Monday, Aug. 10, 2009 | 8:47 p.m.
“This is my house,” said Tony Stewart about Watkins Glen on Monday after crushing the rest of the field to get his fifth win at this track. Stewart, who is now 260 points ahead of Jimmie Johnson, is on his way toward denying a fourth consecutive title to the No. 48 team.
Stewart’s mastery of the Glen brings up an interesting point about the road-course specialists we hear about each season. It’s inevitable that prior to every road-course race there's a lot of discussion about the road-course specialists who parachute in to compete in the two road-course races each year. The discussion of these drivers usually includes the speculation that one of them could have a chance to win on these tracks. But time after time we see that the road-course specialists who win are the drivers that are in Cup on a full-time basis.
The second most outstanding performance from Monday’s race was the forward charging effort by Carl Edwards. Edwards, who’s not known for having prowess on the road courses, managed a third-place finish after starting in the 33rd position. That’s tremendous.
The Heluva Good at the Glen had a Talladega moment in a violent wreck involving Jeff Gordon, Sam Hornish, Kasey Kahne and Jeff Burton. Once again we saw the safety benefits of the COT in action, but the real question is how this wreck will affect Gordon’s back problems. You know he wasn’t joking when he said he’s glad the next race isn’t at Bristol.
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Kyle Busch, Clint Bowyer and Brian Vickers are all less than 100 points behind the 12th-place driver Matt Kenseth. Despite Kyle’s underperforming car at Monday’s race, he was able to manage a fourth-place finish. Kyle is consistently able to do more with an underperforming car than most drivers. He’s got four more races to make the Chase and I think he can pull it off.
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Last week Ryan Newman told the Charlotte Observer that he thinks the Cup races are too long. Newman’s comments were about how the drivers’ approach a 500-mile race, but I couldn’t help but wonder if shorter races could increase TV viewership. There are an increasing number of things NASCAR has to compete with for viewers’ attention. And as people’s choices increase, it could become more difficult for NASCAR to rebound from its current viewership slump. Maybe shorter races could help. But I doubt this will happen anytime soon. Shorter races could mean fewer commercials and I don’t think the powers that be are interested in less revenue. Besides, 500-mile races are a tradition and some fans may not want to get less racing for the price of admission.
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