Welcome back to another edition of Sprint Cup Notes & Quotes, where even Noah couldn't keep his boat afloat after the non-stop rain at Lowe's Motor Speedway.
Are you one of those lonely souls mad that David Reutimann snookered 'em -- yep, that's the first recorded use of that word on FH -- to win his first career race Monday afternoon?
If so, get over it. First time winners are fun to see, and when the race officially ended he was the car leading everyone else. Kyle Busch, Brian Vickers and the rest of the field didn't have to pit, but they did -- and that's just the way it goes.
I'd still like an explanation as to why NASCAR decided on a start time of 12 p.m./EDT for the Monday make-up of its longest race.
I'm not sure who makes the final call on the All-Star race format, but Saturday night's version is about as a good as it gets. That 10-lap finale? Adjectives don't describe that, but honorary race director Ric Flair's trademark "Woooooo!" does.
'Woooooo!' Part Deux
The single funniest moment of the night? Joey Logano's Ric Flair imitation after being announced as the fan vote winner. [Watch here at 1:16]
Yellow Fever - Despite 60 years of racing and 106 Sprint Cup Series events at Darlington Raceway, never had the field combined to create as many caution flags as it did Saturday night. The yellow waved 17 times for 73 laps, upping the previous record from 15 cautions.
The number of caution flags wasn't a record though as a race in 1995 had 12 cautions for 94 laps, a race in 1977 had 6 cautions for 93 laps, and one in 1974 with 11 cautions for 101 laps.
Logano, a full-time driver in both the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series and the Nationwide Series, won Saturday's Nashville 300 at Gladeville, Tenn.'s 1.5-mile Nashville Superspeedway after passing teammate Kyle Busch with just 8 laps to go.
While the Joe Gibbs Racing teammates dominated much of the day, the biggest story might be a restoration of Logano's confidence in a race car.
Are television viewers more important than full races? I think its a very valid question to wonder why NASCAR is so willing to push the snooze button later and later on Sunday afternoons with the start times of its Sprint Cup Series races.
It was just eight years ago that the Daytona 500 started at 12:30pm local time, while Sunday, it started after 3:40pm local time. The reason? Television ratings and commercial advertising rates go up the later in the day thanks to West Coast viewers and the "prime time" effect kicking in on the East Coast.
Where:Daytona Int'l Speedway Time: 3:00 PM/EDT (Green: 3:40pm) TV/Radio: FOX Sports, MRN Radio Forecast: Rain, Clouds, High of 68 Distance: 200 laps (500 miles) Pole Sitter:Martin Truex Jr. '08 Winner:Ryan Newman
The Storylines
Starting the season with the Super Bowl looks like an incredibly smart idea at the moment. Thanks to an economy that has forced the NASCAR world to talk about the economy, NASCAR racing needed to come back strong from an offseason mired with questions.
And now, your co-hosts of this little portion of the internet blogosphere -- motorsports veteran Holly Cain and myself -- are now both trackside for NASCAR's season-opening Daytona 500.
"Winner, winner chicken dinner!" might be what you're thinking, but wait! There's more!
Joey Logano should be getting ready to graduate from high school, be filling out college applications or otherwise doing things a typical 18-year-old kid does at this point in life. But Logano isn't exactly any other kid.
Instead of worrying about homework, Logano has his eyes set on becoming the youngest driver in history to start the Daytona 500 on Sunday after taking over the reigns left vacant by Tony Stewart of the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. 2009 will mark Logano's first full season in the highest form of NASCAR racing.
Last week, I had a chance to catch up Logano to talk about the upcoming season, the new NASCAR Kart Racing game for Nintendo Wii and a little on-track skirmish he had in January.
Mark Martin's invigorated. Jeff Gordon's motivated and Jimmie Johnson's confident. Such was Thursday's annual Media Day -- the kick-off event for Daytona International Speedway, which hosts NASCAR's Daytona 500 on Feb. 15.
"Sliced bread" -- 18-year-old NASCAR Sprint Cup rookie Joey Logano's most-often used nickname -- didn't exactly fit NASCAR's appetite late Saturday night at Southern California's Irwindale Speedway.
Logano, as a video a little later in the post will dramatically illustrate, was closing on race leader Peyton Sellers on the final lap of the Toyota All-Star Showdown when the Joe Gibbs Racing driver in the black No. 08 car made a bonzai attempt at the lead and slammed Sellers into the Turn 4 wall as they came to the checkered flag.
Logano ended up crossing the finish line first -- a nose ahead of then-second place Matt Kobyluck -- as Sellers spun and collected multiple drivers in a big crash. The finish, however, wasn't to be for the young Logano, winner of the 2007 edition.