(WOMR file photo)
Carl Edwards took the lead on a restart with three laps to go and went on to win Saturday night’s Sprint Cup Series race at Richmond International Raceway. The victory was his second of the season.
Kurt Busch of Furniture Row Racing finished second and Ryan Newman of Stewart-Haas Racing was third. Jamie McMurray finished fourth and Paul Menard fifth.
Now that the regular season is over, the Chase has begun, the pretenders have been separated from the contenders, and “it is time to let the big dog eat”!
Movers and Shakers
Even though I am “Leon Your Humble Sheriff”, it is time to blow my own horn! I have been able to pick back-to-back winners, Kyle Busch and now Carl Edwards, to start out the third segment. For that I was able to secure a pair of 47 points Sundays!
For Matt Kenseth’s sixth place finish at the Federated Auto Parts 400, Zee was rewarded 39 points. That made her the second highest scores Saturday night.
Edie had a very good race, scoring 37 points, all thanks to Jeff Gordon finishing in eighth place.
There were five players that predicted that Kevin Harvick would win the race. Harvick did not win the race, however. Nevertheless, Harvick did deliver 33 points to Dawn, “A&M Aggie Sue”, “Richard The NASCAR Picker”, “Bernie The Bay Area Bandit”, and “Marc The Powder Coat Dude”.
Lastly, Kasey Kahne delivered a reasonably good point day to Carlton, Jim, and Carole, giving them each 30 points.
As always, early on in the segment there was a mass movement in the standings. On the positive side of the graph, the biggest climber of the week was Edie. Her 37 point day allowed a climb up in the standings of four (4) places, moving her from 16th to 12th place.
Following Edie’s climb in the standings was Zee. She moved up three spots, from 13th place to 10th Saturday night.
“Marc The Powder Coat Dude”, “A&M Aggie Sue”, and “Dan the Numbers Cruncher” each stepped up two positions in the standings.
Notwithstanding all this positive movement this week, the single largest mover of the week was “David The Mudslinging Throttle Jockey”! Unfortunately his movement mimicked his racing luck over the last two weeks, not good. David picked “Mr. Five-Time”, Jimmie Johnson, at Richmond, and as David’s luck has emerged, it was not a very good choice. Jimmie Johnson finished in 40th place, yielding David a paltry 4 points, thereby plummeting him seven (7) places. That put “David The Mudslinging Throttle Jockey” perilously close, just three (3) points, from his familiar place, “in the crapper”!
Both “Jerry The Buschwacker” and “Jeremy The Coach” dropped three (3) places in the standings this week. Following Jerry and Jeremy, there was a group of three players who declined two places in the standings. Those three players are Marc, Jim, and Carole.
Straight From The Crapper
This week, the honor of the “crappiest pick of the week” is a no brainer! “David The Mudslinging Throttle Jockey” is the winner, hands down, no competition whatsoever! His sum total of points Saturday night is a single digit, four (4) points!
It appears that there is a much tighter race for “The Outhouse Award”. As of now, there is a tight race for the crapper front door! The point spread among the bottom six players, Carole, Jim, Marc, David, Carlton, and Edie, is only seven (7) points! So this little race within a race could be quite interesting to keep an eye on this segment.
Next weekend the Chase begins with the race at Joliet, IL, better know as Chicagoland Speedway.
Ten races, twelve drivers, one championship, who will be the last man standing?
TIL NEXT TIME, PULL HOUR GLOVES UP, FLIP YOUR VISOR DOWN, AND LET’S GO RACIN’!