3WideAlley.com NASCAR Forum Race Chat

Congratulations to Kevin Harvick, his fans and RCR for his impressive performance last night winning the Budweiser Shootout. Carl Edwards dominated the first part of the race, leading all laps of the first segment. Edwards, Tony Stewart. Jamie McMurray, Greg Biffle and Kasey Kahne had the best cars, but Harvick snookered Biffle and Kahne into staying out on old tires with a couple feints before hitting pit road. Biffle ended up getting taken out after the green white checker by Jeff Gordon, taking Edwards and others with him.  Since the white flag had already flown, that froze the field with Harvick in the lead, Followed by Kahne in second, McMurray in 3rd.

Click here for final results

Sunday Before The Daytona 500 (Saturday this year because of Super Bowl)

First, the front row is locked in based on qualifying time trials that happen on the Sunday before the Daytona 500. Each driver gets two laps alone on the track to post their best speed. The top two drivers from that qualifying session are locked in and will start the Daytona 500 from the front row.

Just fantastic racing tonight in the “East meets West” All Star race! Finally some live stock car racing, and it was a great one!

Most of the race was a battle between 16 year old Sergio Pena and Joey Logano, but on the 25 lap shoot out at the end, Matt Kobyluck got into the mix and slowed down Sergio enough to give Logano the win. This 16 year kid was amazing! Joey was way better on the restarts and usually got the lead, but Sergio stuck to him like a mad dog chasing the post man and would take the lead on the long runs. After a late caution with ten laps or so to go, Joey got the lead on the restart, and Kobyluck starting in 3rd behind Sergio,  outgunned him and took 2nd. Sergio fought his way back by Kobyluck, but didn’t have enough time to catch Joey.

It was back in the mid 80’s: 03 (03champkenseth Taz’s daughter) and I used to go to this little 3/8 mile track on Saturday nights. Quite a few of the the NASCAR drivers would come there to race after they ran the Grand National races on Saturday afternoon. We had to wait quite a few times for Morgan Shepherd to get there. Other drivers who would show up were: Harry Gant,  Bill Elliott, Tim Richmond and Bobby Labonte (when he was first getting into racing). Ahh the good ole days !

Anyway , there was one guy who was the track champion for a couple of years. His name is  Tim McGuire. He was in his early twenties then and he was awesome! (mine and 03s opinion) We got into arguements with other fans, and there were fights between the drivers because they thought Tim cheated. Anyway, to get to now … he has a son named Michael McGuire, and  it looks like he could possibly be someone to keep in your minds a few years from now! He is 13 years old now and is already a track champion at one of the tracks here in North Carolina. I was very impressed with him after reading this article and wanted to share it with you all!

The association with the Eury’s and the Earnhardt’s goes back more than three decades, when Tony Eury Sr. accompanied his long time Kannapolis, N.C friend Dale Earnhardt Sr. to Daytona in 1976. Racing in the NASCAR Sportsman series (later to become Busch Grand National) Earnhardt finished 13th in his  first race there. Eury continued to work on Earnhardt’s cars,  traveling to select races on a part time basis through to the 80s before joining Earnhardt’s company  DEI full time in 87.

As crew chief at DEI, Eury  Sr worked with an assortment of drivers who took turns driving the Busch cars, including Neil Bonnett, David Bonnett, Bobby Hillin, Ben Hess, Micheal Waltrip, Steve Park and of course Earnhardt himself. His biggest challenge came when Dale asked his friend to mold an up and coming young driver that had very little professional stock car racing experience - he was asked if i could make a driver out of Dale Earnhardt Jr. The partnership produced immediate results, with Tony Eury Sr as his crew chief, Dale Jr collected 13wins  34 top 5s and back to back Busch Series championships (98 and 99) The inevitable leap to Nextel Cup came with just 5 races in 99 and full time in 2000. Eury Sr remained Dale Jrs crew chief  to 04,winning 15 races. The Winston All-Star race and the Daytona 500 before he turned the reigns over to his son Tony Eury Jr full time.

With the number displayed on the car sides and top, it’s easy to tell your chosen driver. Some numbers are more famous than others and will always be associated with a particular driver, but that number may be synonymous with equally important history. Following are a few examples,

#3
Automatically you think of the late great Dale Earnhardt (who ran it  1981 to 2001) but several other drivers ran this number, including Dick Rathman, David Pearson, Junior Johnson, Buck Baker, Buddy Baker, Cale Yarborough, Charlie Glotzbach and before Earnhardt took the wheel. Richard Childress himself drove with it from 1976 to 81. No driver has since run that number in Cup and Richard pays NASCAR a fee to keep it that way.

Well, finally something for us non Danica fans to get a little excited about this off season! It’s been reported that NASCAR is considering reversing some of the unfortunate rules and changes they’ve made in recent years…. maybe they read Knight’s article on 3WideAlley.com on that very subject! The final straw that broke NASCAR’s back in their resistance to fixing past mistakes!

Below are some of the possible changes NASCAR is considering. It’s very late to be making such major changes to the car, I hope NASCAR allows a lot of extra testing! However, if this is the price we have to pay for the changes, so be it I guess!

Increased front end travel. This is the change I’m most excited about. Starting with the COT, NASCAR limited the front end travel to about 3.5”. This gives the teams a very small box to work with to get their cars to “set” into the corners. There’s only so much a crew chief can do to keep up with the changes on the track during the race with so little to work with. You can’t change A-arms in the pits! Also, with the box so small, and the cars all so similar, even the discovery of a relatively small improvement can translate into one team blowing away the field during a race.

Well I think it’s time to pull out my soapbox and throw my 2 cents in.  I think it is time for new leadership in NASCAR.  Changing the rules every year only tends to cheapen the sport. Not to mention piss off the fans. I have an idea.  Lets go back to the way it was pre-Brian (the brainless) France taking over.  I think that the Chase is the worst thing for NASCAR unless your a Jimmy Johnson fan.  Fans are starting to lose interest in the sport because of him winning year after year. I’m starting to think that when the economy picks back up your still going to see empty seats because fans aren’t happy with the racing the C.O.T. is providing. Take that stupid wing off the back of that car and put the spoiler back on. I know the Shootout and the All Star race are non points races but leave them alone the previous rules worked fine for alot of years. If you want more cars in the races just add more cars. Make it the number of cars you want and go by points if your not qualified for it. Some times I think they brought the Keystone Cops out of retirement to come up with some of these rules. I do think that the rules for the Shootout are better this year. Last year was just about the car manufactures not about racing. I just think we need to go back to the old school racing.  You know what they say “If it isn’t broke don’t fix it”.  I do think the double file restarts are a good thing that’s the only rule in the last 10 years I like.  JMO….. Knightslider

Happy Birthday Mr. Nutter!!!

and

Happy 29th Anniversary Mr. & Mrs. Nutter!!!

Alan Dennis Kulwicki (December 14, 1954 – April 1, 1993), nicknamed “Special K” and the “Polish Prince”, was an Winston Cup Series racecar driver. He started racing at local short tracks in Wisconsin before moving up to regional stock car touring series. Alan arrived at NASCAR, with no sponsor, a limited budget, and only a racecar and a borrowed pickup truck. Despite starting with meager equipment and finances, he earned the 1986 NASCAR Rookie of the Year award over drivers racing for well-funded teams.

After Alan won his first race at Phoenix International Raceway, he debuted what would become his trademark “Polish Victory Lap”.

As we bring the end to another year and we start making New Year’s Resolutions that may last a week, we think back over the past year to the joys of the birth of a few future new members, some who have had some illness and are now well on the rebound. We celebrated one 21st birthday and others that have wanted to started counting backwards. Some have felt the disappointment of having to buy all new gear because their driver switched teams or sponsors and others that found the joy of true love. We have seen history with a 4th Championship in a row and other drivers that would just as well forget the season never happened. We even crowned the first 3wide Chase Champion. What 2010 holds we will not know, all we can do is pray for health and happiness in the coming days. Always remember you have the thoughts and prayers of us all during you daily routines. In the next year I hope as many 3wide members can meet one another as possible, so our worldwide “Friendship” that we have built grows even stronger. Shall we never forget those men and women in uniform that serve and protect us daily for us to have our daily freedoms.

Happy New Year!!!