99 wont appeal penalty

Just a quick bit of news, the 99 Office Depot Ford of Carl Edwards will not appeal his penalty for the infamous loose lid fiasco. So the 100 point penalty, $100,000 fine and 6 race suspension of crew chief Bob Osborne will stand.

Sunday's Top 10

1. Toyota- 40 races into Toyota's NASCAR career and they have finally entered victory lane. This makes them the first foreign name manufacture to win in the top series since 1954, when Jaguar claimed a victory. They also have 3 drivers in the top 10, last years top Toyota finisher was Dave Blaney in 31st.

2. Kyle Busch- Rowdy has been on fire this year and was finally able to close the deal in Atlanta. He is first in the standings 73 points ahead of Greg Biffle and he has led the most laps this year with 329 to second place's 183.

3. Bobby Labonte- He had a 12th place run and managed to finish on the lead lap, a major accomplishment considering most of the field didn't. Labonte is just outside of the top 12 (cutoff for the chase) and has been running very strong so far this year. He even managed to pick up 5 bonus points for leading a lap.

4. Brian Vickers- After finishing last year outside of the top 35 he is now 9th in the standings, what a difference a year makes. He also picked up his first top 10 performance of the year. The most amazing thing, he is doing all this with basically no real teammate (the 84 has made one race).

5. Tony Stewart- He starts 32nd and drives up to 2nd place on what he called the worst tires he has ever drove on. He losses some points on the over-exaggeration of the tires, but he can drive.

6. Matt Kenseth- He starts towards the back of the field due to car troubles and races his way into a top 10 finish.

7. Dale Jr- That car was unstoppable during the first portion of the race, it was terrible during the middle of the race (he was getting sideways on the straightaway), and it was good enough to get a 3rd place finish in the end. He was up and down, but he kept himself in contention when it was bad. If not for getting caught up in the Casey Mears wreck in Fontana he would likely be 2nd in the standings.

8. Gregg Biffle- Made a mistake towards the end, but he had a great car that was capable of winning. Still he finished 4th and is 2nd in the season standings, he has been great so far.

9. Nascar- This was the highest rated Atlanta race over the last 5 years and a 19% gain from last year. It is also more than likely going to beat ABC/NBC/CBS for the time slot.

10. Dale Jarrett- He finished 26th which was amazing considering how bad he looked in qualifying, but this is more of a nod of appreciation to Dale as this was his second to last race before retirement.

Tire Problems

Tires were the major story of this past weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Sunday was of course the running of the Kobalt Tools 500 at NASCAR's fastest track, which was anything but and that, my friends, is where all the controversy started. Now if you weren't able to tune in during the race, you missed... well not much and that was the problem. It was said that the drivers were running as much as 3 second slower laps then the previous years race. Think about that for a second, 3 seconds, we are talking 30-31 second laps in 2007 and 33-34 second laps in 2008! How did that happen? Great question and the answer will depend on who you ask. 

Second place finisher Tony Stewart, never one to mince words, blamed the Goodyear tires, "That was the most pathetic racing tire that I've ever been on in my professional career." Scathing seems to sum up that statement pretty well, but wait there was more from everyone's favorite loud-mouth, "Goodyear can't build a tire that is worth a crap. If I were Goodyear, I would be really embarrassed about this weekend and what they brought here." Good old Tony, you never have to guess what he is thinking. He went on to call for Goodyear to get their act together or get out of the sport. Hyperbole? Yes, but it was not without truth. 

 

Dale Earnhardt Jr was a better barometer of the Goodyear situation. After praising the technology and safety of Goodyear tires he went on to say "This was just a bad combination, this tire at this track. Just a poor combination." Dale Jr then went on to say, "Goodyear doesn't like to hear people bashing them tires, and I don't like doing it, but I ain't going to sit here and put up with this." 

Other drivers gave the opinion that while, yes, the tires were bad, it was the combination of the tire and the COT (car or tomorrow) that made it a problem. One such driver in Jeff Gordon had this to say "it's not any one person or group's fault. It's a combination. This car, this tire, at this race track was just terrible." Others yet place a great deal of the blame on the lack of downforce in these cars, more exactly on the bump-stop. Their claim is that while these tires were bad, it was magnified by this lack of downforce. Obviously the common factor in all of this is the tire and here's hoping that they avoid this situation in the future.