Atlanta - Top Row Seat
Dateline: 03/10/98Bobby Labonte Motor Speedway
Kyle Petty can complain all he wants that the Pontiacs are way overmatched in NASCAR Winston Cup racing. I'm pretty sure it's going to fall on deaf ears this weekend. It was an all Pontiac front row in qualifying and it was Bobby Labonte's Pontiac in victory lane when it was all over.
Joe Gibbs Racing seems to have taken a page from Jeff Gordon's playbook to bring home the win. Bobby Labonte and his crew chief Jimmy Makar kept working on an ill-handling race car until they finally got it right. Bobby took the lead during the final pit sequence with less than 50 laps to go and then checked out on the competition.
This makes three wins for Bobby in the last four races at Atlanta including wins in both of the races that have run since they reconfigured the wide race track into a high speed "Quad-Oval."
Body Count
Although I'm sure Bobby would disagree, I know of at least five race car drivers who are not big fans of the reconfigured Atlanta. During practice on friday Steve Park took a brutal ride into the wall. A broken femur, broken shoulder and broken collar bone will put him out of racing for four or five months.
During the ARCA race Bob Kelly was involved in an incident which left him in serious condition with a punctured lung, compound fracture to his leg and broken ribs. (Note: following surgery his condition has been upgraded to fair IRace) Later in the same event Mark Thompson got caught up in someone else's mess and made his trip to Georgia Baptist Medical Center with a concussion.
Monday's big race sent two more drivers to the very busy Georgia Baptist Medical Center. Mike Skinner suffered a mild concussion when his car slammed the wall. He was kept in the hospital overnight for observation. Derrike Cope gave the TV audience a thrill from his in-car camera when he blew a tire and hit the wall extremely hard. Derrike was kept overnight in the hospital but was released Tuesday morning with two cracked ribs.
Thanks again to the brilliant minds at Atlanta Motor Speedway for turning a fantastic racing facility into a one grooved dangerous race track.
Agree? Disagree? Want to throw hot spark plugs at me? I'm available in the chat room every Wednesday night at 8pm Eastern to answer questions and defend my opinion.
