I will try again. Sure hope this blog is ok now. I picked my guy, Carl, to win. I thought the race was interesting. I am a little disappointed that racing has become a mind game as to when to pit and when not to. I would like to see driving ability be the main reason why he is in victory lane.

My pick was Johnson, but the blog was down for comments. The end of the race came down to fuel strategy, Jen, so it was an interesting ending. And to answer the question about rain tires in Pocono, they could do it but at extremely slow speeds. It would not be good racing!
Pocono and Indy remind me why I like short tracks and road courses...it puts the driver back in the car. They rarely come down to fuel strategy at short tracks as there are enough cautions. They can also dry the track off in no time should it rain! Nascar needs to shorten some of these Pocono races.

From Jen: Did you watch the Nationwide race? Did they look slow? I had heard that it wasn't all that bad actually. Just curious. Thanks for letting me know it was in fact a fuel mileage race.

The Nationwide race was slow, I thought, but entertaining. Watching Carl squeegee his windshield was comical. I am not sure which race Jen is referring to when she thanks son of racefan for letting her know it was a fuel mileage race. That was definitely the cup race; therefore my previous comment. Hello???

From Jen: Yes, I was referring to the Cup race for the fuel mileage. I don't know what you meant by "my previous comment."

I would have picked Smoke. I don't know if he had the winning car, but I suspect he backed off a bit thinking Edwards couldn't make it on gas. Adjustments on Hamlin's car made the handling go away. I thought Mark Martin would win for sure. He had a terrific car. It was a much better race than Pocono usually is.

The Nationwide was worth a laugh if nothing else until the cars started hydroplaning and wrecking. Nascar let their experiment go on a little too long, and put the drivers and crews at risk because of low visibility and difficulty stopping in the pits. Joey Logano was impressive until he crashed. Shredded tires, bad weather; putting on an event at any cost is getting ridiculous. Edwards trying to clear his windshield was interesting. At least some of these issues show how ingenious the crews can be.

Frank Stoddard was pretty unhappy with Nascar on Saturday. He was told the teams would be allowed to make the decisions about tires and then Nascar changed the plan. Didn't get the chance to hear him yesterday on the radio. He was probably still mad.

From Jen: I saw one view on the television of the one wiper on the windshield. It just looked so weird! I almost couldn't stand to watch. It just didn't look right.

Nascar has had a road course rain policy for years. They did not invent rules for Saturday, they simply executed them. For everyone that was not ready, and I saw many wiper-less windshields, I say too bad. I can check the weather and doppler at the house with only a fraction of the technology race teams have. They should have done their homework. And for the record, there was only one crash under green flag conditions.

There is no mandatory rain package policy in Nascar. Rain tires are about it. This was another "work in progress". The cars are not sealed, there is no defrost system, the wipers and lights are inadequate. But true about the crashes, one under green, the rest under caution.

How "mandatory" is it to know that when it rains-
Water seeps through cracks?
Windows fog up?
Vision is impaired?

I thought these guys were just short of rocket scientists these days!