2024 NASCAR Season

[Westheim]

Three laps before FOX could resist the urge to cut away from the cars to some duncehead kid in the stands pointing at said cars.

And five laps before Keselowski did a Keselowski and wrecked a good six or seven cars.

The comforting things is that while in the world the things do keep a-changing, in NASCAR the product always stays the same!

[thehef]

Pretty entertaining race, overall. And an exciting finish!

Nice to see the 24 win in '24, getting a win for Hendrick on the 40th anniversary - to the day - of their first Nascar race... And the 1-2-11-14 finish for HMS' cars is a pretty decent day!

Even better to see Hamlin nowhere near the top

[Westheim]

There was a two-second window where the yellow had to come out for Byron to win it, and it came out on time!

Now let's spare a thought for another 20-odd good race cars senselessly mangled in the great Florida Colosseum.

[Westheim]

The tire wear today gives me ugly flashbacks to that one Brickyard 400 where the tires would blow out after 15 laps.

[thehef]

Bizarre to see NASCAR admit that Denny Hamlin illegally jumped the final restart and would've been called for it had it not been the end of the race. This would be like the NBA admitting that refs sometimes swallow the whistle at the end of the game. Sure, we all know the NBA does that (albeit, not always), but the NBA office has never admitted it... At any rate, more reason to dislike Denny Hamlin. As if anything else is needed...

[Westheim]

They could hardly deny that it was a jumped restart. He goes about two car lengths early. It was so egregious, Truex tried to burn the damn racetrack down on the cooldown lap

I don't see why they can't strip him of the W. After decades they even got rid of the silly rule that even if your car is found to be illegal afterwards, if you get to hoist the trophy, the W remains yours. What's so different about an illegal restart under green-white-checkers?

[letsgobuccos]

Well if they enforce anything that's remotely tight then we're going to have a situation where they have to count pixels and and teams are going to watch replays and call for their rivals to be punished and there's going to be 3 days of discussion every week.

What we now got is that you have to sort of covertly jump the restart. And if you don't you might get passed or wrecked.

Neither is good. I don't know.

But they also called a penalty on David Ragan in The Trevor Bayne Race which was a very similar situation

[Westheim]

David Ragan changed lanes on, crucially, not the final restart. He was already banhammered to the tail end of the lead lap for the last and kinda iconic green-white-checkered restart.

...and then his career went right down the toilet.

They got the Ragan call right while the race was still raging, but they can't figure it out now after the dust has settled? It's also not 1959, where NASCAR can look at photos for three days before determining whether Lee Petty won the race or not. Instant replay is a thing that exists in 2024.

Unfortunately, NASCAR has a history of making the rules up as they go along, inconsistent penalty application, and the occasional favoritism. Not that sports with just as many cameras, a host of stewards, infinite camera angles, 45 minutes of time to adjudge an in-race penalty, and a rulebook thick to the point of obtuse is these days able to penalize a clear-as-day jump start as a jump start due to technicalities. And I'm on *Team Lando*...!

[letsgobuccos]

Denny Hamlin sometimes picks fights for weird reasons but he's not wrong about it

Sort of how I feel about Ross Chastain on track

[thehef]

Heckuva day for Hendrick Motorsports at Martinsville. A 1-2-3 (and 8) finish during their 40th anniversary celebration week, with over a 1,000 of their employees in attendance to see it. Pretty cool.

It's actually been a pretty good year so far for HMS. All four drivers are in the top ten, and they've won half of the eight races...

[Westheim]

And Byron's won three and ******* Elliott, who tried to run Byron up the road, through the fence, and all the way to Kentucky in turn 3 on that final restart, has won nothing for a year and a half

[thehef]

The four sweetest words in all of motorsports: Hamlin into the wall!!!

That it was in crunch time and he was contending for the win made it all the more sweeter!

And another solid day for HMS, with a win and third place... Add to that a consolation prize in Kyle Larsen having the best car on the track until a loose wheel penalty all but ended Larsen's competitive day...

On to Talladega!

[Westheim]

No matter what happens. If the little whiny ******* in the #9 car wins, everything tastes stale for at least three days.

[Westheim]

What sort of buttwipe goes to a driver-facing in-car camera on a restart??

[thehef]

Apparently penalties are coming mainly to Stenhouse Jr but also to Busch for the fight. If anything, Busch should be suspended for clearly intentionally wrecking Stenhouse, but apparently no penalties will be for what happened on the track. That puzzles me...

As far as the fight, is Busch - who as much as anyone deserves a coldcock at any given time - supposed to not at least try to defend himself and fight back after being socked by Stenhouse Jr? Personally, I'm cool with post-race NASCAR brawls, but I'm not a fan of coldcocks. So if I'm doling out punishment, Busch gets a race off for the intentional wreck, and Stenhouse Jr gets one race not for starting the fight, but for starting it with a cheap shot.

At any race, here's hoping Stenhouse Jr gets his ultimate revenge by refamiliarizing Busch with the wall during a points race...

[Westheim]

I don't watch the All Star Race, because it's meaningless, it's dumb, and it's usually at night, and I have to take off enough Mondays every year to cover races that matter. Like the Coke 600 this week.

That being said, I'd advocate for: What happens at the All Star Race, stays at the All Star Race.

[thehef]

Originally Posted by Westheim

I don't watch the All Star Race, because it's meaningless, it's dumb... [and watch] races that matter. Like the Coke 600 this week.

Well, I'm with you on that. I don't watch any sports' all-star event precisely because they don't matter... unless I'm looking for something to be on in the background and there aren't other options... In this case, I didn't watch it live or on dvr for that reason. But I did check out all the coverage of the fight & the crash that caused it because I stumbled upon an Outkick article that included lots of X links on it

[thehef]

Predictably, Stenhouse Jr was punished (fined) for starting the fight with Busch. Understandable. But also predictably, Busch escapes any punishment for deliberately wrecking Stenhouse. And then Busch's owner, that cantankerous a-hull Richard Childress, warns Stenhouse Jr that he better not retaliate against Busch on the track, else he (Childress) will "whoop his ass."

So Childress is essentially saying "my guy can wreck you for pretty much no good reason, and you just have to accept it." What a hypocrite. Then again, he was the longtime owner & partner of one of the most hypocritical drivers of all time, Earnhardt Sr... (Dale Sr sure loved to dish it out but was quick to get his panties in a bunch when another driver gave it back.)

I mean, then we have NASCAR both punishing Stenhouse Jr for starting the fight but also promoting it on Twitter with a pic of Sten's fist connecting with Busch's face, under the text of "Ricky felt like something needed to be done... So he did something."

NASCAR should just get behind - in full promo mode - a fight between Stenhouse Sr (Jr's dad - who didn't shy away during the fracas last Sunday night) and Childress. Let those geezers duke it out before the CC 600, and then hopefully Stenhouse Jr will put Busch into the wall during the race...

[Westheim]

The funny part is how Richard Childress once, many moons ago, whooped Kyle Busch's bottom.

[thehef]

Originally Posted by Westheim

The funny part is how Richard Childress once, many moons ago, whooped Kyle Busch's bottom.

Yep. And boy did Busch deserve it! Too bad there's no vid of that! And I love how fans donated to pay Childress' fine - presumably because KB was so despised. (Childress paid his own fine and donated the fans' contributions to worthy children's pediatric cause.)