Join us for our 82nd(!) episode of the schmak.
Lots of awesome schmak silliness, including the gyro cam sham, Darlington’s boring opening laps, the racing that broke out near the end, and a fantastic preview of the All-Star race next week. Do you have a question about the All-Star format? Eligibility for the race? It’s all here in the latest schmak.
Picks for the Sprint Open race:
Coach: Jamie McMurray
Rob: Martin Truex Jr.
Picks for the All-Star race:
Coach: Kasey Kahne
Rob: Clint Bowyer
This week, we schmak all things Richmond.
Penalties, tires, sprinkler malfunctions, it’s all here in the weekly Schmak of record.
Picks for next week at Talladega:
Coach: Dale Jr.
Rob: Cousin Carl Edwards
On Wednesday (delayed from their normal Tuesday announcement due to Keselowski’s White House appearance), NASCAR announced penalties for team Penske involving 25 points, $100,000, and 6 week suspensions for crew and car chiefs for both the #2 and #22 Penske Fords.
That’s a pretty harsh penalty any way you look at it, made even harsher because NASCAR has not yet actually stated that anything that they confiscated was “illegal”.
Just that certain parts “weren’t in the spirit of the rules”.
Heck of a penalty for not having NASCAR spirit.
I was curious about the rookie of the year (ROTY) standings so far this year, and didn’t see anything that had them listed, so I went and calculated them out.
The basic premise is this – it doesn’t really matter where they finish in the race, but where they finish relative to the other ROTY candidates.
Highest finishing rookie gets 10 points, second gets 9, third gets 8, etc…
Or in this case, no “etc…” because there are only three declared ROTY candidates.
So here are the standings as of Fontana:
|
|
Danica Patrick |
Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. |
Timmy Hill |
|||
| Race | Finish | Rookie Points | Finish | Rookie Points | Finish | Rookie Points |
| Daytona 500 | 8th | 10 | 12th | 9 | N/A | 0 |
| Phoenix 1 | 39th | 9 | 16th | 10 | N/A | 0 |
| Las Vegas | 33rd | 9 | 18th | 10 | N/A | 0 |
| Bristol | 28th | 9 | 16th | 10 | N/A | 0 |
| Fontana | 26th | 9 | 20th | 10 | 39th | 8 |
| Martinsville | 12th | 10 | 25th | 9 | N/A | 0 |
| ———— Standings ———— | ||||||
| Rank | Points | Rank | Points | Rank | Points | |
| Totals | 2nd | 56 | 1st | 58 | 3rd | 8 |
At the end of the year, only the 10 best rookie points finishes will be counted, so Danica could catch up to Stenhouse if he has a bunch of bad days/blown engines/wrecks.
But probably not.
Timmy Hill could also conceivably be more competitive since he is scheduled for more than 10 races this season.
But the bottom line is – does anyone else care?
For the first four races of 2013, Danica Patrick has raced in 3 new and 1 almost new car.
But for Martinsville, she’s getting a four year old car, while teammate/boss Tony Stewart is getting a car built last year and other teammate Ryan Newman is getting a brand new car.
In fact, the car that Danica is driving on Sunday was last on the track in November 2010, more than 2 years ago.
Methinks someone at Stewart Haas has low expectations for Danica at Martinsville.
Full chassis rundown from Jayski.com:
Chassis No. 10-535: This car (formally No. 14-535) debuted in April 2009 with Tony Stewart at the wheel at Phoenix International Raceway, where Stewart used it to qualify sixth and lead once for 19 laps before finishing second. The last outing for Chassis No. 10-535 was in November 2010, when Stewart started 20th and finished 17th at Phoenix. The car was on standby for the No. 14 team throughout many race weekends in 2011 and 2012 but was never pressed into service. Since the end of the 2012 season, it was updated to the sixth-generation (Gen-6) Chevrolet SS configuration and transferred to the No. 10 GoDaddy.com team of Danica Patrick and crew chief Tony Gibson.
On the Dan Patrick show, Hamlin had this to say about the last lap wreck with Joey Logano at Fontana:
“If it wasn’t intentional, it’s the worst case of car control I’ve ever seen as a driver.”
In a separate ESPN interview, Logano had a different story:
“My number one goal is to go win a race,” Logano told ESPN’s Marty Smith. “So did I intentionally wreck him? No, I did not intentionally do that. If I was going to do that I would have hit him in the left-rear tire. I hit him in the door. It’s hard racing at that point.”
I tend to believe Logano has problems controlling his car. I think Ryan Newman agrees.
Mark Martin will be subbing for Denny Hamlin in the #11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota.
He was not scheduled to be in the MWR #55 car at Martinsville, but he was supposed to be in the #55 in the following three events at Texas, Kansas, and Richmond.
Does this mean more seat time for Brian Vickers? More for Michael Waltrip? It’s like a semi-silly season already.
UPDATE: This probably explains it a bit better:
MWR, according to sources, would like to keep Vickers in the 55 for as much as possible because he is the likely replacement for Martin next season.
Denny Hamlin is expected to need at least 6 weeks of recovery time. He is not expected to need surgery.
Many people point to Elliot Sadler as the obvious choice as a fill in, due to his current driving duties for Joe Gibbs Racing in the Nationwide series.
1) Biffle finished 6th, well ahead of Fontucky Master Jimmie Johnson, who came home 12th.
And it looked like he was having a decent day. I missed the boat on that one, I guess there is a reason the people paid to do pre-race analysis talked about Biffle.
Although he had to cut Matt Kenseth’s tire and pass the Hamlin/Logano wreck to get it.
2) Logano definitely drove it in too hard, and over drove the corner and caused that wreck. However, what sent Denny to the hospital was a LACK OF SAFER BARRIER ON A WALL. Haven’t we learned this lesson before? Vegas w/Jeff Gordon?
As the rule goes, if there is a chance that a car can hit any spot on the race track, it will.
We’ve seen that at Daytona this year, and at Bristol a few times with Michael Waltrip and Mike Harmon.
3) What the heck is Tony Stewart eating? Whatever it is, it’s making him angry and obese.
Also, I guess in his mind, he’s the only one who can throw a block?
EDIT: Just saw this yahoo sports article. Headline says it all:
Tony Stewart, blocking aficionado, is ticked at Joey Logano for blocking.
I saw a twitter campaign start today for voting Danica into the All-Star race.
Since Dale Jr. won a race last year, he won’t need to be voted in, so Danica won’t have to battle him for the votes.
Does anyone else even stand a chance?
Poor Bill Elliot doesn’t even have a car number.