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Tag: Amy Reimann

  • Hot 20 – If dreams do come true, why not a Dale Earnhardt 500 at Talladega?

    Hot 20 – If dreams do come true, why not a Dale Earnhardt 500 at Talladega?

    With more than a month left in the old year, talk about the new is already starting to dominate. Tony Stewart is now retired, with Clint Bowyer no doubt thrilled at the chance to get back into quality equipment as his replacement. Dale Earnhardt Jr. is getting ready to return to racing, though that message from fiance Amy Reimann seems to indicate he never really left. Greg Biffle has left Jack Roush after all these years, with his old ride apparently being put on blocks for next season.

    Dear NASCAR: Please start branding your races so they might one day become stand alone marquee events. Along with the Daytona 500, the Southern 500, and the Brickyard 400, change it back to the World 600 at Charlotte and summertime should mark the Firecracker 400 at Daytona. While we are at it, who would not want to win at Talladega, taking the Hellmann’s Dale Earnhardt 500, or STP’s Richard Petty 500 at Martinsville? A Ridgeway grandfather clock with the King’s face on the face. Hey, it is not our circus, but we have grown fond of some of the monkeys.

    Jimmie Johnson has another trinket to keep polished. NASCAR, in its stupidity, has few iconic events, we know, but Johnson has won them all. Daytona 500? Twice. Southern 500? Twice. World 600? Four times. Brickyard 400? Four more. Ten-time winner at Dover. Nine at Martinsville. Did anyone mention seven Cup championships? Is it too early to wonder about an eighth? Jimmie Johnson is a living, breathing active iconic legend of the sport. Enjoy him while we can.

    Most athletes are done by the time they hit 40. NASCAR is lucky in that way, but even at that age folks start asking the drivers “how much longer?” once they hit the milestone. Johnson, Junior, Biffle, Matt Kenseth and Kevin Harvick have already reached the peak of that mountain. The good news is that young gents such as Chase Elliott, Ryan Blaney, and Austin Dillon have already arrived, with Ty Dillon coming soon, along with the likes of Erik Jones and Darrell Wallace Jr. Those are just the ones with decent rides, either at this level or the one just below. Like XFINITY champ Daniel Suarez, for instance.

    Elliott, Cup’s top rookie, turns 21 within the week. There are 50 drivers younger than him with some experience in the Cup, XFINITY, Camping World, or ARCA series. Harrison Burton finished 22nd in a truck race, third in an ARCA event. Jeff Burton’s boy turned 16 in October. Cole Custer does not turn 19 until January, yet was 10th best in the trucks this season, with a pair of XFINITY Top Tens to his credit in just five attempts. Tomorrow’s stars are coming.

    Let us not rush things, though. 2016 gave us a nice mix of seasoned veterans and fuzzy-cheeked talent, as our Hot 20 bears out.

    1. JIMMIE JOHNSON (5 WINS – 11 T5 – 16 T10) 5040 PTS
    Gunning for eight in 2017. What, too soon?

    2. JOEY LOGANO (3-16-26) 5037 PTS
    I will never forget what he and Brittany did to honor the family of Jake Leatherman.

    3. KYLE BUSCH (4-17-25) 5035 PTS
    If NASCAR was Canadian, would Kyle be sponsored by Smarties?

    4. CARL EDWARDS (3-9-18) 5007 PTS
    Not at the front of the field in the end, but left as the class of the field.

    5. MATT KENSETH (2-8-19) 2330 PTS
    With the Biff leaving, that ole Roush gang have now all departed for greener pastures.

    6. DENNY HAMLIN (3-12-22) 2320 PTS
    Average finish over the final 21 races was 8.5. Thirtieth at Charlotte ruined everything.

    7. KURT BUSCH (1-9-21) 2296 PTS
    Was better in the first half than the second. The good news is that 2017 begins with the first half.

    8. KEVIN HARVICK (4-17-27) 2289 PTS
    Best damn driver in NASCAR this season is a champion…just not for this year.

    9. KYLE LARSON (1-10-15) 2288 PTS
    Second-best 20-something driver this season, and seems to have designs on #1 in the next.

    10. CHASE ELLIOTT (0-10-17) 2285 PTS
    Not all Rookies of the Year are stellar choices, but this one most definitely is.

    11. MARTIN TRUEX JR. (4-8-17) 2271 PTS
    Next year, Erik Jones becomes his new teammate. If the boy wins, soda pop for everyone.

    12. BRAD KESELOWSKI (4-16-22) 2267 PTS
    Brad does not think the format led to great racing last week. Brad did not have my television.

    13. JAMIE MCMURRAY (0-2-12) 2231 PTS
    Joined by Larson, McMurray gave boss Chip Ganassi a pair in the Top Five last Sunday.

    14. AUSTIN DILLON (0-4-13) 2223 PTS
    Some wags figure if Woody from Toy Story drove in NASCAR, he would look a lot like Austin.

    15. TONY STEWART (1-5-8) 2211 PTS
    As iconic as Johnson, Petty, Earnhardt, Gordon, L. Petty, Pearson, Yarborough and Waltrip

    16. CHRIS BUESCHER (1-2-2) 2169 PTS
    Proof that one race can make a season.

    17. KASEY KAHNE (0-3-13) 898 PTS
    2004’s top rookie teams with a seven-time champ, a 13-time most popular, and 2016’s top rookie.

    18. RYAN NEWMAN (0-2-10) 895 PTS
    If he had actually been driving a Caterpillar, the car would have looked better after last Sunday.

    19. A.J. ALLMENDINGER (0-2-9) 830 PTS
    If getting the wave around works good enough to claim eighth at Homestead, why not?

    20. RYAN BLANEY (0-3-9) 812 PTS
    Turns 23 on New Year’s Eve. Talk about welcoming in a new year twice at the same party.

  • Surprising and Not Surprising: Martinsville STP 500

    Surprising and Not Surprising: Martinsville STP 500

    With no practice due to a rainy weekend, the Cup drivers unleashed their pent up aggression on the short track of Martinsville. Here is what was surprising and not surprising from the 65th running of the STP 500.

    Surprising:  The closest that Hendrick Motorsports got to Victory Lane at Martinsville was the motor and chassis as Kurt Busch surprisingly took his No. 41 Haas Automation Chevrolet to the checkered flag.

    The win also marked significant milestones for driver and crew chief as this was Busch’s 25th Cup win and his crew chief Daniel Knost’s first win as a crew chief.

    Busch’s 83 start winless drought finally came to a close, with his last victory prior to this at the Monster Mile in the fall race of 2011.

    “Every time you come to Martinsville you draw a line through it; like there’s no way I’ll be able to challenge those Hendrick guys,” Busch said. “The Stewart-Haas team gave me a team to do it.”

    “It’s an unbelievable feeling to deliver.”

    Not Surprising:  While Brad Keselowski had some harsh words to say about the race winner, sarcastically ‘thanking Kurt’ after tangling with him early in the race and finishing 38th, he kept his sense of humor when he took to Twitter after the race.

    “I’m here,” Keselowski tweeted when a follower said that he would probably not be on social media for a while. “Laughing at all the hate tweets. #freeEntertainment.”

    With that difficult finish, the driver of the No. 2 Miller Lite Ford dropped three spots to seventh in the point standings.

    Surprising:  Dale Earnhardt Jr. was surprisingly disappointed with not getting a clock, even though he finished third in his No. 88 Diet Mountain Dew Chevrolet and took the points lead away from Carl Edwards.

    “Well, it was up and down,” Junior said of his race. “We ran out of tire there just trying to get by those lap guys that were giving me the top in the corner and I don’t need to be up there running.”

    “That cost us a little bit.”

    Junior and girlfriend Amy Reimann did, however, console themselves with a Martinsville hot dog as his “reward” for finishing third, tweeting a picture of the celebration from the plane.

    This was Earnhardt Jr.’s 16th top-10 finish in 29 races at the track known as the ‘Paper Clip.’

    Not Surprising:  Martinsville made for some interesting milestones, including another new winner for the season and a record number of lead changes.

    Kurt Busch became the sixth different winner in six races to date and there were a record 33 lead changes among 12 drivers, the most ever at Martinsville. The previous record for lead changes was 31, set in April of 2011.

    Surprising:  They may have been driving with heavy hearts due to the death of Miss Lynda Petty, the King’s late wife, but the two Richard Petty Motorsports drivers pulled off great finishes, with Marcos Ambrose in fifth and Aric Almirola in eighth.

    In fact, this was only the fourth time that the two RPM teammates have finished in the top-10 together, but the second time in six races this season.

    ““We’ve had a really tough week. We lost Miss Lynda.” Ambrose, driver of the No. 9 DeWalt Ford said. “We really wanted to win for them bad out there, but we’ll take a top five.”

    “I’m really proud of all the guys at Richard Petty Motorsports,” Almirola, driver of the No. 43 STP Ford, said. “If we keep running like this, we’ll get to Victory Lane.”

    Not Surprising:  The highest finishing Ford was Joey Logano, who deemed his drive in the No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford “a battle.”

    “This race is really hard, but we finished where we deserved to finish,” Logano said after finishing fourth. “That’s where we ran and that’s about all we had.”

    “I wish we had a little more.”

    Surprising:  “That’s all I had,” are words that are eerily similar to Logano’s but are not typically heard from six-time champion Jimmie Johnson. But that was his summary of the race as well at one of his strongest tracks.

    “I’d been loose in the final third of the race and was hanging on there,” Johnson, who finished runner up in his No. 48 Lowe’s Chevrolet, said. “When (Kurt Busch) got back by me, I was hopefully that he’d wear his stuff out and I could get back by him. He did but I couldn’t hold him off.”

    “I started to get looser and looser,” Johnson continued. “I ran the rear tires off the car.”

    “That’s all I had.”

    This was Johnson’s 22nd top-10 finish in 25 races at Martinsville Speedway and his fourth top-10 finish in the 2014 season.

    Not Surprising:   While most drivers are focused on the wins, Jamie McMurray was thinking about points and shaking his head.

    McMurray, behind the wheel of the No. 1 McDonald’s Chevrolet, was involved in an on-track incident with Dale Earnhardt Jr. on Lap 199 that caused him to finish 42nd and falling eleven spots in the point standings to 23rd.

    “I thought the No. 88 would be a little more patient with me. I had gotten by him in lap traffic. Then he got on my inside. When he got into me it was like it couldn’t get off and spun me around and just got into the wall there,” Jamie Mac said. “Really unfortunate had a good car, every race we’ve had good cars.”

    “You just wish you weren’t racing for points because that is the hardest part to swallow is the point’s loss,” McMurray continued. “It’s fun to run well but that is what you will think about for the next five days.”

    Surprising:  After missing the previous race week due to metal in his eye and after vowing to make a comeback and win at a track where he has the third-best driver rating, it was most surprising to see Denny Hamlin finish a disappointing 19th.

    The driver of the No. 11 FedEx Freight Toyota had ignition issues and then was just plain slow during the race.

    “Just a frustrating day, especially when you know that this is a race track that I feel like I can make up a difference here and there,” Hamlin said. “We were a football field and then some away from the right set up today.”

    Not Surprising:  Austin Dillon, behind the wheel of the No. 3 Dow Chevrolet was the highest finishing rookie, finishing 15th at the very demanding short track.

    “I had some good runs there in my truck but it was totally different in a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series car,” Dillon said. “It’s one of those races where you have to fight to stay in it.”

    “Things were definitely wild there.”

    The Cup Series will move from the short track of Martinsville to the track in Texas where everything is big for the Duck Commander 500.