Jimmie Johnson Extends Chase Lead With RIR Win
Saturday September 8, 2007
Jimmie Johnson claimed ten additional bonus points for the 2007 Chase for the Cup by winning tonight at Richmond International Raceway. Johnson now takes over the point lead as the Chase begins next week in New Hampshire. Jeff Gordon will start the Chase in second, twenty points behind Johnson since Gordon has two fewer wins so far in 2007.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. was not able to pull off a miracle tonight and did not qualify for the 2007 Chase for the Cup. After suffering another mechanical failure Junior has to be looking forward to joining Hendrick Motorsports in 2008 where he hopes to find better equipment.
Comments
I was glad for Jimmy but Jeff had more laps it front at least. Dang Threasa sure is giving Jr. some bad engines. I have to wonder if she had them do it. I know he will do so good next year and kick their butts.
Earnhardt perhaps should consider loosing the Jr. in his name and drive the great cars he will get next year. His engine failures should be a source of interest. He has displayed an uncanny savvy in the face of his current owners incompetence
Nice Race Jimmy….The chase is looking like Jimmy,Jeff or Tony..but might just get pretty exciting.The New cars at Richmond were not the greatest but they will get better every time they come back to a track.2008 is going to be different …there are going to be some new face’s up front…To bad for Jr. It’s a tough deal but it happened to Tony last year and he made the best of it…so will Jr.How About that David Regan..Wow….Nice race!
It sure seems funny to me that the other DEI Inc. cars never blew their engines.
Also I think Dale did better when Tony Eury was not there.
Nice to see Jimmy with BUD hat before race what a team for 2008 GO HMS !!!
Yes it was so good. They even said it on the show but then that is Speed.ESPN is stupid and does not do a good job. I sent them a message about the bad job for the racing. So far no one likes it.
Well please forgive me. I have been so ill this weekend. I finaly feel good enough to turn the ol laptop on while Im still in bed. I missed everything yesterday. Anyway I read that Jimmie got the win (WAY TO GO JJ)!!! I also hear that JR is out. Blew-up yesterday??
Someone correct me if Im wrong (since I still feel yucky)and cant think right. Didnt DEI make an engine deal with someone earlier this season? Seems like it was RCR — or was it HMS? Either way it seems like the RCR cars have very little engine failures, AS does HMS cars. Somebody on this thread mentioned TERESA sabatouge!!! Could be !!! or could it JR sabatagoue?? Or finaly (this may sound stupid) could it be plain ol BAD LUCK??
Oh 1 more thing! Remember earlier in the year when I said “WHAT IF JR WENT TO GINN RACING”? Well thinking back, wouldnt that have turned out simply hilarious since GINN racing is now DEI.. Food For Thought.
I’m going to have to give nascar a pat on the back, someone in the organization saw the fan base slipping back when and conveniently scheduled the Richmond race on Saturday night so that they wouldn’t have empty grandstands on opening day of the NFL, at least somebody is using there head.
i always say that good things come to those wait & who are patient. for d. jr the sweetest revenge comes to those who wait & are patient. hang in there we still believe that you’re one of the best out there ,so does HMS…
did anyone notice how we seemed to miss all the restarts during the broadcast?
they even threw the green while we were at commercial and had another caution before the commercial was over!
i’ve seen espn/abc use the split screen for indy cars, why not nascar?
THEIR COVERAGE SUCKED!!!!
I did notice the missed restarts. Is it an IRL thing, or a ABC thing that during the IRL race they do the “side by side” deal where you have the commercial (nessesarry evil)playing in a large box and the race shown in the smaller box. You do not miss hardly anything.
Maybe it is because they can fit the 18 IRL cars in the box and cannot handle the 43 Cup cars! To much going on. LOL!!!
I really get tired of listening to Rusty. I couldn’t stand his arrogance when he was driving, and still cannot stand it today.
Maybe the driver is responsible for the blown engines with the way he drives. Why would the owner need to sabotage the engines and make DEI look bad? They already do in most peoples’ eyes. Maybe it’s the crew members. They have been known to push the envelope when setting up the engines and they may have sabotage the engines knowing they may be without a job next season, but wouldn’t that make them look bad too. Maybe Jr revved the engine to blow it up to have another excuse for his poor showing this season, etc. etc. etc. This is all sounding like a bunch of conspiracy B.S.!!! Just get over it!!! He didn’t make the chase.
GoMarkGo, you are correct. I had the oppertunity a while back to tour DEI and get to many places most would not. I had the oppertunity to go thru the engine room. In speaking to one of the techs, they stated that Jr. is very hard on engines. When I questioned deeper, he stated there are many ways drivers can be harder on engines than others, like how they get in and out of the throttle on the track. He mentioned that Jr. is one who really leaves the pits much harder than others which is hard on engines.
Conspirancy? Nah. That only happens on “Conspiracy Thursday”.
Why would’t you get on it coming out of the pits for track positin? Every competive does that. Over reving could cause problems but that is moitored by The crew chief and the head B all the time. I disagree on thier call! I guess next year could tell a lot in the NASCAR program totally. If Tony, Denny and whineo all quallify 35 or father down the list like Toy-O-Lets are doing this year then JGR will know he made a mistake won’t he?
modoc, that is a good question, and one that I asked as well. I was told these engines are very sensitive. There are different ways of accellerating and decellerating. When you leave the pits, yes you want to get out of the pits as quick as possible. But as soon as the jack drops and you pop the clutch and mash the gas to the floor, you will get more tire smoke than accelleration. It is much more of a science than I can explain here. Same with entering and exiting turns. You can feather the throttle more and save on engine wear verses coming in / out and feathering less. Tne tech told me that the way Jr drives is much harder on drive trains. Although it may seem minimal, it could be the difference in the engine expiring with 60 laps to go and finishing the race.
Thank you 1969rs. Good response to Modoc and my entry. Was informative responses and you didn’t bite my head off for trying to blame Jr for the issue.
Just the facts sir.
Actually, Jr is a little to blame. What the techs need to figure out is how to develop an engine package that suits his driving style….but I guess that now falls under HMS umbrella now.
Until I had that oppertunity to hear it from a top engine techs mouth, I had thought that everyone pretty much drove the drive train the same way, mash the gas when you leave the pits, slow down entering corners, mash the gas coming out of the corners.
I guess that helps all of us understand a little more why one person on a team can have engine problems, and others do not.
I agree with 1969rs on the Side-by-Side thing. ESPN does a better job with the IndyCar series than NASCAR. They need to go back to how it used to be with Punch on pit lane and Jenkins in the booth. They need to do the Side-by-Side for NASCAR or the ratings will continue to go down.
I would like to know if anyone else is tired of Dale Earnhardt Jr. being the focal point of every race? After all, 42 other drivers are out there competing just as hard as Earnhardt Jr.
Dave No, Yes 42 other drivers, but most of the 43 teams are not in the spot light. There is roughly 15 contender teams out there and the rest are LONG shots. Every once in a while one have a super good day, and along with mistakes from others they may finish in the top 10. Look when jaun came in this year that is all we heard of how great he was. He may be ok in open wheel but done nothing this year, except of being the master of bumper cars. He may had been a champion in the past of open wheel but he has done nothing in nascar. So you don’t hear about him much anymore. This is what we are tired of is Rusty clean air dirty crap, And Rusty and his opinion on what is going to happen or this really concerns me crap he tells everyweek.
Since nascar wants to be like the NFL
Why doesn’t the regular season champ
get something for leading the points
instead of being penalized starting in
second place.Only 50 pts. better than
12th place.
An Opinion,
I disagree with your reasoning concerning Dale Earnhardt Jr. but I certainly agree with what you said about Rusty Wallace’s analysis of a race in progress. It is a bunch of crap.