September 12, 2007
By Chuck Abrams

Chuck Abrams

Well, Dale Jr. had his fifth engine failure of the year and exited from Chase contention with a bang, not a whimper. Conspiracy theories aside, these failures ended Jr’s Chase hopes several races ago as he fell further and further behind. The fact that he mathematically still had a shot goes to prove how well he has run in spite of six DNF's (Did Not Finish). Consider this, Carl Edwards had his first DNF of the year Saturday night at Richmond.

Earnhardt's DNF's are what gave Kurt Busch the break he needed to get into the Chase and it also kept the freefalling Kevin Harvick in contention all the way to the end. Granted, Busch has been on a run lately after starting out not so well. The entire Penske organization seems suddenly resurgent. And after the Daytona 500, some were ready to hand Harvick the trophy and call it a night.

But Lady Luck has a strange way of playing her cards.

Consider that Jimmie Johnson started the year off with four wins in the first seven races and then went silent. Consider that Hendrick Motorsports won ten of the first 14 races of the year. Consider that in a five-race stretch starting in July, Tony Stewart finally got off the mark by winning three races and Kurt Busch won two.

And Dale Jr. is winless so far but was still in the battle to make the Chase until there were only about 30 laps remaining at Richmond.

ESPN has shown it’s last race of the year and I am on the fence if that is a good thing or a bad thing. First of all, I hate missing restarts and ESPN seemed to do that at least once a race. Secondly, Rusty is OK, but he talks too much. But we all knew that before he got into the booth. Dr. Jerry Punch is aces as are the pit road reporters. Petree is OK, but a bit underwhelming. I can not stand the Air Tracks because I do not believe it is real. If they truly had a way to show me what the air WAS ACTUALLY doing, then it would be OK but I believe it is some sort of gimmick. Somebody prove me wrong.

If I see one more piston blowing up -- animation described in a zombie-like monotone -- I will be violently ill.

But I do enjoy the split screen racing battles and the commercial split screens. Excellent job on that. And ESPN does stay with the race until its very end and shows post-race interviews. What you can not see on ESPN, you see on ESPN2 -– if you have cable.

While Johnny Sauter had a good night at Richmond, he ought to stay off of prime-time TV. While I applaud NASCAR on TV other than on race day, the prime-time special on ABC seemed a bit like a NASCAR 24/7 rip-off. And it was not very good television -- for either Sauter or his girlfriend. I am sure both are genuine people but that is not how it came across to the viewers.

Coming on strong in the rear view mirror is Loudon.

If you did not catch it during the broadcast, Petree was saying teams that were running well at Richmond would run well at Loudon. If that is the case, look out for Carl Edwards. He was awesome until his car blew up. Chances are that is the only engine failure he will have this year unless he starts buying DEI engines. But that also means that Johnson, Gordon, Earnhardt, Burton and Hamlin are also contenders as they ran well at Richmond. Looking at the spring race at Loudon, that is a fairly good assumption.

Now the Chase begins and we actually should have a great Chase this year. While the TV talking heads were paying homage to last year's Chase, that had several drivers actually in contention until the final laps of the final race, it was really not that dramatic. This year could be different and I for one am hoping so.

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.