Kobalt Tools 500 Observations

HAMPTON, Ga. – Thoughts, observations and a few questions following the Kobalt Tools 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway:

• Kyle Busch has been hot, hot, hot since Daytona and it was only a matter of time before he was going to win one. It took a weekend in Georgia complete with snow, bad tires and wicked race cars for him to do it.

• Am I dreaming, or is the only Hendrick Motorsports driver in the top 12 in points Dale Jr.?

• I’m still convinced that the engineering wizards at Hendrick have found something they know will be an advantage, but they haven’t worked out the kinks yet.

When they do, look out!

• When the Car of Tomorrow was introduced last season, the word in the garage was that Richard Childress Racing would have the upper hand with it. That isn’t exactly what happened. Fast forward to 2008 and it appears that they do.

All three RCR cars finished in the top 10, led by Clint Bowyer (sixth) and followed by Kevin Harvick (seventh) and Jeff Burton (10th). Harvick sits third in points.

• After a disappointing start to the season, Bowyer’s team looked more like the same team that was in the Chase last year. He and crew chief Gil Martin had been scratching their heads since Daytona trying to figure out how they lost the handle.

It looks like they found it.

• When asked what happened to his car after his day ended in a plume of white smoke, Carl Edwards kept his sense of humor.

“I don’t know what happened, but the oil tank lid was on,” he said.

His second-to-last place finish dropped the former points leader another 10 spots to 17th.

• The whole oil reservoir episode involving the No. 99 team had an eerily familiar ring to it. It reminded me of when former President Bill Clinton looked at the cameras and said, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman.”

Yeah, right.

• It was very entertaining to listen to the chatter between Earnhardt and crew chief Tony Eury Jr. during the race. Despite all the handling issues Earnhardt was dealing with, at times, it was quite comical. At other times, Junior sounded like he was trapped behind the steering wheel of the race car from hell.

Junior just couldn’t understand how a car that was a rocket ship on rails for 62 laps early in the race had turned into something that was driving like an out-of-control carnival ride.

On Lap 200, Earnhardt told Eury, “I wish I could tell you how hard these things are to drive right now.”

• During a caution, Junior was interviewed by a member of the PRN radio broadcast team. He was asked if he thought he had a shot at winning the race.

He waited a few seconds, thought about his answer and said, “I’m going to try.”

Somehow, I think the folks at PRN were expecting just a bit more.

• In a strange twist of fate, race winner Busch, Harvick and Earnhardt had pit stalls adjacent to each other. Had it not been for each driver’s conscientious effort to avoid each other, along with a whole lot of luck when all three pitted at the same time, there might have been an incident on pit road that could have changed the complexion of the race.

• Kyle Petty finished the race 12 laps down to the race leaders. I can’t remember the last time anyone finished that far down without having been the victim of some obvious problem like a mechanical failure or a wreck.

• I guess Canadian rookie driver Patrick Carpentier, who was making his first Cup start this season, has a much better feel for driving a stock car than I thought. He spent much of the afternoon rim-riding along the top groove, inches from the outside wall, as if he was a veteran of the sport. Despite the impressive display, he finished 35th, five laps down from the leaders.

• Fellow Canadian driver and former open-wheel racer Alex Tagliani was seen walking around the Nationwide and Cup garages this weekend. Tagliani is planning a move into NASCAR. He’s working on securing a ride for the Nationwide race in his hometown of Montreal. I hear it could be with Fitz Motorsports.

• Once again, there was more than the expected number of empty seats for Sunday’s Cup race. I suppose you could argue for keeping two dates at Atlanta, but the smart money says Atlanta will lose one next year.

• It’s not necessary to repeat any of the comments Tony Stewart directed at the Goodyear tires following the race, as they are readily available to read elsewhere.

With each successive comment, I could only think – Was he really saying that?

• It may have been veteran driver and former truck series champion Mike Skinner and not A. J. Allmendinger behind the wheel of the No. 84 Red Bull Toyota, but the race results were still dismal. Skinner used every bit of his driving skill to get the Camry into the show, but from Sunday’s result (27th) it looks as though the Red Bull guys have got a whole lot of work to do to make that race car competitive.

And it doesn’t reflect well upon the team that it gave Allmendinger – whose progress in stock cars has been limited by his knowledge of how a stock car is supposed to handle – such a junk race car.

• Despite being the highest finishing rookie in the race, Sam Hornish Jr.’s team has slipped out of the top 35 in points with Bristol coming up next. That’s not good news for the Indy 500 winner who is trying his best to make it as a stock car driver.

It should be noted that Hornish kept his Dodge off the walls, between the lines (most of the time) and finish 25th, only two laps down to the race leaders. It was a better finish than drivers Kasey Kahne, Michael Waltrip, Travis Kvapil and Joe Nemechek.

• It was a bittersweet weekend for Elliott Sadler. His beloved North Carolina Tar Heels delivered a stunning victory over archrival Duke on Saturday night, making Sadler a very happy man Sunday morning. Unfortunately, Sadler found himself behind the wheel of an evil race car that tried to send him into the wall on several occasions that afternoon. The 43rd-place finish dropped Sadler to 20th in points. There’s some good news: He’s good at Bristol.

• Winner of this week’s “If It Weren’t for Bad Luck, He’d Have No Luck At All” award goes to Denny Hamlin. At some point, things just have to turn around for the FedEx team.

• Out of the top 35: Hornish, Dave Blaney, Dario Franchitti, Carpentier, Regan Smith, Kyle Petty and Nemechek. Tough times lay ahead for these guys.

• Yeah, that’s right. Mark Martin was in the race, too.

Postscript:

I found it odd that it took Toyota, through its PR department, nearly three hours after the race to distribute an official statement on its first Sprint Cup Series win to journalists at the track.

Sunday’s win had been expected since Daytona, and I would have thought the Toyota PR wizards would have had something already in the can that could have easily been distributed within minutes of Kyle Busch crossing the finish line.

And I felt it was extremely odd that TRD’s senior vice president and general manager Lee White mentioned Roush in his comments on the victory.

It brought a smile to my face that Jim Aust, vice president of motorsports for Toyota, referred to the win being a “fabulous feeling” and “the feeling can’t get any better” which echoes Toyota’s former sales pitch line of “Oh, what a feeling.”

Congrats Toyota on your long, sought-after first win at the Cup level.