standards and views on things. If the King wants to take part in the celebration for the first win for (Richard) Petty Motorsports in a decade, then he should be allowed to. And I think it was wonderful that he had the chance.
It was a much needed shot in the arm not only for the Petty family and their drivers, but for Dodge and fans of Mopar.
With Dodge looking at the possibility that they might have to pull out of the sport completely due to the financial woes they have been dealing with, a win is a nice reminder that there are more than just Chevy’s and Toyota’s on the track, and every once in a while, someone other than those two can actually cross the finish line first.
I am off to Daytona next weekend for the Coke Zero 400. I’ll be reporting live from the infield next weekend…and we’ll see just how those double file restarts pan out at a Superspeedway.
The thoughts and ideas expressed by this writer or any other writer on Insider Racing News, are not necessarily the views of the staff and/or management of IRN.
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