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JENSEN: Hatefest 2010
Nothing like a little hate to stir the pot and make NASCAR interesting again...
Tom Jensen  |  Posted June 07, 2010   Charlotte, NC
SPEED.com's Editor-in-Chief Tom Jensen. (Image: SPEED)
Ah, yes. Nothing like a little hate to stir the pot and make NASCAR interesting again.

At Texas and Talladega, it was teammates Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson expressing mutual displeasure over aggressive driving.

Then, before the Coca-Cola 600 it was Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin talking some serious smack about each other.

The latest combatants to join Hatefest 2010 are Joey Logano and Kevin Harvick. On Lap 199 in Sunday’s Gillette Fusion ProGlide 500 at Pocono Raceway, Harvick appeared to dump Logano, just as he did on the last lap of the NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Bristol in March.

A minor melee ensued on pit road, Logano accusing Harvick’s wife of wearing the firesuit in the family, Harvick accusing Logano of being 20 years old and therefore stone deaf when it comes to listening to reason.
Joey Logano hits the wall after contact with Kevin Harvick at Pocono Raceway. (Photo: Getty Images)

Just for good measure, AJ Allmendinger made a huge deposit in the Bank of Ill Will by taking out his Richard Petty Motorsports teammate Kasey Kahne and what seemed like half the field on the last lap of the race. Judging by the sheetmetal carnage, the ‘Dinger’s moment of brain fade was a million-dollar mistake and not what the woebegone RPM squad needs.

While the late-race histrionics were entertaining, there was a serious message in all of this: For now, at least, Hamlin and Busch can disagree, feud and call each other out, and then go out and run 1-2. For the rest of the Sprint Cup field that is very bad news indeed.

Things can certainly change at any time and only a fool would dismiss Jimmie Johnson’s championship potential after what he’s done over the past four seasons. But right now, Hamlin and Busch are the class of the field, even if Harvick has a narrow points lead at the moment.

Some other Pocono observations:

• The Ford teams continue to struggle. Allmendinger, who dodged the last-lap mayhem that he started, was the best-finishing Ford with an underwhelming 10th-place run with the new FR9 under the hood. NASCAR thrives on competition and rivalries — the racing is better when the Roush Fenway Racing guys are duking it out for victories with the JGR, Hendrick and RCR squads. But the best of the four Roush entries on Sunday was 12th-place Carl Edwards.

Next on the scheduled is Michigan International Speedway, a track where the Roush cars traditionally dominate. I’m somehow thinking that isn’t going to happen this time around.

• While Johnson had a solid fifth-place run, the rest of the four-car Hendrick Motorsports team was pretty much out to lunch. In the last five races, Dale Earnhardt Jr. hasn’t finished better than 18th, while Mark Martin has just one finish better than 15th. And Jeff Gordon looked like the Gordon of last year, as he steadily fell back before getting caught in The Big One that Allmendinger started.

• Congratulations to Sam Hornish Jr., who led 16 laps on Sunday before fading to 11th at the end. Those 16 laps led are 10 more than he’s led in his previous 85 Sprint Cup starts combined.

• One of the things to look at when evaluating championship contenders is seeing who made the best of a bad day in a race. Sunday, it was Kurt Busch, who spent a lot of the Pocono race one lap down, yet somehow rallied for a respectable sixth-place finish. Days like that build confidence for teams almost as much as victories do.

• Kudos to Richard Childress Racing for seeing all three of its Cup drivers finish in the top 10 again. This team has looked really, really good all season long. Unfortunately for them, though, Joe Gibbs Racing has looked great.

• Has anyone had a more bi-polar season than Jamie McMurray, who in 14 points races has four finishes of first or second and six finishes of 29th or worse?

• Despite earning his second top-five finish of the season, Tony Stewart was grumpy again after the race. His Stewart-Haas Racing team is in a somewhat tenuous position in terms of points: Stewart himself is 13th, just one point out of 12th, while teammate Ryan Newman is 14th.

Add it all up, and it looks like we’re headed for more fun at Michigan this week.

Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief of SPEEDtv.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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