(WOMR file photo)
Brad Keselowski passed Dale Earnhardt Jr., who ran out of fuel exiting turn #2, to win The Kobalt Tools 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Nevertheless, Dale Jr. was able to coast to the checkered flag to gather up a second place finish.
“We took a gamble,” Earnhardt said of his fuel strategy. “But tough losing like that.”
When the fourth caution waved on lap 220 of 267, Steve Latarte, Dale Jr.’s crew chief, elected, with Earnhardt’s concurrence, to not pit and gamble on fuel mileage. The crew chief’s best guest at that time was they were 2-3 laps short. Latarte cautioned his driver to save all the fuel that he could possibly save for the duration of the race! With ten laps to go, Latarte notified Dale Jr. that they may 1/2 to 2/3 of a lap short. Latarte was absolutely correct because Earnhardt ran out of gas as he exited turn #2 on the last lap of the race, thereby allowing “Blazingly Bad” Brad Keselowski to pas Dale Jr. for the win.
Movers and Shakers
The top scorers at Las Vegas were Edie, Jason “The Latent Tie Dye Hippie”, and Leon “Your Most Humble Sheriff” scoring 40 points with Carl Edwards’ fifth place finish.
“A&M Aggie Sue” gathered up the second highest points of the weekend. She scored 39 points from “Six Pack”, Jimmie Johnson finishing in sixth place.
Dan “The Numbers Cruncher” logged a nice 36 points, thanks to Kasey Kahne’s eighth place finish.
There were five players who were dipping into the M&M’s all afternoon and rooting for “The Las Vegas Weasel”, aka Kyle Busch! David “the Mudslinging Throttle Jockey”, Carole, Zee, Jeremy “The Coach”, and Jim, aka “Chiefy” all finished up with a respectful 34 points.
As always is the case early in a segment, there was a lot of movement this week.
The single largest mover was Karen. Unfortunately Karen plummeted seven spots to rest in 12th place this week. Jerry also dropped like a prom dress, falling six places to land in 13th place.
Dawn did not have a good week either, falling 4 spots on the totem pole currently residing in 11th place.
On the positive side, Edie and Jason “The Latent Tie Dye Hippie” climbed up 3 places in the standings.
Both “A&M Aggie Sue” and Leon “The Most Humble Sheriff” moved up just two spots this week.
Straight From the Crapper
There were four players this week that were doing their best impersonation of a “looser”! Dawn and Bernie “The Bay Area Bandit” each had “Smoke” at Las Vegas. Unfortunately, the old saying that “where there is smoke, there is fire” did not hold even remotely one ounce of truth. Both Dawn and Bernie “got smoked”, scoring only 11 points for their efforts.
Notwithstanding the poor performances of Dawn and Bernie, Marc and Jerry “The Buschwacker” showed everybody just what it takes to win “the crappiest pick of the week” award! This duo gathered up a microscopic 4 points!
Speaking of Marc, his grand total for the first three races is just 18 points, or 6 points per race! The closest player that may have a run on Marc’s position as “The Prince of The Poop House”, is Bernie “The Bay Area Bandit” a long 55 points away from Marc! At this point, just three races into the first segment, I would say that Marc has almost no competition for “The Outhouse Award” for this segment!
Next week NASCAR moves to Bristol. And as always, when racing at one of the bullrings of NASCAR, I repeat my short track cautions to all of the crewmembers. Ladies and Gentlemen, this weekend check you temper, ego, and weapons at the pit gate!
TIL NEXT TIME, PULL YOUR GLOVES UP, FLIP YOUR VISOR DOWN, AND LET’S GO RACIN’!