Vo V1.0

Even though NASCAR is leaving Las Vegas today, you can still earn big money on auto racing next weekend and the rest of the season by betting on Kyle Busch to win every race he enters.  In 2008, Kyle won 23 races in the Sprint, Nationwide, and truck series and so far in 2009, Kyle has won three of eight races.  If he enters just 9 truck races for a total of 80 races between the three series, this puts him on pace to win an unimaginable 30 races.  Nothing is closer to a sure thing in Vegas than betting on Kyle to win every race when he is on a 37.5% pace already.

Many people who follow prospects thought Kyle would be the next superstar in NASCAR from a very young age.  To keep him from dominating the truck series, NASCAR even changed the legal age to race to 18, preventing Kyle from racing for an extra year.  Jeff Gordon, the active leader in wins in the cup series, said today that Kyle is currently the man to beat in all races he enters.  Jeff and Kyle were teammates at Hendrick for several years but Kyle never lived up to his potential with that team, which leads to the conclusion that the right crew chief - driver team is absolutely needed to dominate NASCAR.  Once Kyle teamed up with Steve Addington they became an instant contender.  Will the team of Kyle and Steve live up to the past three multiple championship combinations, Chad Knaus and Jimmie Johnson, or Greg Zipadelli and Tony Stewart, or Ray Evernham and Jeff Gordon?  Only time will tell if Kyle and Steve can dominate in the ten race chase like they dominated in 2008 and 2009 in the races leading up to the chase.

Sure, there are other drivers that can compete during the regular season such as Jimmie Johnson, Carl Edwards, Greg Biffle, and a host of others from the big four, but no one will dominate as much as Kyle will again this year.  For him, second place is correctly the first loser so he goes all out every race, taking chances that most drivers will not take as evidenced in Saturday's Nationwide race in Las Vegas.  For his sake, Steve will have to reign in his competitiveness during the chase for Kyle Busch to be the 2009 Sprint champion.

At the premiere event of the year last week, NASCAR made the decision to shorten the race because the lost the track to rain.  While many people complained, nothing could be done to save the race at that point.  They could have done something 6 months earlier to prevent the problem, though, by starting the race at a more normal time.  For the 2nd week in a row, the California race started ridiculously late after 3 pm.  Rain only shortened today's race by 29 unlucky laps.  The driver of the 29 Kevin Harvick also had an unlucky day crashing out for the first time in several years. 

But back to the point of rain, which NASCAR will be unable to do anything about until next year.  Why did today's race start after 3 pm and not at noon locally?  Whether the reason is FOX wanting the race later, wanting to have the race in prime time on the East Coast, or something else, by doing such NASCAR allows a greater chance for weather shortening or postponing a race.  Television ratings have been declining the last few years so if later start times have had any effect on ratings it has been a negative effect.  NASCAR knew this was a problem in the 2008 season but decided against correcting the problem for 2009.  Since some tickets have already been sold for every event this year, it is too late to change the start times in 2009. 

I call for NASCAR to immediately announce that next year's races will start at an earlier time to give them a greater chance to wait out weather issues.  Then, be consistent with that decision and start all Sunday races no later than noon locally. 

Welcome to my first blog.  Those of you that know me know I have followed the sport of NASCAR for years and used to provide some insight on the old sportsline website before taking a couple of years sabbatical.  Those of you that don't, get ready to hear nothing but the truth behind the problems with NASCAR owning there entire sport and creating and changing rules as they best see fit. 

I am writing today's entry during the rain delay here on lap 152.  During yesterday's Nationwide race at Daytona, Jason Leffler received a 5 lap penalty for rough driving by bumping and crashing Steve Wallace out of the race.  TV announcers immediately placed blame on Leffler showing the incident over and over.  Remember Steve's dad works for the network, so intentionally or not there has to be some sort of bias as to whose fault the incident was by the network.  Now NASCAR doesn't want a Wallace knocked out of the race without some consequence because of the number of times the network mentioned it was not his own fault.  Subsequently, NASCAR penalized Jason Leffler 5 laps for the one bump.  Whichever way you feel, and you could call it either way, NASCAR showed how they would rule on incidents like this; however, as followers of the sport know NASCAR rarely establishes standing precedents.

Today, Dale Earnhardt Jr. attempted to pass Brian Vickers and failed when Brian blocked him.  In the process, Dale bumped Brian on the way down and ran into him again hard on the way back up, causing a much larger wreck.  Twice the number of unnecessary hits as Jason Leffler, yet no penalty.  Why?  I am sure NASCAR will have some excuse beyond Leffler's name is not Wallace or Earnhardt. 

Personally I don't care if NASCAR gave a penalty or not, but I do care that they are not consistent.  Either penalize both drivers or neither.  Some people still say NASCAR is not a sport; by establishing precedents and following them they will gain significant credibility that they now lack.