"THIS IS BETTY JACK DEVINE, AND I APPROVED THIS MESSAGE:"
Welcome, gay NASCAR fans! Jimmie Johnson collected his ninth Cup win on Sunday and his third win this year, tying Dale Jr. for most wins in 2004. JJ is now just 58 points behind Jr. But the real news of the day was NASCAR itself, which seems to be deep into some kind of crazy-talking, wearing-a-bathrobe-to-church, dressing-the-cat-in-baby-clothes public nervous breakdown, unable to properly officiate and score the races, flailing madly for a system -- any system -- that the drivers can abide by and the fans can accept, or at the least, understand! Three of the last six races have now ended under caution -- a particular irony on Sunday, given that the last lap was the day's 57th run under yellow -- making for the slowest average speed at Pocono since the track's 1974 opening.
Sunday was not the best day for our DeVine 91/2 Fantasy Team, either: We only had three guys in the top 10. We've still got eight guys in the top 10 in points. Jeff Gordon picked up one spot; Jr., Matt, Kevin and Ryan held their bones; Tony, Kurt, Elliott, Jamie, Kasey and Mark lost one; and Mikey dropped back four. Mikey's Sunday was especially un-pretty in the light of the recent rumors that he may be sent packing from DEI. Note to all at DEI: I was not kidding when I said Mikey is really popular, y'all! I've talked to several fans in the past week who are about ready to call Jr. OUT over the suggestion that Mikey might be losing his ride! Don't go there, DEI!
Sunday's opening was rushed-up due to the possibility of rain, so I can't tell you anything about the ceremonies. Kasey was on the pole but didn't lead until lap 52. The cars were barely running good when the caution came out for oil at lap 2. Joe Nemechek was leading at the restart, but Jimmie Johnson stalked his way up to take the lead for laps 11-35.
The caution fell at lap 50 after Jr. ran up behind Ward Burton and got that #0 car areo-loose and spinning. On the radio, Jr. quickly did his version of Bart Simpson as the "I Didn't Do It! Boy." Kasey stayed out and grabbed him a lead lap and five points. Jimmie quickly regained the lead after the restart and everyone continued to drive. Soon, Jimmie let mates Brian Vickers and Jeffy lead some.
About lap 92, Mikey and Ryan ran out of gas. Come on, y'all! Get you some gas! (Friends, don't be like these goofball racecar drivers. Running your tank low on gas can really hurt your engine.) Mark Martin led laps 53-54 -- a good thing, too, since his Ford would tear up at lap 114, bringing out the fourth caution. The fifth was when the #18 dropped oil and the #40 and #22 went a-spinning. There were some anxious moments when Jimmie reported that he thought he had "hit something -- a small animal -- on the track." Luckily, we heard nothing further about this alarming disturbance -- sure hope everything was all right. Around lap 133, we enjoyed seeing Kasey Kahne and Casey Mears in some hot boy vs. boy action!
Now friends, here comes the part where NASCAR again seemed like the OJ trial -- I'll bet the overwhelming vibe of contention -- what my boy Ronnie calls "liticiousness" -- was summoning up the spirits of all the great TV lawyers -- Perry Mason, Matlock, Algonquin J. Calhoun, even Lionel Hutz himself!
After Ricky Craven's blow-up caused a caution, a mistake by the pit-road flagman (I told you nobody understands all these new rules) led to Jimmie's losing a bunch of positions. There was no end of fussing and fighting about this as the cars rode round and round. Look, y'all: At this point, the race was starting to remind me of one of those endless city license and permit hearings that Dixie sometimes enjoys watching on public access TV. All we needed was Judge Ito to conduct a sidebar conference, and Regis to poll the audience! As it turned out, of course, this setback offered only a brief respite from Jimmie Johnson's relentlessly untheatrical return to the front.
Poor Mikey! At lap 167, the #15 NAPA Chevrolet had a bad, hard crash. We were mighty grateful to see that big lanky Mikey climbing out, I'll tell you, and to see him primping and fooling with his luscious hair, too! The replays clearly showed the #2 of Rusty Wallace running into the back of Mikey, and when Mikey came before the camera, he served up a blistering interview, saying he was "amazed that somebody could do something that stupid" and that he "could not live" with himself if he raced that way. Mikey practically spat, he was so mad.
Directly, Rusty allowed that he was mighty sorry and had lost all his brakes, which is why he ran up on Mikey. As DW pointed out, the best evidence that Rusty's brakes were gone was that he was unable to save his own car in the wreck.
At lap 176, the #20 of Tony Stewart, six laps down after a transmission replacement, spun coming off turn 1. Robbie Gordon tore up Ryan's car. Jamie got into the front of P.J. Jones' car. Soon enough, we had a restart with eight to go! The #19 was chasing the #48.
Then Matt Kenseth passed Kevin Harvick coming off Turn 1 and really dragged the #17's tail over the #29's nose. Kevin responded by lifting Matt's back wheels off the ground. After the caution flew for the blown engines of the Dale Jarrett and Jeff Burton, Kevin spun Matt into the infield grass of Turn 3 on lap 197. On the next lap, Matt did the same back to Kevin!
NASCAR had told the drivers they would not red-flag the race for a caution after lap 196, and that's the way it was, with the race ending under yellow, as there was not time to clean up the debris from the banging #17 and #29. Other, fan-lobbed debris soon joined the car parts. One sorry SOB even threw his ice-chest, hitting the flagman, who certainly was innocent of the entire sorry spectacle and who, like everyone else, would have rather seen an exciting finish!
I want to remind all y'all NASCAR fans again -- even when you are mad at NASCAR, or at Jeff Gordon or whoever, DO NOT throw things on the racetrack! You could really hurt somebody; you could deprive everyone of the chance for a green-flag finish; and we do NOT want to give the speedways any excuse to curtail our cooler and liquor-bringing privileges!
In closing, I'll say I agree with Dixie when she said on Sunday, "It is a CRIME that NASCAR would take the only race away from a fun track like Rockingham and this old boring Pocono track still has two races!" .
A belated happy birthday to Jamie McMurray, who turned a sweet, sweet 28 on June 3! Go Jamie!
That's it for this week, y'all. See you Sunday for the Michigan 400. Let's all meet up down at the Track Bar!
Love,
Betty Jack DeVine
E ME at Bettyjack@bellsouth.net
