(WOMR file photo)
Denny Hamlin won for the first time this season, holding off Greg Biffle to claim Sunday’s Aaron’s 499 at the Talladega Superspeedway under caution.
Movers and Shakers
As we have heard for years from the drivers, Talladega and Daytona races are real “crap shoots”. And that was exactly what we saw today, a crap shoot! Having said all that, some of our players really “took it in the shorts” this weekend at Talladega.
In light of the previous paragraph, I can say that we have a new leader, Carlton, sitting on top of the totem pole. Additionally, fifteen out of sixteen players moved around in the standings! That is a testament to the closeness of the competition so far this segment!
Even though there was a wide variety of picks this week, nobody had selected Denny Hamlin as the race winner. The highest scorers for the week was the Father-Son duo of “Jason The Latent Tie Dye Hippie” and “Leon Your Most Humble Sheriff”! Each had picked a former two-time Talladega winner, and third place finisher today, Clint Bowyer. Bowyer’s finish rewarded the two tie dye T-shirt wearing dudes with 41 really cool points!
“A&M Aggie Sue” grabbed a slick 35 points from “Young Money“, Kyle Larson, and his ninth place finish at ‘Dega.
“Jerry The Buschwacker” received the third highest results, 33 points, thanks to his favorite driver, TLVW (The Las Vegas Weasel), Kyle Busch. Ol Kylie had a reasonable 12th place finish after avoiding most of the flying sheet metal during the race.
After the previous three scoring groups there was a substantial drop in total points scored. Although Carlton did not rack up a big total, just 22 points for his pick of Johnson, it was enough to propel him into a very slim lead ahead of of his roommate and wife, Dawn, in The Redneck Fantasy League!
Rounding out the top five scorers this week are the two kids in the Redneck Fantasy League, “David The Mudslinging Throttle Jockey” and “Jeremy The Coach”. Both of these players had a great pick in Dale Earnhardt, Jr., and received 19 points. Junior led a total of 36 laps, and was leading at the time of the next to last caution flag. However, he fell back in anticipation of “the big one”, much to his benefit. However on the final restart, Josh Wise blocked Junior’s patented move to the very top of the track, and stymied his attempt to make it 2-for-2 on plate tracks for 2014!
As I mentioned earlier in the post, fifteen out of the sixteen players moved around in the standings. By far the majority of the players moved up or down just one spot. However, both “A&M Aggie Sue” and “Jason The Latent Tie Dye Hippie” had the largest moves in the standings, each climbed up three spots. Jason now sits in 6th place, while Sue rests in 10th place. Negatively speaking, Zee and “Karen The Highly Opinionated Southern Belle” dropped two places in the standings, to 7th and 8th, respectively.
Straight From The Crapper
To say that some of our players “took it in the shorts” is a real understatement! There were five players, almost one third of our total, that only scored in the single digits!
Come on man!
Normally I just call out the single player who really “crapped in his or her mess kit” for the week. However, this week I think that I gotta give a shout out to all of those who excelled in in their ability to pick a looser! Edie and “Bernie The Bay Area Bandit” really shined with their pick of Kenseth, and only getting a reward of 8 points. But oh yes, we have more who have done worse this week! Our resident accountant, “Dan The Numbers Cruncher” really showed his prowess of picking winners by grabbing a sweet 7 points. Way to go Dan, that accompanies your 3 and 4 points week recently! I can’t leave out Carole, who likewise picked Keselowski, like“Dan The Numbers Dude”, she too scored 7 points, as well!
Now to get to our recipient of “the crappiest pick of the week award”. Even though Marc only received 6 points this week, and is this weeks’s CPOTW winner, he still was able to stay out of “The Outhouse”, albeit by only 1 point!
Remember I said that we have accountant among us! Well the accountant, “Dan The Numbers Dude” ousted “Jerry The Buschwacker” off of the throne by one point! The race for “The Outhouse Award” is the closest since it’s inception! There is only 2 points that separate “Dan The Numbers Cruncher”, current “Prince of the Poophouse”, “Jerry The Buschwacker”, last week’s “Guardian of The Gashouse”, and Marc, who “sat on the throne” for most of this segment! It kind of reminds me of the old George Jones song, “The Race Is On”!
With just two races left in this segment, next week the road show moves to Kansas City. Good luck to all!
TIL NEXT TIME, PULL YOUR GLOVES UP, FLIP YOUR VISOR DOWN, AND LET’S GO RACIN’!