The NASCAR Sprint Cup came to a dramatic end on Sunday night with Tony Stewart winning his third title in race that was twice delayed by rain and which saw not just one charge from back by Stewart, but two. In total Stewart overtook 118 cars in the course of the 400 mile race and beat his title rival Carl Edwards to the flag by 1.3 sec. The two ended the day equal on points, but Stewart win the title because he had won more races, having scored five victories in the 10-race Chase for the Sprint Cup.
Stewart qualified 15th and things went wrong from lap 14 when his team discovered a hole in the left front grille of his car. Repairs dropped him to 40th, but he then climbed up 17 places before a second stop for more repairs that left him 32nd. Stewart never gave up and remarked that “They’re really going to feel worse after we’ve gone to the back twice and kicked their butt.”
In the overall title results Australia’s Marcos Ambrose finished 19th, two places ahead of former F1 driver Juan Pablo Montoya. Next year there will be even more focus on the sport as IndyCar queen Danica Patrick begins racing in a selection of Sprint Cup events. It is worth noting also that Turner Motorsports has just announced that it will field Nelson Piquet Jr in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series in 2012. The Brazilian is also expected to run a limited Nationwide Series schedule with the team. Piquet has longterm ambitions of getting into the NASCAR Sprint Cup series…
I was sure you were going to report about last night race, Joe!
And you are right to do so. It was a fantastic battle, for a great season: fantastic race in Daytona in February, fantastic finish in Miami.
Watched it?
Wow… NASCAR. If there is ever a cure for insomnia it is that
George,
Open you mind.
Watched the Sprint Cup race last night and what a fantastic motorsport event. After 36 races, to have both title contenders 1st and 2nd for that final 40 lap stint, separated by 1.0-1.5s, a direct fight for the win and the title, edge of seat stuff. Stewart and Edwards should both be very proud, played it clean and honest right to the end. Stewart’s drive was sensational, considering all the early problems. Couldnt have asked for a better final race.
Piquet Jr did a very good job in his 1st proper season in the Truck series. Started the season pushing too much for wins and having some costly crashes in terms of the championship, but 2nd half of the season he got a lot more consistent and was always in the fight for top-5s, in particular on medium/fast tracks. Getting a lot of praise from people there, considering he’s never raced stock cars before. With the experience gained this year he should do really well in his new team in 2012.
It was truly one of the most astonishing races I’ve ever seen. Fabulous stuff. It’s amazing how good NASCAR can be when they don’t mess around with the running of the race.
Stunning drive by Smoke; Edwards was class in defeat.
I watched the last 100 or so laps last night – my first ever live viewing of a NASCAR race, having only ever seen highlights on Youtube before. It is certainly very different to F1 but I wouldn’t call it boring at all. The strategy calls, passing of backmarkers, fuel saving, etc all exist in F1 and the lower formulae, but have different interpretations in NASCAR (I still chuckle at the thought of Alonso having only ‘right side tyres’ changed to save a bit of time!). Any true motor racing fan can’t help but be drawn into it.
118 overtake by one driver and I till didn’t watch…. Bernie, are you reading this?
@ George,
There is far more to motorsport than Vettel, Hamilton, et al pummelling around circuits worldwide every couple of weeks.
Thank you so much, Joe, for the report about this great battle. Tony Stewart is a legend now and he’s a true fighter for sure!
And it’s very interesting how Danica will exert herself in NASCAR next season, driving full time there.
@ joesaward
who said: “George, Open you mind.”
Indeed: http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/359098/are-nascar-fans-stupid
George you can be sure many NASCAR fans feel the same about F1
Watching them go round and round and round and round just lacks that thrill. There is also the fact that it lacks that extra dimension because at the end of the day the person and car who wins isn’t the best in the world; not because it’s not a world championship but because the cars aren’t the best and the drivers aren’t the best. Then you have the people that watch it…
I recently came back from 3 months in Australia and they have [I think it's called] V8 Supercars. From what little I saw it is far more interesting.
It was a great race last night. It took a while to get going but after the long rain delay just before half way the race came alive. Smoke was on it all night and was so good that there was only ever going to be one worhty winner
Good to see Smoke winning, makes a nice change from Jimmie Johnson that’s for sure!
Joe, apologies for commenting off-topic, but I wonder what you make of this. Apparently this guy’s been recieving an unprecedented number of hits from attwilliams.com since another Venezuelan blogger, who often links to him, started reporting about the possibility (now confirmed) of an investigation into the PDVSA sponsorship. As he says, it looks like they’re worried.
Duncan,
I have already reported on this
It’s nice to hear that Nelson is getting a second chance in life. Hopefully things work out for him.
Wonder if people know that Tony had to lose a ton of weight to fit in the McLaren at Watkins Glen. One of the reasons Tony stopped dreaming of Indy is that he couldn’t fit in the car anymore!
doodzed,
Yes, but yesterday he drove like a angel!
Great race / finish & Smoke’s car was on rails!
NASCAR is third in line in the racing series that I follow & got into it when JPM moved over a good few years back.
Its pure out & out racing, no other way to describe it & who doesnt like that?
Dont enjoy the short tracks so much but it’s always interesting.
Cameras / telemetery & info available to fans is also top notch (F1 could learn a thing or two with the quali grahics alone).
An enjoyable season, roll on the next one.
#letsgoracingboys!
NASCAR has its moments but every race needs to lose at least 100 miles.
Tony Stewart is one of the most colorful characters in any form of motorsport, and I’m glad he won in such an exciting way. He’s one of those guys (Jeff Gordon, too) who had the talent to compete in Formula One or any other series.
Lewis Hamilton showed great admiration for Tony when they exchanged rides at Watkins Glen. That speaks volumes.
Great race last night. Caught an ad for Mobil too where Hamilton is ribbing Stewart about fitting into his F1 car and Stewart says he needs to get Hami a child seat so he can see out the Nascar. They market the personalities so much better than F1.
George,
In this era of “ride buying” it’s hard to argue that any series has “the best drivers in the world”. The best drivers in the world are scattered all over the place.
Race was one for the history books. Smoke went to the back and raced himself to the front and felt to the back again and raced aggressively to the front again. Classic and as the winner of half the Chase races deservedly the champion.
First time since 1993 that a driver/owner won again. Some quotes after the race:
“I had a lot of help from Rick Hendrick. He was very thoughtful about what he told me. His words were, ‘I don’t know why you want to get in this sport, but if you want to be in this sport, I’m going to help you lose as little money as possible.’’
“Rick talked to me on the phone one night and he goes, ‘I’m not going to let this fail,’” Stewart said. That’s words that I have never forgot. And there’s been times when I’ve had to call and say, ‘Hey, I don’t know what to do, I’m kind of stuck. But I need your input. I just need somebody to tell me if what I’m thinking is right, wrong or indifferent.’
“And he’s been really strong in that role with me. So you’ve got to have people you believe in. You’ve got to have people you trust.”
I’ve fallen asleep watching F-1 more often than while watching NASCAR. Any sport can be a bore if you don’t take the time to learn the nuances particular to that sport. It’s easy to just slag it off as boring if you are ignorant. It’s the easy and lazy path to take. No one has mentioned that Jenson Button was in attendance at Homestead. Any racing series could only wish that their season finale would wind up with the same circumstances at what happened to NASCAR. It was a dream scenario.
@George;
Take thy closed mind elsewhere, if you dislike it so, why bother commenting?
Not as huge fan of NASCAR as I once was, but anyone should be able to appreciate yesterday’s race for what it was; exciting. That, in spite of the rain delay
The sport still needs to tweek is points scoring. For The Tiger to win 5 of the 10 chase races and Edwards only one during the season ,and to be tied in points at the end is somewhat laughable. If Carl had won and Tony finished second, Carl would be the Champ.
But a great race.
@bloomsm –
Yup getting Lewis’s endorsement is definitely biggest highlights of Tony’s career. I am sure the energy gained from that solid recommendation must have contributed immensely in Tony’s title campaign
Robert,
i totally agree with you about the marketing. NASCAR’s 36 points races and two non-points races put the drivers in front of the fans nearly year-round. this plus hours upon hours of tv coverage for 9 months out of the year really gets the fans involved with the drivers, learning their personalities and their personal lives. it’s unbelievable how wide-open their off-track lives become.
doing this across just four time zones and in just one country (a short trip to canada aside), makes it easier than the worldwide marketing of F1.
still, this past year was amazing and having stewart win the title by winning 5 of the last 10 races is truly stunning.
this F1 can can’t wait for daytona next february.
Is that the round and round in a circle one? The one with no data other than speed of cars?
To be fair after reading the stig’s book I do realise there is some skill involved other than what is obvious.
But we cannot watch it in the uk so…..
The topic has gone but listening to An Aside with Joe today (No 45) after reading this week’s Moneyweek.
The traffic in India, may be dire but the Indians have only 14 vehicles per 1000 people whereas in China it is 46 per 1000 and 809 per 1000 in the USA.
Potential eh?
@cloggie
since 1992 and not 1993.
At last, someone other tham Jimmie Johnson has won ‘The Chase’!! Tony Stewart is a great guy and a great racer. It’s really good to see him win after all his struggles as an owner-driver.
@rpaco,
If you are lucky enough to have Sky, all the races are shown live every week.
@Oradis
The Chase was implemented in 2004 after Kenseth became champion with a single win in the season.
Kurt Busch won it that year, Stewart won the 2005 championship. Stewart is not the only other one.
Interesting to see you mention Marcos Ambrose. He is an incredibly good driver and was set to re-write the record books in v8 supercars. As a fan of his it’s good to see him doing well.
rpaco
> Is that the round and round in a circle one? The one with no data
> other than speed of cars?
Um, it’s a car race, what other data do you think crucial? The daily calories permitted of F1 jockeys so they can fit in the cars?
George
> Watching them go round and round and round and round just lacks that
\> thrill. There is also the fact that it lacks that extra dimension because at
> the end of the day the person and car who wins isn’t the best in the world;
> not because it’s not a world championship but because the cars aren’t the
> best and the drivers aren’t the best. Then you have the people that watch it…
A magnificent broadside of ignorance and arrogance, all in one… good job!
Face it, you have zero basis for claiming that F1 has the best cars and the best drivers. Now, if your claim was about the most expensive, then you’d be on to something.
Re: the cars, F1 cars are designed to serve performance in the most narrowly limiting of all circumstances. They perform according to the most narrowly defined portfolio among F1, IndyCar, and NASCAR. The latter two must perform in more drastically ranging racing environments than does F1. Even then, the most recent point of comparison shows IndyCars were within just a few percent of F1 performance at Montreal, despite the fact that top team budgets were then $400m vs. $20m. Given that IndyCars were so close at 1/20th the price while still having to perform in a much wider range of environments raises a whole lot more questions about F1′s superiority than it answers.
As for drivers, exactly what reason have you to claim F1′s Top 5 to be better than the Top 5 from elsewhere? I think it fair to say that your only evidence is personal bias. Now, to be fair, F1 does exclude a fair portion of top American drivers who are not sized like horse jockeys. But any current series that would not permit racers like Dan Gurney and AJ Foyt to have a go against the tiny tots has some ‘splainin’ to do
p.s. I like F1 best, but people with silly opinions such as yours make it harder to do.
Excuse my ignorance but which channel broadcasts NASCAR in the uk? I’m intrigued
George
What are “the best” cars in the world? F1? Well, it can easily be argued that LMP1 Sports Cars are better cars. And what about WRC? Dakar cars? Those VW Tuaregs are amazing. Considering the technological limitations applied on NASCAR, the teams are doing a huge amount of advancement.
Best drivers? Montoya is in NASCAR and he finished around 20th in the championship this year. No, he wasn’t the best in F1 but if you’re after a benchmark.
Tracks? Ovals take different skills to win on, not better skills or worse skills.
Your general dismissal of NASCAR means that you’ve never truly looked at the sport. You may have watched a race or two but if you don’t put a similar amount of effort into NASCAR as you would say, F1, then you won’t get the same enjoyment.
@Leigh O’Gorman
It’s not live on Sky Sports any more, they only show highlights. It’s live on some obscure subscription channel which isn’t worth the money if you’re not a hardcore fan of NASCAR.
Sorry, Joe, so you did. Must’ve missed it. I won’t take up any more of this thread.
NASCAR does an outstanding job connecting with fans. Their race coverage on the website, with 8 different camera views available to everyone, is mind blowing. If only, I could stand oval racing… and I have tried more than once. F1 should look at NASCAR, not for the racing, but for the promotion, which far outstrips anything the F1 bosses have come up with so far.
As a life-long NASCAR fan (since 1967), this was one of the best! Truly a “Checkers or Wreckers” drive by Smoke! Great job by all concerned!!
Abhijeet Gaiha
> NASCAR does an outstanding job connecting with fans. Their race
> coverage on the website, with 8 different camera views available to
> everyone, is mind blowing. If only, I could stand oval racing… and I
> have tried more than once. F1 should look at NASCAR, not for the
> racing, but for the promotion, which far outstrips anything the F1
> bosses have come up with so far.
Like you, I find oval racing to be not my favorite. That said, NASCAR does various things right:
1. Promotion, which everyone seems to agree about.
2. Television. Better use of the medium, IMO. This includes superior attention to keeping the viewer informed about who’s doing what. In contrast, F1 requires the viewer to do personal study to be able to recognize which cars are on camera. As for customization, when I last had DirecTV, multiple channels were freely available to all viewers for each given race. This allowed the viewer to choose which car’s cameras shared priority with general race coverage. Tired of seeing the race through the eyes of Driver-A? Just change to the channel for Driver-D. All in all, despite more frequent changes in the racing order, NASCAR makes it easier to track the standing of all cars. F1 TV manages to make poor use of the limited tools that it does have, such as the onscreen graphic showing car position on the track… which is shown for only a few seconds per race when it clearly deserves more display than it gets.
3. Maintaining constant interest. In general, races are weekly. F1′s norm of a 2-week gap between races, plus a month-long break mid-season, is anathema to maintaining the intensity of interest that is routine for NASCAR’s audience.
4. Using the current vernacular, while none of the top drivers are among the 99%, NASCAR is much better at camouflaging this fact. In general, all of American racing manages to present its drivers as enjoying the racing public and appreciating their chances to speak about what they do. This is true regardless of the driver’s nation of origin, e.g., Wheldon was as American as they come in his attitude towards contact with fans, and Dario does better with the media than anyone in F1 than I’ve seen. (Not saying they all enjoy it, but they do a good job of at least pretending to like it.) In contrast, F1 seems to position its entire enterprise as being of a different class that can’t be bothered. Not that they’re rude, just that they’re nice in the inaccessible way that Prince Charles is nice. That may not matter in many places, but it’s not a big hit over here.
(Now, in fairness, maybe F1 does have weekly TV shows with top F1 drivers taking questions from fans, and we just don’t get to see it over here. Is there such a thing?)
5. Race length. While NASCAR overdoes it a bit, F1 under-does it by a comparable amount. IMO, F1′s 2-hour time max should be the min. While I agree that some (not all) NASCAR races might be shortened by 100 miles, I also think most F1 races would benefit from adding 100 miles. In far too many cases, the race comes to a close just when things are on the verge of becoming fascinating. And any truly good F1 race has the lap counter showing it’s half over when it feels like it’s just got underway. So, not only too few races, but also too little racing per race. I’d prefer ~25 races at 2:15-2.30 per race.
Wait, did he overtake 118 cars or did he perform 118 overtakes? The two are clearly different – the former implies that there are at least 119 cars on track whereas the latter is more about long battles with a smaller number of rivals.
Tony Stewart above anything else is a true RACER…….our type of guy! He owns a couple of single seater teams as well as the famed Eldora Ohio sprint car mecca and when he is not racing Cup cars he climbs in to pretty well anything with wheels and races that, and we’re talking several times a week too!! In 2012 Danica Patrick will drive in ‘Smoke’s’ team for ten Cup races…..for the second tier NNS series she will drive for Dale Earnhart Jr’s team.
As regards watching NASCAR in the UK and elsewhere, why not listen to the live streaming right here on the Internet…….Google NASCAR radio and take your pick
Hi Joe,
here goes.
Concerning the country of question, I seem to remember an incedent recently, and couldn’t help but think of a certain driver from a certain country who may not have actually raced at a certain race in a different formula, but another driver from the same country who may or may not have got his name from the side of a hairdryer did.
Also remembering years ago in a series where certain forces were dangerous, G forces, to the race and the drivers actually did stop it.
I hope drivers never let this happen again…
F1 back in Adelaide. Better than Melbourne.
Regards,
Michael
And since you love nascar so much now Joe, buy a V8 and let us put wheel covers on F1 cars
cyber,
It is possible to have multiple interests broader than just a car with an open wheel at each corner.
Re driver quality: maybe some are aware that Jimmie Johnson had his head handed to him by Schumi in the ’07 ROC, but how many know that Carl Edwards kicked Schumi’s tailbone at ’08 ROC?
I regard NASCAR in a way similar to my outlook on certain women in my younger days: a source of pleasure in private, acknowledging the attractions, but with which I don’t want to be associated with in public!
Anthony,
I don’t think you can judge the best drivers in the world in a one weekend knock-out competition. This is why the Race of Champions has not grown to be bigger than it is.
Jem
> Wait, did he overtake 118 cars or did he perform 118 overtakes? The two
> are clearly different – the former implies that there are at least 119 cars
> on track whereas the latter is more about long battles with a smaller
> number of rivals.
While we’re solving inscrutable mysteries which tax the intellect, here’s another one…
Does anyone know why the two predominant forms of the English language treat enterprises differently? I don’t.
Thus, I am puzzled when I hear our cousins say a given firm “have” done something, while we say the same firm “has” done something. In other words, when McLaren takes a given action, is the proper noun McClaren to be treated as singular or plural?
The enterprise is one entity, yet it is clearly comprised of plural beings. So, how to decide whether it’s best to say McClaren have been beaten by Red Bull or McClaren has been beaten? We can all agree McClaren should do better, but when we check their progress, should we be asking if McClaren have risen to the challenge or is it more correct to ask if McClaren has risen to it?
And what are the roots of this important grammatical dilemma?
Just kidding