Nextel Cup warm-up race result. (Busch spolier warning)

[MikeH]

1 1 #20 Denny Hamlin Chevrolet Rockwell Automation 185/5 147 Running
2 5 #17 Matt Kenseth Ford Ameriquest Mortgage 180/10 147 Running
3 4 #64 Jamie McMurray Dodge Jackson Roscoe Foundation 170/5 147 Running
4 8 #6 Mark Martin Ford Ameriquest Mortgage 160/0 147 Running
5 13 #16 Greg Biffle Ford Weyerhaeuser iLevel 155/0 147 Running
6 21 #5 Kyle Busch Chevrolet Lowe's/Sta-Green 150/0 147 Running
7 17 #21 Kevin Harvick Chevrolet U.S. Coast Guard 146/0 147 Running
8 2 #60 Carl Edwards Ford Henkel 142/0 147 Running
9 35 #18 J.J. Yeley Chevrolet Vigoro Ultra Turf/Home Depot 138/0 147 Running
10 16 #138 Jason Leffler Chevrolet Great Clips 134/0 147 Running
11 3 #9 Kasey Kahne Dodge Lipton Tea 130/0 147 Running
12 24 #157 Brian Vickers Chevrolet Mountain Dew 127/0 147 Running
13 10 #11 Paul Menard Chevrolet Menards/Moen 124/0 147 Running


ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ 

[LongislikeKulwicki]

Carl Edwards wrecks Kertus Davis. NICE!!

[Probowler299]

Carl Edwards wrecks Kertus Davis. NICE!!

But you know it was a fine piece of driving by Carl to keep from wrecking himself as well. 

[LongislikeKulwicki]

Agreed. Carl Edwards is such an amazing driver. Kertus Davis should be banned from NASCAR because he is such a horrible driver. He's just as bad as that geezer Mike McLaughlin was. What kind of loser drives for a single car team?

BLEEEEEAAAAAGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!! You see how easy it is to sound like a new, uneducated NA$CAR fan??

[Probowler299]

I was pretending to be a Fox analyst...but hey, sometimes you'd get the two of them confused!

[MikeH]

Agreed. Carl Edwards is such an amazing driver. Kertus Davis should be banned from NASCAR because he is such a horrible driver. He's just as bad as that geezer Mike McLaughlin was. What kind of loser drives for a single car team?

BLEEEEEAAAAAGGGHHHHH!!!!!!!! You see how easy it is to sound like a new, uneducated NA$CAR fan??

And there was me thinking you were being Larry McReynolds

[Josh]

Carl Edwards wrecks Kertus Davis. NICE!!

I watched Kertus get out if his car.   He jumped out, someone handed him a bottle of water, & he jumped under the car trying to fix it.  They tried to get it fixed, but they just couldn't.  They all, including Kertus, looked disappointed.  I felt bad for them.

[Tom]

If anyone was wondering, this was the 9th straight week that full time cup drivers have swept the top 5 in the busch race. There's only been 2 races this season where this did not happen. Daytona and Mexico.

[Trickle]

I wonder if they would have a full field if half the Cup guys didn't show?  Nashville had only 43 cars.  I think the Busch series is in some trouble without Cup guys. 

[BensonAndLong]

I wonder if they would have a full field if half the Cup guys didn't show?  Nashville had only 43 cars.  I think the Busch series is in some trouble without Cup guys. 

Id rather watch a busch race with a partial lineup with just busch racers than a full lineup with cup drivers. thats just me though.

[LongislikeKulwicki]

Short Busch fields huh? Gives the board room to enter our 23-car-team in order to collect fundings to raise money for Carl! (I'd probably be forced to park it though. No way I'd be able to get the car around any racetrack without ramming it into the wall.)

[Harry]

I wonder if they would have a full field if half the Cup guys didn't show?  Nashville had only 43 cars.  I think the Busch series is in some trouble without Cup guys. 

I echo those thoughts. Without these Cup guys, the smallest of small teams would enter Busch races and be fast enough to compete with Kim Crosby! It'd be like ARCA --- the midpackers running 5 seconds off the pace at Charlotte.

[Mattswad]

What...no mention of yet another faux debris caution to again prevent green flag pit stops?!?!  NA$CAR is getting rediculous with these this year.  They died out for a few weeks, now they're back at it.  (haven't seen any yet in the Cup race, but I'm only 80 laps in now)

Regarding Cup drivers....I know its sacrelidge, and I never thought I'd hear myself say this, but I would rather see field fillers in the race rather than all of these Cup guys.  (ugh, I think I just lost my soul, lol)  But seriously, as long as it wasn't a Cup affiliated team (like NEMCO), I would rather see Jimmy Means' team run 20 laps instead of the entire top 20 being whackers. 

For those who say the fields wouldn't be full if Cuppers weren't there, I say that the Cuppers are the reason WHY there are basicly no more stand-alone Busch teams.  They've run them out of business.  Its just IMPOSSIBLE to start a Busch series team and aspire to compete with the Cup teams.  What does this say about the health of the series?  Look at PPC, Team Rensi, Ditz-Hagslaw, Braun/Akins, Brewco, Frank Cicci, etc...all race-winning calibur and most championship calibur (as of 2 years ago) teams.  They're getting their asses handed to them every week by the Cup teams.

Some say its their responsibility to keep up.  If they can't win races, its their own fault and no one else.  That may have been true before the era of explosive spending.  Its simply impossible to emplore the amount of recources, cash, knowlege, experience and technology that the Cup teams have at their disposal. 

The worst part is that they're invading ARCA now too.  Although in smaller numbers.  But I can almost gaurantee that if (just say) Dale Jarrett or Elliott Sadler had decided to run the KY ARCA race in one of those RYR Fords instead of a rookie driver which they're constantly trying to "back down" on the throttle and not wreck the car, they would easily lap the field, just because of the recources behind the effort which aren't available to even the likes of Kimmel, Gerhart, etc...

Cup drivers are a neccesary evil in Busch though.  Sadly, they are the only drivers the fans come out to see.  (speaking generally)  I think we all realize this, but wish that SOME type of restriction be placed on the amount of races the whackers can run, or the amount of Cup teams that can enter the race.  How this can be done is yet to be discovered but I've read enough good ideas just on this board alone to lay out a good blueprint. 

But will NA$CAR do this?  Heck no.  Just read the 2nd sentence in the above paragraph.  $$$$   Money, damn that stuff can make people do some of the awfulest (is that a word?) things.

[rickmastfan67]

I just got to see the highlights of the Busch Race tonight on my local Fox Station (Fox 53 Pgh).  WOW @ the #43's blowup 5 laps into the race.  That was one big fireball.

[LongislikeKulwicki]

As the Busch Series celebrates its 25th season many have said that the second ranked motorsports division in America has lost its identity.
 
Everyone has an opinion on the matter. Do the “Buschwhackers” belong? Are they ruining the series? According to the inaugural champion Jack Ingram, nothing has changed since 1982, the advantage has always gone to those with the most track time.
 
“I complained about it long before the Busch Series. My complaint was track time. You’d go to say, Charlotte Motor Speedway, the Cup people test and test and test. Then, they’d come to the racetrack and they would practice, two to three days of qualifying. They would get in their Late Model Sportsman Busch car and practice and practice. Now, those people are going to win this race because they have more track time. It’s all about track time,” Ingram explained.



'82 and '85 Champ Ingram tells it like it is.

Photo: Phil Cavali
“Any time you can give somebody track time over somebody else, they’re going to be better. He may be a marginal Busch driver, maybe win or run good, get in to Cup and do all that track time. When he shows up with a Cup car and runs again, he’s all of a sudden way better than the people that don’t have that track time.”
 
The two-time champ knows what he’s talking about.

The reason for the over saturation of the 'buschwhacking' topic in the headlines this season is simple. Of the 12 races completed so far, every race has been won by a Nextel Cup driver while six of the events have been won by drivers running full schedules in both.
 
1990’s champion, Chuck Bown, added that the popularity and technical advancement of auto racing is also to blame.
 
“Most of the bull rings are gone. It’s all faster, high tech racetracks. You need a lot of horsepower, aerodynamics, you need all of that stuff going for you. It’s not so much the Cup driver as their teams, the powerhouses fielding three, four, five cars each. They’re covering the top 10 spots. I don’t care who you put in those cars, you can put Busch drivers in those cars in my opinion. It’s making the regular Busch teams not look so good. I kind of hate that.”
 
While Tommy Houston has numerous records in the history books; most top-fives, top-10s and most starts, one thing he doesn’t have – a vocal opinion on the status of the series.
 
“Do you all really think anything will ever come of getting the Cup drivers out of the Busch Series? I don’t, because of the people in the grandstand up there. It’s been talked about and nothing’s happened. Why waste the energy?”

Too bad it's not Kevin Harvick or Kyle Busch talking. Otherwise, NASCAR'd take their advice. Instead, it's just some old guys nobody's heard of.