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NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
JENSEN: Good Times At Bristol
This is usually the slowest time of the year in NASCAR, but you’d never know it these days, as major news stories keep popping up...
Tom Jensen  |  Posted August 23, 2010   Charlotte, NC
SPEED.com's Editor-in-Chief Tom Jensen. (Image: SPEED)
This is usually the slowest time of the year in NASCAR, but you’d never know it these days, as major news stories keep popping up on what seems like a daily basis.

In the last week alone, Kyle Busch became the first driver in history to win races in all three of NASCAR’s top divisions at the same track during the same weekend; Brian Vickers stunned the NASCAR world by announcing that he’d had surgery to repair a hole in his heart but would be back racing next year; and NASCAR released its 2011 schedule, most of which had been reported here and other places previously.

What Busch accomplished was nothing short of amazing: He came from the back of the field in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race, survived a bump-and-run battle with Brad Keselowski in the NASCAR Nationwide Series and put an old-school butt whipping on the field in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race.

On the year, Busch now has 16 race victories in NASCAR’s top three divisions, including an astounding 10 wins in 20 Nationwide Series starts. There’s no question he can get up on the wheel and get it done. It will be interesting to see if he is a true title contender when NASCAR’s playoff round gets here, something he hasn’t been the last two seasons, missing the Chase altogether last year and having horrendous races in the first two Chase events of 2008.

Stay tuned — at this point, the championship remains wide open, waiting for someone to step up, and with no definitive clue on who it might be.

On the Vickers front, it was great news to learn he will return to the No. 83 Red Bull Toyota in 2011. Vickers is fast on the track, articulate and intellectually interesting off of it and he’s a perfect fit for Red Bull. Best of luck, for a speedy and full recovery, Brian, and welcome back. NASCAR and its fans missed having you around.

Some other observations from Bristol race weekend:

• The so-called “Race to the Chase” is all but over. Clint Bowyer’s fourth-place finish in the Irwin Tools Night Race at Bristol gave him a 100-point over Jamie McMurray and 101-point lead over Mark Martin with two races left to go until the Chase field is set. Barring a complete collapse over the next two races, Bowyer is in. It doesn’t appear as if the final regular season race at Richmond will have the drama it usually does, which is too bad.

• The implosion at Hendrick Motorsports continued Saturday night at Bristol, where for the second race in a row, the team failed to place a driver in the top 10 finishers. Even worse, Hendrick has gone five races without a single top five.

Jimmie Johnson was fast and led a lot of laps at Bristol, but none of the other three Hendrick cars was a serious contender. Most puzzling is the No. 5 team, where Mark Martin was so good last year and this year is unlikely to make Chase. After winning five races and finishing second in the championship last year, Martin has finished outside of the top 10 in 13 of the last 15 races.

Over the 2009/’10 offseason, car owner Rick Hendrick moved Martin’s race engineer and several other key members of the No. 5 team over to Dale Earnhardt Jr. in hopes of making two competitive teams. Instead, the moves resulted in two mediocre-running cars.

• Some folks were shocked that in Saturday night’s race, Keselowski didn’t attempt a payback of Busch for Saturday’s altercation. There will be paybacks before the year is out — count on it — but they won’t come in a meaningless NASCAR regular season race, they will come in the Chase, when it really hurts. Not saying it’ll be Keselowski-Busch but there’s a lot of ill will in the garage these days, as drivers have some grudges to settle.

• On Friday, I asked a bunch of drivers if they thought it was OK to win a championship without winning any races during the season. To a man, they agreed that they were OK with the notion of a winless champion. Frankly, I find that repugnant. The whole point of racing is to win, not have a great seventh-place points day.

I sincerely hope that when it gets finished revamping next year’s rules, NASCAR gives the drivers more incentive to win and less incentive to race for a top 10.

• Last but not least, kudos to the friendly and efficient staff at Bristol Motor Speedway for redoing the infield, which is a huge improvement over the old Bristol. Nice work, folks.

Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief of SPEED.com, Senior NASCAR Editor at RACER and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. You can follow him online at twitter.com/tomjensen100 and e-mail him at Jensen is the author of “Cheating: The Bad Things Good NASCAR Nextel Cup Racers Do In Pursuit of Speed,” and has appeared on numerous television and radio shows. Jensen is the past President of the National Motorsports Press Association and an NMPA Writer of the Year.

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