NASCAR’s Biggest Fan - Ron Ripple

Congratulations to Carl Edwards for fending off Mr. Gordon and Mr. Johnson who were absolutely dominating yesterday’s race before the rain delay.  I am beyond impressed with the way the race finished today.  You have Carl Edwards who stepped up his “A” game today to beat the three guys who to me seemed unstoppable yesterday.  Jeff Gordon finsihed in second place with Jimmie Johnson riding on his coat tails.  The one driver we need to keep our eye on throughout the season is Kyle Busch.  He is officially leading the points after today’s race with a third place finish in Daytona and a fouth place finish in today’s Auto Club 500.

So Carl Edwards did an incredible job today driving by basically everyone who got in his way.  He does admit though he was very fortunate to get by Jimmie Johson and claims that it was more like a drag race today than a NASCAR race.  Overall big ups to my boy Carl Edwards…. That’s one guy who can’t claim to have a case of the Mondays.  I also have to give him credit for not breaking his neck on his successful back flip after the race.  Do you think he practices?  Does he get out of his car after each practice and attempts a back flip?

Anyway…. about that Rain Delay!  NASCAR needs to have a better strategy the next time they decide to keep letting the guys get back on the track.  It was more like a ’slip and slide’ last night than a race track.  In my opinion they should have realized they were losing more cars to crashes then they were getting around the track.  I think next time if the track is that saturated with water and the weather doesn’t look any better then they need to make an executive decision.  But enough about my personal opinion about the matter… It’s not like I wasted my whole evening staying up watching the Simpsons. 

What do you think about the rain delay?  Do you think the 24 or 48 car could have been stopped if the race would have gone off without a hitch last night? 

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I don’t know about you… but I’m about sick of this mother nature crap. Rain delay upon Rain Delay and now I’m sitting here about to watch The Simpsons. I’m supposed to be watching the best sport on God’s Green Earth. NASCAR!

Thus far I’m very impressed with the way the race has gone. Lots have craziness has happened in these few laps. Casey Mears is out of the big showdown with a flipped car and it’s sad to see Dale Jr. out of the big picture but you can’t blame him for what happened on the track today. Jeff Gordan and his team mate Jimmy Johnson have been dominating, and Kyle Busch once again is running with an extrmely fast car.

I’m too depressed to write much, I’ll give y’all a full update of my feelings this evening or first thing in the morning. Nothing against The Simpsons, but I’m bout out of beer and to see the Nascar Race in California in another rain delay is a SERIOUS buzz kill!

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First and foremost I would like to thank everyone for entering. I had an incredible response from ya’ll… close to 500 entries whether it be entrecard droppers, people commenting, subscribing to the blog or writing about the contest on their own blog. Thank you thank you thank you! We entered all the names in a random list generator at random.org and we now have a winner!

The winner of Ron Ripple’s case of AMP Energy Drinks goes to (drum roll please)….. Vroom is the winner!

Be sure to check back soon as I’ll be holding contests regularly.

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Robby Gordon is appealing his 100 point penalty as well as his crew cheif’s $100,000 fine and suspension. Gordon goes on to explain that the illegal bumper was a complete accident and clerical error that had nothing to do with his team. He explains the nose they put on the car was shipped to them from Dodge’s distributor and was a nose that had notyet been approved by NASCAR officials. Gordon states that he’s not appealing the whole penalty, but he is appealing the harshness of the penalty. He’s complaining that it was a clerical error and it wasn’t meant to have a competitive edge over his competition. He’s saying it’s too harsh of a penalty and it’s perposterous that he’s getting the same penalty that someone recieved last year for adding a substance to their fuel.

I have to agree with Robby Gordon on his frustration and the harshness of the penalty. If you’re going to penalize him for a human error and an honest mistake then make it a minor penalty. Penalize him 25 points, fine his crew cheif $10,000, give his team a slap on the wrist and maybe take away their beer supply for a week. I just find it hard to believe NASCAR is penalizing them for something so minor but they won’t penalize Kurt Busch or Tony Stewart for damaging each other’s car or punching each other in the face.

The NASCAR officials are an interesting breed, I guess they’re just lucky I’m not handing out the penalties because I would hit them where it hurts. Yeah you know what I’m talking about… the Beer consumption and Racer’s Parties.

What’s your opinion on this whole issue?

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WOWWWWWWWW…. so there were some serious teams from this past weekend’s Daytona 500 that got penalized for some sort of infraction. The biggest penalty went to Robby Gordon after inspectors found an illegal bumper on the front of the car. NASCAR officials gave him a 100 point penalty, fined his crew cheif $100,000, and suspended his crew cheif for 6 races. Overall it dropped him from 9th place down to 40th place. Another team that got penalized last weekend in the Craftsman Truck Series was my boy Todd Bodine. He was penalized for an infraction the inspectors caught before qualifying. So the good news is he still won the race fair and square, but the bad news is he is penalized 25 points, his crew cheif fined $10,000 and his crew cheif is suspended for 4 races.

Here’s the news I know a lot of my readers are going to be extremely concerned about. Dale Earnhardt Jr was penalized 50 points for having an illegal spoiler on his car. His crew cheif was fined $25,000 and also given a 6 race suspension. The good news is it was for the Nationwide Series which still leaves him in the hunt for the Sprint Cup Series. Of all the drivers from this past weekend’s race… I would have never guessed we’d see Dale Earnhardt Jr’s name on the list of penalized drivers. It’s just unfortunate these teams aren’t following the rules and are trying to get away with little modifications. Can’t these teams just race fair and square and follow the rules?

The biggest news from this past weekend’s race is Officials found a hidden bottle of NOS in the trunk of Kurt Busch’s race car. Supposedly he hit the button on the last lap of the restart to give Ryan Newman his push to victory. The question that is confusing officials is how did he get that bottle through inspection the morning of the race. HAHAHAHA… I’m only kidding!!!!! Kurt Busch didn’t have a bottle of NOS in his car, but I know I had you going because the way he pushed Ryan Newman to the front of the pack on the last lap of that race is unbelievable.

Anyway, let me know what your opinion is on the infractions. Why would a team put an illegal part on their car the first race of the season?

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I forgot to mention the case of AMP Energy Drinks is the Dale Earnhardt Edition…

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For those of you who missed the final restart to finish for whatever the reason might be… Watch it below! Stewart was leading and then out of no where, Team Penske (Newman and Kurt Busch) slam to the front and never look back.

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I am officially back from Daytona and all I have to say is WOW!  I started the weekend off by hanging out in the pits with Todd Bodine, winner of the Craftsman Truck Series race on friday night.  Congratulations to him and the Germain team for kicking some serious ass. (I’ll post pictures this week)

This weekend was full of surprises… Dale Earnhardt Jr. absolutely stepped up his game from the start of the very long week of races.  I can’t believe he won the Bud Shoot Out, the Gatorade Duel and then finished third in the Nationwide Series.  I’m not gonna lie, I really did think he was going to be in the top three as well in the Sprint Cup race on Sunday but oh well. My favorite parts of the race are when the two badass’s Tony Stewart and Dale would hook up in a draft and head straight to the front. 

The ”Most Impressive Driver” award would have to go to Kyle Busch.  He led 88 out of 200 laps in the Sprint Cup race on Sunday and ended up finishing Fourth. It always seems to go down like that, the driver to lead the most laps rarely if ever end up with the checkered flag. Also note that he also finished third in both the Nationwide Cup as well as the Craftsman Truck Series.  Tell me he didn’t have an incredible weekend.  Most drivers wish they could finish in the top 10 in any of the three races.

Who could have predicted Ryan Newman of all drivers would be the winner of the Daytona 500 this year?  He hasn’t won a race in over 80 starts.  I was shocked with the ending of the race but what didn’t surprise me was the 2nd and 3rd place finishers.  Everyone has to admit that if Kurt Busch hadn’t given Ryan Newman the push at the end Tony Stewart would have probably been the winner.  The beginning of the race was pretty non eventful…  There weren’t very many crashes, there weren’t a ton of lead changes, and I felt it lacked race drama.  Nobody pissed anyone off during the whole race but the end made it all worth it!.  Kurt Busch pushed Ryan Newman to his victory leaving Stewart behind to finish 3rd.  I must admit it was very cool to see two Penske cars take the 1st and 2nd place trophy, I found it a bit comical to hear Kurt Busch in the interview after the race stating that he probably would have won if he didn’t push Newman to the win… Just another cocky statement.

I’ve got so many things running through my mind right now that I would love to discuss, but I’m exhausted from the trip. So make sure you check back during the week and let me know your thoughts.  Until then… what did you guys think about the new COT’s?  How unfortunate was it to see Jeff Gordon have car troubles?  What happened to Waltrip and his supposedly ridiculously fast car?  What happened to the Toyotas at the end?  Let me know your thoughts…

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I just arrived in Daytona a couple hours ago and just checked into my hotel room.  My plans for tonight consist of the Truck Series race and some behind the scenes gossip.  Fortunately I’m going to be hanging out with Todd Bodine and his crew for this race, so I’ll make sure I take as many pictures as I can.  By the end of the weekend I’ll have so much damn gossip I’ll need to make a new website to discuss all the drama and dirt that’s going on in this crazy NASCAR world. 

Just a little note as well… It was great to see Waltrip help out his team mate Dale Jarrett.  Dale Jarrett’s team owner Michael Waltrip did some serious drafting behind Dale to help secure him a starting position on Sunday’s Daytona 500.  All Dale Jarrett had to do was finish in front of the #00 car in order to secure his spot.  Dale Jarrett is planning on retiring this year and will be joining the commentators up in the booth.   Like I said in an earlier article, the Top 35 needs to be changed so that more teams can show up to a race and not have to worry about qualifying.  Fortunately Dale Jarrett who has been a three time Daytona 500 secured a spot but it was no easy task. 

Make sure you check back on Monday and see all of the pictures I post from this weekend.  I’m hoping to get a camera inside one of the driver’s meetings and see if they mention anything about “letting boys be boys.” 

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I’m not trying to make this site all about the Tony vs Kurt Drama…. But it’s the biggest drama going on at the moment.. 

The verdict is in!  NASCAR gave Busch and Stewart a six race probation as punishment for the “on track” incident that took place in last weekend’s practice.  What do I think?  I reckon I’m happy they weren’t suspended… but we all knew with NASCAR’s 2008 attitude of “let boys be boys” that Tony and Kurt wouldn’t be punished too severely.  No penalties were given out for the behind the scenes argument and bitch slap that took place in NASCAR’s hauler.   NASCAR officially states they have no plans for further punishment.

I came across an interesting pole on Nascar.com asking the fans whether or not Kurt Busch should be sat out for the first race.  I was shocked with the results… a wowing 42% were in favor, that’s close to 29,000 people who were against Kurt Busch racing in this weekend’s Daytona 500.  All I have to say is give me a friggin break!  Have you never had an incident where someone was driving 5 mph below the speed limit and then get so pissed off you showed them how you really felt?  I have to admit that I’ve had my fair share of road raging… and if I had the opportunity to trade paint with that slow poke and only get slapped on the wrist, I’d probably have to buy a new car weekly.  I personally look forward to the first race and I hope to see Kurt Busch and Tony Stewart battling it out for first place.

What are your thoughts?  Should the boys have had a more severe punishment?

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