Busch Wins; Smoke Burns Rubber and Open Wheel Refugees Struggle

I’ve been a bit slack in my attempts to get the F 1 season preview out of the way. Now that is done and dusted it’s time to catch up following the races at Vegas and Atlanta. Both were enjoyable races to watch. Have to see I’m loving my Sunday nights now with Nascar back on the box!

Busch wins at last!

It’s taken him four races but the evitable happened on Sunday with Kyle Busch winning his first of the season and Toyota’s first Cup series win. This is the first time since 1954 that a foreign manufacture has won at the top level of stock cars. Since Daytona, Busch has been a man on a mission and has been feisty in every race. I love the attitude and his race craft. He’s grown so much since last year, which was marred with the immature leaving of circuit early when the car was in the garage. Anyone would criticize him for that. Since his arrival at Joe Gibbs he looks a different driver. He is exciting to watch. According to the commentators he is the only man who can go 3-wide all by himself. His ability to use any part of the race track at any time is uncanny. High, low, heck even using below the apron – Busch can do it all! With Mark Martin now into a part-time schedule I find myself in need of a new guy to back and Busch’s approach to the track appeals to me. Off the track the guy is extremely likeable and his pre-race stuff at the rain-delayed Fontana was brilliant. Not to mention he’s worked the last few events doing Nationwide and Craftsman Truck over the weekend which is amazing running three races. I’m looking forward to watching ‘Rowdy’ at work at Bristol this Sunday. He won the event last year and with the form he is on – watch out.

Smoke’s Tire-ade

Tony Stewart finished second at Atlanta after a DNF in Vegas. First thing he said to the reporter was a harsh bashing of tire supplier Goodyear. I don’t think anyone would get away with such critical wordings over here in Formula One. Tony really was a tiger in his opinion over the type of tire brought to Atlanta. He wasn’t the only who were critical of the tire type, although others failed to live up to the colourful quote Smoke gave us.

I'm really excited that I didn't crash. That was half the battle in itself. Been racing 28 years and been a part of a lot of different professional series and never seen a quality of racing tire like I've seen this weekend.

If Goodyear thinks that was their best effort today, I'm really disappointed because, you know, these teams spent so much money to come here and the competition is so close.

I guess I can't say it's surprising because, I mean, they got run out of Formula One, they got run out of CART, the IRL, they got run out of World Outlaw Sprint cars, they got run out of USAC divisions because they couldn't keep up and make a quality enough product. You know, this weekend shows their true colors and what they're about. You know, they've done some great things over the years. But, you know, as technology has gone on and as the technology of these cars has gone on, they can't keep up. That's what puts us in positions like we were in this weekend as drivers and teams. It makes for a miserable day out there.

It's hard enough just to get the balance of your car from stop to stop making the changes, but then when you put tires on and don't know what they're going to do when you put them on, it makes it that much more disappointing. You know, it makes also days like today, when you get lucky enough to finish, you know, second and have your teammate win, it makes days like that great. But, man, I mean, if the rest of the year, if that's what we got to look forward to, is weekends like this, there will be a lot of drivers going into retirement a lot earlier because nobody's going to want to keep doing this like this.

It's not up to us. It's up to Goodyear. The bad thing is they've got an exclusive deal. They have no reason to have to push and make their product better because they have no competition. So I don't know what it's going to take to get them to give us a quality tire that this series and NASCAR deserves. But they obviously aren't capable of doing it right now.

Single-Seater Woes

This year saw a wave of former open-wheelers join the sport in an attempt to follow the path blazed by Montoya. They put decent stock car drivers like David Streeme, Johnny Sauter and Jeff Green, guys who put their cars in the top-35 out of drives for this season. The invasion had begun! Was this to be the start of a new era?

By the looks of it, nope. Right now with only one more race before the top-35, which guarantees drivers a race start, takes from the current standings and not the previous years, none of them are inside of it. Sam Hornish is 36^th, Franchitti lies, 38^th and Carpentier is 44^th after only making two of the first four races. The former two are locked into Bristol and need a good score to break into the top 35 or their seasons could end as quickly as it did for Villeneuve. Remember him? He failed to qualify for Daytona and the lack of dollar bills have seen him gone. To return, we’re told, but to be fair, it’s not that likely.

Of the three remaining, Hornish has looked more likely to make it. He’s shown pace and good race craft when he’s been up near the top. Atlanta was the first time he really seemed off the boil. His DNF’s haven’t been helpful to his cause.

Franchitti has been woeful. I’m sorry to fans of the Scot but he has. He’s made zero impression and has struggled in the number 40 Dodge. Lightning hasn’t hit twice for Chip Ganassi. I wouldn’t be in anyway surprised if a more experienced driver was slotted in to get that car into the top-35 this weekend, even if it is unlikely. It will happen, sooner rather than later. Dario is too green at this stage. He needs a year in the second-tier Nationwide series to cut his teeth. Not everyone can do what Montoya did and that is what they are learning.

Another single-seater refugee, A.J. Allmendinger has found himself out of his ride. After making only 15 races last year and missing the three at the start of the year, Red Bull chose to replace him with veteran Mike Skinner. The response? The number 84 made the race for the first time this year. This should’ve been the case from day one really and A.J. will be under the wing of Skinner and must take the opportunity to learn from the series veteran as he works to put the car inside the top-35. Scott Speed seems to be doing it the right way. The former Toro Rosso driver is starting off near the bottom of the ladder and working his way up to gain experience this year. The right way about it!

The perils remind me so much of Formula One when Villeneuve made the move to Europe. After his success was followed by Alex Zanardi and Cristiano da Matta. Both champions in the CART series but failed to make a impact. Even Montoya who picked up race victories failed to win the F1 title. Now the idea of plucking drivers from the US open-wheel series is more careful, with Bourdais taking a number of tests over a year before finally making the jump.

Jumping into the deep end and hoping you learn how to swim doesn’t always work. Trust me, I know from experience!