Watkins Glen Observations

WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. – Thoughts, questions and observations following Sunday's AMD at The Glen:

• "Ain't this cool?" crew chief Todd Berrier said after he directed Kevin Harvick to his first ever road course win.

  After watching Harvick and team owner Richard Childress in the postrace press conference smiling and laughing together, it's hard to remember that there was bad blood between these two just six months ago.

• Remarkably, Kurt Busch kept his cool after the race – one which some say NASCAR officials stole from him. Unfortunately for Busch, there's no fighting city hall. NASCAR officials called it the way they saw it.

  Busch had the car to beat. Early in the race, no one came close to him. Then, after the penalty for pitting too soon on lap 54, the bottom fell out.

  Busch easily wins the Hard Luck of the Race Award this week.

• During the early laps of the race, the field was very racy. It seemed like everyone was trying to gauge early on how deep they could brake into Turn 1. Some did it just fine. Others, not so well.

• What's the deal with road racing ace Ron Fellows? He finished 32nd on Sunday and was a non-factor all day. This came after he was the fastest driver in Happy Hour. Could it be that he hasn't found the right NASCAR team to moonlight with? I've watched Fellows drive rings around the competition in his C-6R Corvette, but his record in NASCAR the past few years has been dismal.

  To add insult to injury, Fellows was penalized for running through the inner loop portion of the track on the final lap.

• There was a record number of cautions – nine. That's not conducive to good racing. Tony Stewart hated to see all the cautions because everyone was bunched up together on the restarts.

  Dale Earnhardt Jr., meanwhile, aimed a good deal of criticism at NASCAR officials for all the caution laps.

  "This is a long race track and NASCAR could do a better job of getting the track under good conditions for us to be able to go back to racing sooner. We don't have to run all those laps under caution, and I don't think the fans like to see them either."

• Kyle Busch got the Lucky Dog five times, which also is a NASCAR record. Busch's car broke a rear suspension piece early in the race, putting him several laps down. He finally got back on the lead lap late in the race and finished ninth. That's tenacity.

• Jeff Gordon was one of those pushing hard in the early going. He ended up being spun late in the race by Mark Martin, who later apologized to Gordon.

  Gordon, along with Stewart and Earnhardt Jr., remains in the top 10. Barely.

• The Said Heads – zealous Boris Said fans who run around wearing curly-haired wigs – were out in full force. There seem to be more of them here at the Glen than at any other track. They now are wearing shirts that bear the saying: "Who Said? Boris Said!"

  Before the race, as drivers and team members were on pit road waiting for prerace festivities to start, a large contingent of Said Heads started chanting the saying from the main grandstand.

• If I could, I would make a rule that the final two laps of every NASCAR race have to be as exciting as the final two laps of Saturday's Busch race.

• Kasey Kahne ran off course during the final lap and lost 10 spots. He finished 22nd. It's amazing how this team has had so much bad luck over the past four races. Kahne remains 11th in points. The good news is that Nextel Cup is heading back to Michigan, the site of Kahne's last victory.

  I'll bet he's thinking, "If Denny Hamlin can do it …"

• The restarts were heart-stoppers. Every time the entire field went flying into Turn 1, you pretty much knew that one or more cars would end up off the pavement.

• From the "I wonder if" files: I wonder if the race results would have been different if Robby Gordon had about 30 more horsepower under the hood of his Monte Carlo SS?

• Coming from a television background, I probably am qualified to say this: NBC's race telecasts are right up there with some of the worst-directed sporting events ever broadcast. Sunday's edition was just another in a continuing pattern of NBC delivering the worst coverage of auto racing possible.

  Several key moments of the race were missed by the director and had to be shown to the television audience via replay.

  NBC's NASCAR broadcasts are poorly produced and place too much emphasis on the race leaders. Much has been written this year about the drop in television ratings for NASCAR broadcasts, and the blame for any drop in ratings that NASCAR experiences during the final 14 races of the season should be placed squarely on NBC Sports' shoulders.

  Never has there been a better description for the phrase "lame duck."

• Expect NASCAR's 2007 Nextel Cup and Busch schedules to be announced by Labor Day.

• Sunday's third-place finish for Jamie McMurray was his fourth top-10 in the last 11 races. OK, so maybe I've been especially critical of the Missouri native, and maybe it does take a year to get adjusted to a new team.

• Scott Pruett, who attempted to make the transition from open wheel to stock cars full-time with Cal Wells several season ago, sees Juan Pablo Montoya struggling during his first season in NASCAR, though he also expects team owner Chip Ganassi to give Montoya a strong car.

• And in case you missed it, NASCAR fans, Sarah Fisher finished 12th in her return to IndyCars at Kentucky Speedway on Sunday. Danica Patrick finished eighth, and rookie Marco Andretti was 17th.

Postscript

The "Race to the Chase," as it is called, may not be much of a race after all.

The top 10 as it stands right now looks pretty solid, and I would be quite surprised if we see a different name in that mix before we get to Richmond.

Yes, that means Earnhardt Jr. will make the Chase.

Michigan is a good track for Junior, and he's one of the best short-track racers out there (Bristol is after Michigan).

That also means it looks like Greg Biffle, Carl Edwards and Busch will be on the outside looking in when the series heads back to Loudon.