FanHouse Texas Motor Speedway

The chaos of Lap 3 last Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway certainly tossed the NASCAR world into a frenzy.

When the dust settled, version one of the No. 48 Texas Chevrolet became version two and both Mark Martin and Jeff Gordon failed to add the word "clutch" to their 2009 resumes, one point about NASCAR's most dominant driver became exceedingly clear.

Jimmie Johnson, point being, is still the de facto guy to beat for the 2009 Sprint Cup championship -- and it's going to take plenty more Texas-like highly unlikely events to keep three-time from becoming four-time.

Notes, quotes and a dash of commentary from a NASCAR weekend in Texas.

What a difference a crew chief makes.

Kyle Busch, a Sprint Cup nobody in the last few weeks, rocketed back to his expected form with new team leader Dave Rogers calling the shots Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway. Busch had the dominant car and led 232 of 334 laps before a fuel miscalculation or a blind shot at a win kept him from making history by being the first driver to win three races in one weekend.

And strangely, Busch's old form of letting his crew chief do the post-race talking returned, too.

Where: Texas Motor Speedway
Time: Sunday 3:15 p.m. EST
TV/Radio: ABC, PRN Radio
Twitter: @FanHouseRacing
Forecast: Mostly cloudy, Low 70s
Distance: 334 laps (501 miles)
Pole Winner: Jeff Gordon
2008 Winner: Carl Edwards
Ladies and gentleman, there was nothing wrong with last week's race at Talladega -- if you ask Tony Stewart or NASCAR.

This week, each of them blamed the fan uproar solely on the media (mainly ESPN) for ultimately putting such ideas about the bad racing at Talladega into the heads of fans. Race fans, Stewart and NASCAR feel, were induced with propaganda by television to believe that they were getting shafted by NASCAR.

While Jeff Gordon's win at Texas Motor Speedway was a big deal to most of us, it wasn't as significant as we've all made it out to be. Sure, he broke a 47-race winless streak and snagged a win on one of the two remaining tracks he hadn't conquered, but the whole incident was terribly overplayed and revealed just how much of a slave Gordon is to his own success.

While Gordon had never before visited Victory Lane at Texas, how quickly we forget the man led a bunch of laps and landed many top-five finishes at the 1.5-mile venue before.

Sunday afternoon, the longest drought in between wins in Jeff Gordon's Sprint Cup career finally came to a close with a 'W' in Texas Motor Speedway's Samsung 500. Here's a quick look at No. 24's drought by the numbers:

14,037 - Laps completed between victory lane visits

540 - Days in between wins for Gordon [Lowe's, Oct. 13, 2007 - Texas, April 5, 2009]

447 - Total laps led in 2008

394 - Total laps led in seven 2009 races

For the first time since October 2007, we don't have to hear about Jeff Gordon's winless streak.

Gordon went from worst a year ago at Texas Motor Speedway to first on Sunday to win the Samsung 500 and cement the No. 24 as a legitimate championship contender.

Where: Texas Motor Speedway
Time: Sunday 2 p.m./EDT
TV/Radio: FOX Sports, PRN Radio
Forecast: Sunny, 62 degrees
Distance: 334 laps (501 miles)
Pole Winner: David Reutimann
2008 Winner: Carl Edwards


For the sake of racing in general let's hope that Saturday's Nationwide Series race at TMS will have been nothing like Sunday's Samsung 500. Missed that race? Well, here's all you need to know: Kyle Busch, Kyle Busch and, yep, more Kyle freakin' Busch.

The old cliché 'what a difference a year makes' couldn't have rang more true for Michael Waltrip Racing's No. 00 Friday afternoon at Texas Motor Speedway.

A year ago, that No. 00 driven by Michael McDowell suffered one of the single-most violent crashes in NASCAR history as it first slammed the turn one wall before rolling multiple times down the track in qualifying. McDowell, miracuously, was uninjured.

Friday, though, David Reutimann continued his hot start to the season in the No. 00 by taking the pole for Sunday's Samsung 500.

You've really got wonder if now-former New Hampshire International Motor Speedway owner Bob Bahre really believes the words that are coming out of his mouth:

"He didn't make any promises, I want to make that clear," Bahre said. "But I don't think he's going to move any dates out of here.

Bahre's speedway was sold last week to Bruton Smith's Speedway Motorsports, Inc. SMI owns the tracks of Atlanta, Bristol, Infineon, Las Vegas, Lowe's, and Texas.

There was rampant speculation last week -- including here at the Fanhouse -- that Smith would immediately move one or both of New Hampshire's Nextel Cup race dates to Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Smith denied that such a plan was in place during the announcement, but he didn't necessarily say anything that denied the move could happen, either.

Now we've heard Smith deny that, but he also gave another plausible idea:

Ship a date away from Atlanta Motor Speedway.

If you think about the idea, it makes sense on the level of selling tickets. Atlanta had noticeably open seats two weeks ago while NHMS has sold out for years. Obviously, Atlanta is a bigger market, but California has proved how much that doesn't matter when it comes to selling tickets.

So one date at Atlanta for two at NHMS and Las Vegas? I don't know what I think about that. The history in Atlanta -- albeit an old configuration -- might be a little too much.

What say you?

Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway gave me that feeling of something I haven't seen in a while.

Most likely, I had that feeling because, well, I hadn't.

Sunday's race, the third win in-a-row for Jimmie Johnson, had a grand total of 55 loop lead changes -- the most NASCAR has had in a race since it started keeping tabs on the data provided by the several different scoring loops around the track.

Yes, NASCAR stars of today swapped position, for the lead, multiple times, with much at stake. Awesome!

I can imagine that those high numbers could be easily chalked up to a couple of quality battles -- side by side nonetheless -- that happened during the Dickie's 500 for the lead. (The best example starts at about 8:41)

First, it was Denny Hamlin vs. Matt Kenseth with less than 100 laps to go. Hamlin drove like he hasn't won a race in awhile to battle Kenseth for the lead for several laps. Swapping the position back and forth, Kenseth finally got the better side of the deal when Hamlin lost control of his No. 11 Chevrolet off of turn two. Hamlin never spun the car, but he impacted the wall hard enough to end any chances at a win (starts about 7:57).

Kenseth luckily avoided Hamlin's mess to find himself dueled in another battle in the closing stages on the event.