Due to unforeseen duties, I had the Las Vegas race on in the background Sunday, figuring I would turn around when it sounded like something interesting was happening.

I didn’t turn around much.

If you’re not a huge Jimmie Johnson and Hendrick Motorsports fan, it’s not a fun time to be watching NASCAR most weekends. Little happens, and the fans are being bored to tears. There is hardly any passing, let alone exciting battles for position or the lead.

It goes beyond Johnson, as the Hendrick team has shown that it is head and shoulders above the competition, with the only other team even close right now being Richard Childress Racing. Even their great start isn’t anywhere near what Hendrick is doing, and I hope no one bought that fake concern from Hendrick about how his axles were breaking.

Anyone who has watched the last two weeks knows one thing: The Hendrick teams are the best on the track (even Dale Earnhardt Jr. did decent Sunday), and one of them is most likely going to hoist a championship title come November.

Another track embarrassed
Faulty caution lights? Seriously? Millions of dollars are on the line each race and you didn’t call an electrician beforehand?
Between the Daytona pothole and this, I don’t even know what to say. It’s simply embarrassing.

NASCAR’s eagle eye on start and parkers

Dave Blaney actually got to enjoy a weekend of real racing, as the Prism Motorsports team raced the whole distance at Vegas. He finished 29th, a few laps down, but I hope that run encourages the team to try to do this more often.

Even if they don’t want to do it, they might have to. NASCAR is watching the start-and-park teams more closely, it was reported this week. NASCAR spokesman Ramsey Poston announced Sunday that the first team to pull off the track each week without any involvement in an accident will have its motor inspected. To avoid this, teams will likely run more laps, because nobody wants NASCAR poking around their motors.

It’s promising to see NASCAR finally exert some of the might it has to ensure teams run as much of the race as possible. I love giving the little guy a hand, but at the same time this is a competition and we need to limit the start-and-park before it gets out of hand.

Speak your mind, Juan
In the worst example I’ve seen in a while of teammates working together, Jamie McMurray wrecked his teammate Juan Pablo Montoya and in the process took out both Earnhardt Ganassi cars. As always Montoya was great in his interview after the wreck.

"[McMurray] runs straight into my ass," Montoya said. "He nearly ran me into the fence in [Turn] 2 as well. I don't know. I'm sure [McMurray] is going to say, 'Oh, I didn't mean that. "Every time I'm around him, he wants to run the s--t out of me. I don't know if it's OK to say that but I just did [laughing]. On the restart I was inside of him, I think he got tight and never lifted. I didn't hit the [Turn 2] fence because -- it was a miracle.”

I’d love to be a fly on the wall at the kumbaya reunion powwow at EGR this coming week. McMurray doesn’t need his teammate mad at him, and will no doubt be apologizing on a level not seen since Jimmy Swaggart back in the 1980s.


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