RCR, then came the field as Jeff Burton blazes Bristol

By Luke, Thunder Lounge
Published on Thunder Lounge.

It ain’t over, ’til it’s over.

With 5 to go, Burton was running 5th. A Top-5 at Bristol is an accomplishment, but the race was far from over as they came to the green from a caution with 11 to go.

Tony Stewart, Denny Hamlin, and Dale Earnhardt Jr stayed the course while the rest of the cars on the lead lap came in for tires. With the restart, Kevin Harvick started in 4th, followed by Burton and Clint Bowyer.

Stewart jumped out to a slight lead, which was quickly erased and removed entirely by Denny Hamlin. Along came Harvick to the inside of Stewart, Kevin lost it and slided up into Stewart who backed it into the fence bringing out the caution with 2 to go and setting up overtime. As this happened, Burton squeezed by Harvick who slid in behind Burton.

Hamlin lead the attack to the green, white, checker finish but had fuel pickup issues which let Burton, Harvick, and Bowyer slip by to the outside for an RCR 1, 2, 3 finish.

Wow.

Up until that point, it had been another episode of Joe Gibbs Show, with all three leads taking the credit. Kyle Busch was strong, and possibly the strongest car in the field. However, JGR had a power steering box failure for the second week in a row, but this time it bit Rowdy instead of Denny. He went into the corner, in the lead no less, and just lost it.

Denny and Tony were also very strong, with Stewart leading the most laps [again] yet failing to seal the deal. We know what happened to Hamlin, who ended up 6th. Stewart finished 14th.

For the 4th time in 5 races, Dale Earnhardt Jr. carried the banner for Hendrick Motorsports by finishing 5th. Next best from the stable was Jeff Gordon in 11th. Jimmie Johnson brought it home in 18th, while again Casey Mears found his luck payments still due and ended up in 42nd.

Roush wasn’t bad at Bristol either. Greg Biffle carried the flag with a 4th place run, Matt Kenseth was 10th, and Carl Edwards was 16th. David Ragan was the first car not in the Top-20, while Jamie McMurray brought up the rear of the field after an early accident where Dario Franchitti slipped and punted him to the fence.

It was Bristol, what else can you say?

I counted no less than 4 lines, and there were probably more. There were 3 lanes through the corner, although the middle and top were all but on top of each other. Naturally you had your bottom, and also the diamond approach.

It will be interesting watching this track surface age. After its debut last August, a little more wear on it should make it quite interesting. When you have a track where people leave their tickets in their will, you know it’s going to be good.

Bristol did not disappoint.

Next up is Martinsville in two weeks, as the Cup Series takes it’s first off-weekend for Easter. After that, it’s time to pound down them beers at the one and only, Thunder Lounge.

Share your thoughts!.

Filed Under: Bristol, Craftsman Truck Series, Drivers, Jeff Burton, Nascar, Richard Childress Racing #31, Sprint Cup, Teams, Tracks

Tagged As: Bristol Motor Speedway, Clint Bowyer, Denny Hamlin, Jeff Burton, Kevin Harvick, kyle busch, Rowdy Busch, Tony Stewart



Trackback URL for: RCR, then came the field as Jeff Burton blazes Bristol

By Luke, Thunder Lounge
Thursday October 25, 2007
9:38am UTC
Published on Thunder Lounge.

That’s right folks. It’s that time again. The time when Thunder Lounge goes from words to actions, fires up that Earnhardt Smoker, and hits the lights for yet another event at Texas Motor Speedway.

We’ll take a quick aside here and ask a quick question to Mr. Bruton Smith. Laid Back what? We’ve got the drop on that by miles, so where’s the love? Hey, we kid because we care, and we’ll keep a plate warm for ya.

Back to the topic at hand, once again Thunder Lounge will be in the infield at Texas Motor Speedway for another weekend of fun and entertainment.

You can only walk through the souvenir trailers so many times, and play so many games of cards. So grab your cooler, and come check out our live DJ, and live music featuring Texas’ own Randy Brown!

If you’ve been there, you know Mardi Gras can’t even compare to the crowd and fun to be had when Thunder Lounge takes over the entertainment duties. Come one, come all, and we’ll see you next weekend!

Share your thoughts!.

Filed Under: Busch Series, Craftsman Truck Series, Nascar, Network News, Nextel Cup, Texas, The Chase, Thunder Lounge, Tracks





Trackback URL for: See Atlanta, Keep On Driving To Texas

By Luke, Thunder Lounge
Sunday September 23, 2007
3:43am UTC
Published on Thunder Lounge.

Have you ever wanted to win free stuff? Here’s your chance to win a genuine, silicone wristband from the Thunder Lounge before anyone else has a chance to get their hands on one!

The bracelets are 100% silicone, of high quality, and exclusive to the Thunder Lounge. They are a tiger stripe print, with “Thunder Lounge” screen printed in a nice blue.

We’ll be heading to Texas Motor Speedway with over 8 dozen of these bad boys, but two lucky readers will have the opportunity to sport the latest in Thunder Lounge gear before the Lounge Lizards can get their hands on ‘em at the track.

So, the rules are simple.

We’re going to ask a question, and the first correct answer sent in to the Lounge will have one of the fine bracelets mentioned above delivered by that nice postman that makes his rounds 6 days a week.

Multiple entries will be discarded, and in turn will negate your original entry as well. In other words, only one entry per person/household will be allowed for this one.

Please add the subject of “Trivia Question 1 Response” to the form, and also include a valid email and postal address.

We’re willing to ship overseas, provided it isn’t horrific. If you are overseas, and have a US address it can be sent to, please use that.

Your information will be kept in the strictest of confidence, and only used internally (I’m the only one who will see it ) for the purposes of this contest.

Now, onto the show.

The image above is one of hundreds we snapped at Richmond a couple of weeks ago. In the image, which of those 3 “yahoo’s” on the Raceday set was “jacked up on Mountain Dew”?

Good luck!

4 comments. Add your 2 cents!.

Filed Under: Busch Series, Craftsman Truck Series, Nascar, Nextel Cup, Richmond, Tracks





Trackback URL for: Thunder Lounge Triva: Round 1 of 2

By Luke, Thunder Lounge
Thursday August 23, 2007
9:30pm UTC
Published on Thunder Lounge.

Jacques Villeneuve.

What’s that, Doc?

According to an Associated Press report, the former F1 Champion will be testing a truck for Bill Davis at Chicagoland. According to Jacques, BDR knew he was interested in NASCAR and their people got a hold of his people, etc.

Jacques Villeneuve has been to BDR for a seat fitting, getting along well with the crew, and they plan to test at the aforementioned Chicagoland speedway this coming Monday.

Jacques Villeneuve hasn’t raced on an oval since his last hiatus in the IRL in 1995. After getting the boot halfway through the 2006 F1 season, he’s kinda been in the skids. No pun intended.

This being the case, it’s yet another convert to a more competitive form of racing. As per the report, Jacques would like to ease into NASCAR vice jump right into the fire. That being the case, one has to wonder since BDR just happens to have an opening for 2008 in its Cup operation.

Share your thoughts!.

Filed Under: Chicagoland, Craftsman Truck Series, Nascar, Nextel Cup, Tracks





Trackback URL for: Ganassi Is To Montoya As Bill Davis Is To…

By Luke, Thunder Lounge
Tuesday April 10, 2007
3:21pm UTC
Published on Thunder Lounge.

Copyright © 2004 – 2007 | Thunder Lounge | All rights reserved
Content may not be distributed or republished without permission.

And we’re not kidding. If you’re republishing our content, without our explicit written permission, we will pursue a course of action.

Apologies to our readers, but some idiots out there just don’t get it.

Back to the show.

3 comments. Add your 2 cents!.

Filed Under: Busch Series, Craftsman Truck Series, Damn Good Points, Nascar, Nextel Cup, The Soapbox





Trackback URL for: A Word To The Wise

By Luke, Thunder Lounge
Saturday March 3, 2007
12:45pm UTC
Published on Thunder Lounge.

Do it. Do it now.

Make your plans to attend the greatest party on earth. Mardi what? Spring Break huh? Nope, there is no comparison to letting loose and partying all weekend at the Thunder Lounge.

Our first event for 2007 is set to rock at Texas Motor Speedway for the Samsung 500 weekend April 13th-15th, 2007.

Don’t waste your money on a grandstand ticket. Grab an infield ticket, and come find us. We’re in the center of the infield, just east of the garage area. In other words, get into the infield, find the center of the garage area, and turn towards the back stretch. If you “get lost”, ask someone. One of the friendly EMS folks from Greater Dallas EMS would be more than happy to help you find the party.

So gear up, bring your own “beverages” and a stack of beads, and let’s rock. As a note, if you stick around into the wee hours of the morning, or think you might, we recommend parking on the south side of the track. They tend to close the north entrance, and it’s quite a detour when you walk out the south and around the track to the other side. You’ll definitely need an extra beverage or two.

For your convenience, there are several hotels in the area, and most keep it reasonable even with the weekend activities.

Live music usually every night, plus a DJ, plus more fans than you can shake a stick at. We’ll be having various contests throughout the weekend, with prizes and the whole lot.

Appearing and performing again is one Mr. Randy Brown. Always a favorite, he’ll knock your socks off and plays with intense heart and soul. No “Great White Fiasco™” here folks. Pure music, all night.

When there’s action on the track, we’ll have the radio feed playing if available, and don’t forget the infamous 2nd floor view. So bring your sunscreen, relax, and enjoy a weekend at Texas Motor Speedway.

Share your thoughts!.

Filed Under: Busch Series, Craftsman Truck Series, Nascar, Network News, Nextel Cup, Texas, Thunder Lounge, Tracks





Trackback URL for: Make Your Plans For April, And Texas Motor Speedway

By Luke, Thunder Lounge
Sunday February 25, 2007
9:24am UTC
Published on Thunder Lounge.

NASCAR is reportedly in talks with Jet Blue Airlines, based out of New York, about becoming the “Official Airline” of NASCAR.

Reports are that initial commercials are going to feature people sitting and waiting in traffic after a race, and then sitting and waiting for endless hours on a flight. The catch phrase for this commercial will be “At least one of these has DirecTV”.

Sarcasm at the Thunder Lounge? No, never. Not here.

OK, this one was just too good to pass up. A wide open door that said “Welcome, Luke” that just couldn’t be ignored.

Maybe ol’ Brian and his buddies should look into an “Official Magazine” of NASCAR. We hear that Mad Magazine is interested. Hey, one Newman to another might make for an interesting commercial blitz.

Share your thoughts!.

Filed Under: Busch Series, Craftsman Truck Series, Nascar, Nextel Cup





Trackback URL for: Wait In Traffic, Or On The Plane

By Luke, Thunder Lounge
Sunday February 25, 2007
8:53am UTC
Published on Thunder Lounge.

Is anyone surprised by this? Jeff Gordon being on top at California? You shouldn’t be surprised that he’ll pace the field to the green today, not being the only driver with multiple wins (3) at the track, and a record there that speaks for itself. Then again, overall, it’s tough to find a track where this guy hasn’t had success. What the team has to face now is that no California winner has ever come from the pole. If the Truck or Busch race are any indication, don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched.

Mark Martin looked to have the truck race wrapped up Friday night, yet some “inconvenient” contact from Hornaday on the second to last restart put Mark through the grass and opened the door for Skinner to sneak into Victory Lane to give Toyota their second piece of hardware in a row.

Then we have Mr. Roboto here. Patience and keeping up with the track conditions made for yet another Kenseth Busch win. His 22nd win, in 200 starts, in the series came without too much fanfare. Jeff Burton had a pretty fast car, as did Kyle Bush as well. In the end though, clean air and good calls kept Matt in the hunt as he walked off with the win. The only challenge coming from Casey Mears, in the 24′s first appearance in Busch Series competition since 2002, and while Mears made the charge, he needed another 5 to 10 laps. But he was coming though, and it at least provided a little hope of a battle to the checkers. In the end though, Katie was sending text messages on her way to greet Matt in Victory Lane. The interesting battle was actually behind Kenseth as Burton, Edwards, Mears and Bush battled for the spots behind Kenseth. Allowing Kenseth to pull out to a little over 2 seconds, Mears finally broke through and cut Kenseth’s lead in about half in 10 laps. Give or take.

Then we have Mr. Waltrip waiting at the gate. With only one car left to qualify, he was sitting on the bubble Friday afternoon. The remaining car? David Reutimann in Michael’s own #00 entry. One has to wonder what the call is there. Team orders? Do your best and let the chips fall as they may? Both cars having to make it in on speed, one was going home. Reutimann put it in the show, sending his boss to the house for the first time this season and putting the team orders rumor to bed. Unless the team orders are to do your best and let the chips fall where they may.

Toyota again put half its cars in the show. Blaney was guaranteed with owners points from last season, Jarrett used his 2nd provisional, Brian Vickers put his Camry in 15th, and then Reutimann. Essentially the same lineup from Toyota as last week, just swap Waltrip for Vickers.

I don’t see Vickers missing too many shows this season. He’s always been rather good in qualifying, and was at Daytona as well. However, as we all know, Daytona 500 qualifying is its own beast.

So as we head into the afternoon, we’ll have some initial stories to follow. One that deserves mentioning is Roush. Watch that team, and the whole team. McMurray’s always been good here, as have the other Roushketeers. Biffle was taking everyone to school a year ago, until he blew a motor in the closing laps.

Share your thoughts!.

Filed Under: Brian Vickers, Busch Series, California, Craftsman Truck Series, David Reutimann, Drivers, Greg Biffle, Hendrick Motorsports #24, Jamie McMurray, Jeff Gordon, Mark Martin, Matt Kenseth, Michael Waltrip, Michael Waltrip Racing #00, Michael Waltrip Racing #55, Nascar, Nextel Cup, Roush Racing #16, Roush Racing #17, Roush Racing #26, Team RedBull #83, Teams, Tracks





Trackback URL for: California Cleanups

By Luke, Thunder Lounge
Friday February 2, 2007
4:56pm UTC
Published on Thunder Lounge.

How better else, can you explain the little screen shot to your left?

You can’t. Naturally the title is a little strong for around the Thunder Lounge, but how else can you describe the fiasco which has been, and still is NASCAR.com and what is supposed to be the crown jewel and “sacred ground” for all things NASCAR.

If I turned out a site like that, I’d put a bullet in my head. OK, so what about the Lounge? Yeah, it needs a face lift worse than anything, but we’ll get to that come March.

So back to how exactly NASCAR has taken it in the shorts, and most assuredly the wallet.

First, it’s just plain “fugly”. Let me be more frank. 1998 called, and they want their site back. Maybe that isn’t strong enough. But it’s better than the last piece of junk they called the home of NASCAR. However windows 98 was better then windows 95, and it was still a p.o.s. if you recall. Of course, then again, if it says microsoft windows it’s a p.o.s. regardless. For those interested in a better alternative, and smart enough to know what the term “total cost of ownership” means, have a look at the worlds most advanced operating system to free yourself from standing in line to jump off the cliff with the rest of the lemmings.

Second, and still, it still miserably fails validation, and the errors aren’t minor ones either. I wonder what NASCAR fans with disabilities think of the site? Hmmmm.

Third, the page size is still bigger than Rosie O’ Donnell, which as we all know is pretty damn big. Needless to say, it still loads slower than molasses in January during a real winter up north.

Need I go on? I’d rather not, but my final bags on it for this article are navigation and page width. If I want to have my browser open alongside another window while I work, I get a horizontal scrollbar. If I feel like using the real estate of my 23″ wide screen LCD, I get a lovely shade of gray surrounding the site. I’m guessing it’s about a #CCCCCC, give or take a bit. Then there’s the navigation. Where’s the convenient links to the main articles for the week? You mean I have to dig for them, and wade through all this other crap and wait on umpteen page loads?

Sorry, I’ve got better things to do with my time. Like scour the web to bring you all something worth reading.

Final thoughts: I don’t know if I’d call this an improvement or not. Best I can do from my eyes is call it different. I will give it one plus though, which is it seems there’s less advertising per square inch with this latest fiasco. Not that I’m saying ads are bad. Services cost money, and that has to come from somewhere. However the old site had more ads per square inch than content. With this one, it seems that the content has taken the lead. However it isn’t by much, and most likely is because instead of a fixed width for an 800×600 browser, it’s a fixed width for a 1024×768 window instead.

Does the new site upset you? It should. You helped pay for it. Well, you did. Through your support of NASCAR and their sponsors. I for one, am not pleased with what I helped pay for.

5 comments. Add your 2 cents!.

Filed Under: Busch Series, Craftsman Truck Series, Nascar, Nextel Cup, The Soapbox





Trackback URL for: NASCAR Got Screwed

By Luke, Thunder Lounge
Friday January 19, 2007
8:19am UTC
Published on Thunder Lounge.

You may have read about this, maybe not. However it was initially causing a bit of a stir. What was being proposed was a merger between XM and Sirius, the two satellite radio companies. As you know, NASCAR (races, etc) was exclusively on XM up until January 1st, when its content switched to Sirius.

The rumors of a merger, with XM initiating it due to their larger subscriber base (~7.5M to Sirius’ ~6M), stocks of the two companies had seen nice gains since the rumor leaked. However FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said Wednesday that the merger is something that isn’t going to be a possibility. Back in 1997, when the licenses were granted for the two companies to begin operations of broadcasting radio content via satellite, a restriction was put in place to keep a monopoly of the budding industry in check. This restriction was that the same entity could not own both of the companies. Following his comments shares of XM fell almost 10%, their biggest dip in 8 months, and shares of Sirius feel about 7% for their biggest dip in the past month or so.

So what does this mean for subscribers? Nothing, really. Unless you hadn’t heard about the switch to Sirius and were all excited about the XM system you got last month. Oops! But hey, if you’re stuck with your XM stuff, at least you’ve got the Boneyard to keep you company.

3 comments. Add your 2 cents!.

Filed Under: Busch Series, Craftsman Truck Series, Nascar, Nextel Cup





Trackback URL for: XM And Sirius Merge Doomed To Failure