Kahne Pulls Out All The Stops
Monday, September 4th, 2006 8:51pm CDT
By Luke, Thunder Lounge
Published on Thunder Lounge.
If you’re new around here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
[thumb:169:l:s=0:l=x]In what was a surprisingly racy environment at California Speedway last night, Kasey Kahne won Cup race at California in a fashion that returned to the teams look from earlier on this season. For Kahne, it couldn’t be coming at a better time.
In Kahne’s date with Victory Lane, not even a penalty for speeding on pit road could stop their assault on the field. While the cries of favoritism and conspiracy ring, they should stop their whining, and do it right now. The penalty was for being “too fast entering pit road”. Technically that means from the initial line, ALL the way until the car comes to a stop in their box. The controversy comes because Dale Jr was on Kahne’s bumper for about half of Kahne’s journey to his pit box. Jr peels off, Kahne continues on. Also, it could have came when he literally entered pit road and prior to Jr’s entrance. Kahne woah’s it up a bit, and Jr’s now on his bumper. These speed calls are not judgement calls. It’s a black/white issue where the computer says you’re speeding or not. Not the tower. It’s not a conspiracy to make sure Jr makes the chase, or anything of the sort. Convincing some of these “hypocrites” is another matter.
Kahne’s win couldn’t have come at a better time for the team. Having spent their last mulligan weeks ago, they needed to lead the most laps and win the event. They did. They moved from 90 back of 10th, to just 30 points behind as they head to Richmond Saturday night.
There has also been a call for the driver winning the most races that isn’t in the top 10 to be eligible for the chase. This is a crap theory. NASCAR has always been about consistency. Kahne’s won 5 races now, which moves him up a notch from the tie at 4 with Jimmie Johnson. The reason this is a crap theory or plea, what have you, is that there is a reason why Kahne’s not in the top 10. If he wasn’t winning, he wasn’t much of anything. He’s had far too many races of less than stellar performance, for which his point standings show. People cry that it’s not fair. How is it not fair? That’s like saying it this way, “Joe Blow won 5 races, and so what if he was 43rd in all the other 21 races. Joe Blow should be eligible for the championship.” It’s flat out ridiculous to think this way. Under this line of thinking, you can see how ridiculous it is in our example. Kasey wasn’t finishing 43rd the other 20 races thus far, but it’s the same principle. You get in by being consistent. Kahne’s year obviously hasn’t been as consistent as 10 other drivers.
The race at California saw 3 wide battles, and lots of racing. Although some of those passes could be attributed to some cars being looser than other while the sun was up, but not near all of it. It was definitely a better show than back in February, for which many a fan is most certainly thankful. However, how many people in the Easter time zone stayed up until midnight to see Kahne win, or even 11pm in the central time zone? Far less than would have been watching had it ended a few hours earlier, no doubt. While NASCAR is growing in the west, the majority of their fan base is still east of the Rockies. Something they usually seem to remember, but ending at midnight on the East coast is pushing it. Even for one event, two actually because the Busch race was an even later start but a shorter race, it’s asking a little much from the largest concentration of fans. Then again Bristol, Richmond, and other night races usually end at close to the same time out East, so is it really THAT big of a deal? Or perhaps is it a gasping plea from the area for the Southern 500 to return?
Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?
Filed Under: Nascar, Nextel Cup
Trackback URL for: Kahne Pulls Out All The Stops
Loading...
