Coca-Cola 600: NASCAR Racing At It's Not So Finest

Another week at Lowe's Motor Speedway, and another week where I'm pretty puzzled by some of the things I saw.

I guess the first thing to address is the track itself. H. A. "Humpy" Wheeler, the track president, decided a while back that it would be a good idea to diamond grind the track in order to smooth out the surface, which had become quite bumpy and rough. The idea was that it would give the track a workable high groove through the corners, which would allow for more side by side racing. It didn't really work, but it did make the cars go a lot faster because of the increased grip, and we ended up with a record setting 22 caution flags as a result. So now, everyone wants to know what is going to be done to the track to prevent a repeat of the horrible racing we saw Sunday when the circuit comes back to Lowe's in the fall. I have the solution,and there is no need to make any changes to the track. To improve the quality of racing, simply exclude Martin Truex, Jr., Brian Vickers and Dale Earnhardt, Jr. from participating.

Continuing that thought, let's talk about Earnhardt for a moment. To give him credit, Junior doesn't cause a lot of wrecks, but when he does cause one, it's usually a doozy. Sunday night was not an exception. Coming through the quad-oval, he flat ran over his DEI teammate, Michael Waltrip, setting off a wreck that also collected former champs Terry Labonte and Matt Kenseth. Junior said that he didn't mean to hit Michael and maybe he didn't, but replays from several different angles all showed that he didn't do much to avoid it, either. I can think of two scenarios here: 1) He became delusional, thought he was at Talladega and decided to bump draft Michael, or 2) He saw a blue car, thought it was Jimmie Johnson, and decided to give JJ a dose of some of the medicine he's been handing out this year. Either way, it got ugly and Labonte ended up having to go to the hospital to have his foot examined. I'm guessing that on his ride to the hospital, Terry (who had a few run ins with the original Dale Earnhardt as well) had to be thinking, "What did I ever do to the Earnhardts to make them feel like wrecking the hell out of me every chance they get?"

Then there's Brian Vickers. Just last week, during the Nextel Open, Vickers nailed Mike Bliss in the rear bumper and wrecked him. Just this week, Vickers nailed Bill Elliott in the rear bumper and wrecked him. Last week, Vickers came through unscathed and won the Open. This week, Vickers wrecked - a victim of circumstances he created. Last week, Vickers invoked the "Jimmie Johnson It Wasn't My Fault Amendment". This week, Vickers started to invoke the Amendment once again, but suddenly stopped and took responsibility for the wreck. Why the change of heart? Was it because this time he'd wrecked a NASCAR legend and one of the most popular men ever to sit in a car? Or is it more likely that he realized that even though he's just a few months shy of 50 years old, Awesome Bill is one tough dude and is still perfectly capable of whipping a "young gun's" butt?

And how about Martin Truex, Jr.? He finished in 7th place, easily the highest placing car for DEI, but his trip to the top ten wasn't pretty. On just the 6th lap, and evidently bored with the race already, he decided to paint the outside wall using just the right side of his car as the brush. This, of course, brought out a caution, but fortunately no other cars were involved in the renovation. Throughout the rest of the race, however, Truex kept working at his newfound interest in painting, but using the other cars as his canvas. His masterpiece for the evening was created when he sent the #41 of Casey "Never Met An Outside Wall I Didn't Hit" Mears into (you guessed it) the outside wall. Mears, obviously having either forgotten where his brake pedal is located, or what it is used for, slid down the banking and right into the path of his Ganassi Racing teammate, Sterling "Just a Racin' Deal" Marlin. (It should also be noted that the third Ganassi driver, Jamie McMurray, evidently not wanting to be outdone by his teammates, self spun a few laps later.....and then again a few laps later.) But we were talking about Truex, weren't we? (Or at least I was.) Did you ever see "Days of Thunder"? Of course you did, even though you don't want to admit it. Remember Harry telling Cole Trickle to go back out there and hit the pace car, "because it's the only car you haven't hit"? Write in Martin Truex, Jr. instead of Cole Trickle, and you have a pretty good description of the #1 car's performance.

Lest I forget, props go out to Kurt Busch. In years past, Kurt was pretty good at wrecking others, but he's refined his craft to the point where these days he wrecks himself out of races, but doesn't take anyone with him. At Darlington a couple weeks ago, Kurt blew his cool and wound up in hot water with NASCAR officials. He was quoted later as saying something to the effect that his behavior was inappropriate, especially since he's the reigning champion, and he planned to carry himself in a more positive light going forward. Fast forward to Sunday night. Did you see him shoulder the camera guy out of his path? If that's the way the champion behaves, then I guess anyone else would have just kneed the guy in the nuts, huh?

Some other notables from this "race": Travis Kvapil did a nice job of staying out front on old tires, but later, with fresh tires, he decided to make a Kodak moment out of Truex's work on the outside wall. Carl Edwards found out that the guy who drives the big brown truck has a big bad temper when hit unexpectedly in the rearend, Jeff Gordon's car was once again attacked by a track, and Bobby Labonte finished second to Jimmie Johnson after JJ made a pass on him as they came to the start finish line, proving once again that nice guys seldom win.

This was not an enjoyable race for anyone - participant or spectator, and I'm sure pretty much everyone was just glad when it was over. On to Dover, where the only thing certain is that things will be interesting from the start.