Carl Edwards says “what problems” to new car critics

Sunday, April 6th, 2008 10:39pm UTC

Latest Nascar News And Info! By Charlie Turner, Thunder Lounge
Published on Thunder Lounge.

Forty two Sprint Cup drivers hated NASCAR’s experiment in stock car design after the Samsung 500 Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway.

Jeff Gordon actually parked his car early – after an inevitable spin and wall wack – and insisted that crew chief Steve Letarte “fix the dang thing”. Gordon later returned to the track to taste the results of Letarte’s efforts. The leftovers weren’t much better and after a few more laps Gordon called it a day. Jeff said that they tried every possible set-up. Nothing works for the team. That is not a good sign.

Gordon’s teammate Jimmy Johnson finished second and led sixty-some laps. All-in-all that is a big improvement from recent results, but Johnson says the new car needs help. You can’t drive it in traffic, it needs more down-force. And this is a team that has tested the new car nearly every non-race day for the last two weeks. Hell, Chad – can I hear a hallelujah – Knauss is the crew chief! If they can’t figure it out ……?

Maybe Joe Gibbs Racing can. Not according to third place finisher Kyle Busch who said;

“Was it fun to drive? No. Was it hard to drive? Yes,” Busch said. “Did it survive the day? Yes. So was it a good day? Sure.”

Kyle was asked to talk further about the car and said:

“I’m not going to answer that question. Ask NASCAR that question.”

Ryan Newman finished fourth, but flunked the post-race rectal and will undoubtedly lose points, cash and crew chief attendance for a while. Presumably because they exceeded legality in the effort to fix the problems with the car. So much for the cheating solution.

The race winner was Carl “flipper” Edwards – for the third time this year. Carl doesn’t see the problem. At all. It isn’t so much that Edwards thinks that his new cars handle any better than his competitor’s rides. He just thinks the way that they are is OK. The same for everybody, a challenge to drive for sure but rewarding to master. He likes it.

NASCAR says they have no intention of making big – or even small – changes to the former CoT. That fact may make Carl Edwards the eventual champion of the first Sprint CoT Cup Series.

The six race NASCAR honeymoon is over

By Charlie Turner, Thunder Lounge
Sunday April 6, 2008
9:05am UTC
Published on Thunder Lounge.

NASCAR’s annual silly season is off to an early start.

Last week the story was of Richard Childress Racing capturing the General Mills flag from the Petty #43 and planting it on the hood of a fourth RCR Cup car. Where there’s a car there must eventually be a driver and the speculation began that Petty Enterprises’ Bobby Labonte might make the move to that ride in 2009. The last few days have seen the names of Greg Biffle, Carl Edwards, Martin Truex Jr emerge. Earlier, others had speculated that Tony Stewart and Ryan Newman were possibilities.

Next up came the news that Kyle Petty was pulling himself or being ranked – you decide – from the Petty #45 and being replaced by young Chad McCumbee – at least for the Texas race. The #45 is well out of the top thirty five in owner’s points now and it feels like Kyle may be on the way out of the picture as a full time driver for the venerable team.

Then yesterday came rumblings from Florida, where Chip Ganassi is watching over his Indy Car investment and stewing about the performance of his three Cup teams. Chip isn’t happy with either Dario Franchitti’s or Reed Sorenson’s seasons so far. Ganassi talks as if he feels the problems are more team than driver related. But that wouldn’t make me feel all that comfortable if I were Dario or Reed.

The top thirty five qualifying rule puts more focus and pressure on the tail-enders of Sprint Cup. We’ve only had one race since the automatic qualifiers started being based on this year’s owners’ points. The sixth race of the year is now opening day for NASCAR’s silly season.

Carl Edwards says “what problems” to new car critics

The six race NASCAR honeymoon is over

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