Congratulations to Kyle Busch for his second victory at Bristol. This marked the first time he's won twice at any given track. It's also his third top-three finish this year.
The last three races have been won by a member of the Busch family. His brother, Kurt, won last week at Vegas and Kyle won the week before that in Atlanta. I'm just glad Shrub didn't take after his brother this week and drive backwards around the track for his victory lap. Seriously, I would be happy if I never saw that again.

There were nine cautions during yesterday's race. Let's take a peek at what happened to bring out each caution:

The first caution was a single-car spin by John Andretti.

The second caution was also brought out by Andretti. He was the first and only car a lap down and during the restart he got a bit loose and went up the track and hit Dave Blaney. Blaney spun and it was crazy that no one hit him. Normally, the first car a lap down would get the lucky dog and get a pass back on the lead lap but because Andretti caused the wreck, he didn't get the lucky dog.

The third caution, thankfully, had nothing to do with Andretti. Michael Waltrip wasn't clear of Todd Bodine and drove up into him. Kevin Harvick's car got quite a bit of damage from that mishap.

I just want to note that those first three cautions happened during commericial breaks. What ever happened to, "If a caution breaks out, we'll break in?"

Juan Pablo Montoya intentionally hit Jamie McMurray sending him spinning which brought out the fourth caution. NASCAR warned Montoya to not be so rough.

If McMurray didn't feel like a ping pong ball after the Montoya scuffle, he surely must have after he got hit again, bringing out the fifth caution of the day. This time it involved Sam Hornish and Casey Mears. I'm not so sure what happened exactly (I was fixing something in the kitchen) but if I was a gambling woman, my guess would be that this is completely Sam Hornish's fault given his track record of wrecking... but please do let me know.

Ok. Where are we...oh yes, caution number six. The yellow flag waved due to debris on the track from Brian Vickers blowing a tire.

Kevin Harvick blew a tire and went up and hit the outside wall bringing out the seventh caution of the race. The lucky dog went to none other than Dale Earnhardt Jr. This was his third lucky dog of the race. Yeah, three. At Atlanta he was the recipient of two of them. This is not a very good trend, Junior.

David Stremme got loose and spun out which brought out the eighth caution.

And finally, the ninth caution was brought out because rookie Joey Logano's engine quit on him with about 7 laps remaining. Logano ended the day in 38th position. Luckily, he remains within the top-35 in the point standings unlike rookie, Scott Speed who is now on the outside looking in. Speed ended the day in 28th spot and is now 36th in the point standings. I think it was a fairly quiet day for Speed though. I didn't see much of him anyway.

The weather doesn't look too bad for this weekend's race in Bristol, TN. So we should have no issues there...thank goodness.

I'll be watching two drivers this weekend. Neither driver is one who I will pick to win the race though. They are Clint Bowyer and Tony Stewart. Bower's sitting second in the Sprint Cup point standings. In the four races thus far, he has posted three top ten's including two top fives.

Stewart is sixth in the point standings and has had three top tens, all of which are eighth-place finishes. Not too shabby for a new team. I hope his luck continues.

My pick, however, is going to be Happy Harvick for the win this weekend. He posted a second and a fourth-place finish here last year. I actually think that any RCR car is a pretty good pick for this weekend. Who do you think will take the checkers?

I walked in to our little Bristol party sporting my Jack Daniels hat as a good luck gem for my man, Clint Bowyer. There was only one request via text message from the host of our gathering...no M&M's. I would say based on the end result of the race my good luck hat and the ban on M&M's were a huge success.

Congrats to Carl Edwards for yet another win this season. The saying, what comes around goes around is true. I gained some respect for Carl Edwards for moving Kyle Busch out of the way to get the win. Edwards didn't do anything that Busch hadn't done so many times before. He nudged Busch, loosened him up enough so that he could get by. A bump and run. And the victory was his.

On Edwards' victory lap, Busch slammed Edwards a few times in the driver's door. Edwards had had enough and turned him. Now we must wait and see what type of penalties NASCAR gives them both.

Here are some other thoughts that I had while watching the race:

-- What in the heck was Dale Earnhardt Jr. thinking at the start of the race? Passing cars before crossing the start/finish line at the start of the race, who does that? Well he did. His head was certainly not in the game. Maybe he stayed up too late celebrating Brad Keselowski's win in the Nationwide race the night before.

-- As if I needed another reason to like Clint Bowyer. He says exactly what I am thinking. "Michael Waltrip is the worst driver in NASCAR. Period." That's what he said of Waltrip after Waltrip dumped Casey Mears and Bowyer got tangled up in it. I couldn't agree more.

-- I felt bad for Jeff Burton who was a victim of circumstance. Tony Stewart clearly took out Sterlin Marlin which led to poor Jeff Burton's wreck.

-- Poor David Blaney just cannot catch a break. I didn't see what happened to him though. Did you?

-- The biggest loser of the night? Kasey Kahne, who dropped three positions in the point standings.

Overall, I thought the racing was really good. What did you think of the race?

Bristol night racing. Does anything beat it? Seriously.

I'll be attending a "Bristol party" tomorrow night with some friends. Should be loads of fun. Do you do anything special for night racing?

Side story--

I remember a while back, before I had this blog, going to Gippers in Auburn for dinner during a night race. (I can't recall which race it was) I figured that being a sports pub, one of their big-screen televisions would have the race on and we could enjoy dinner and drinks while watching.

No such luck. Not one singe television had the race on and they have MANY. So we requested to have one of the monitors show the race. When we did, they looked at us like we were crazy. But they did generously give us the smallest television in the room that was located in the corner by the bar. Ridiculous.

Anyhow, here's the NASCAR Newscast: Bristol Preview

and of course the broadcast schedule for the weekend.

What I want to see tomorrow night is sparks flying and a lot of bumping and banging. What I don't want to see is Clint Bowyer wrecked. Wishful thinking, I know.

It's hard to pick a winner here. Real hard. Having said that, I am going to go with Kevin Harvick this week to win. He's coming off a strong finish last week at Michigan where he gained a lot of ground in the point standings. Right now, he's got momentum. Plus, he's a great short track driver.

Who do you think will win tomorrow night?

A 1-2-3 finish for Richard Childress Racing, a first for RCR. I had goosebumps as they crossed the line, just a fantastic finish. Congrats to Jeff Burton who beat out teammates Kevin Harvick and Clint Bowyer to the finish line.

Here are a few random thoughts that crossed my mind as I watched yesterday’s race at Bristol Motor Speedway:

-- Let me just say this….what a cute little pumpkin Jeff Gordon’s little girl is. She actually looks like a spitting image of him, only cuter of course.

-- There should be a rule about allowing someone in the broadcast booth when you have laryngitis. It was more painful than normal listening to Darrell Waltrip try to talk.

-- I hate it when they only show the top-ten in the rundown during the race. Uugh, it really urkes me, like we aren’t watching other drivers that are outside the top-ten. Give me a break.

-- It’s getting harder and harder to defend Juan Pablo Montoya. That's all I'm saying on that.

-- Once again, I jinxed my pick to win the race. In this case, I’m not that sad about it. Kyle Busch’s power steering went on the car.

-- Dale Earnhardt Jr. was the best finishing Hendrick car again. Nice.

-- When they were interviewing Kevin Harvick after the race asking him about his error on the track when he took out Tony Stewart, I jokingly said: “He’s scared.” I mean, wouldn’t you be? You never know what that freak Tony Stewart will do when he’s mad. Seriously.

-- How much do you love Clint Bowyer?! That guy is the bomb. His post race interview was hilarious. If you missed it, he said something about Stewart and back waxing at Harvick's house and that it should be interesting. And then he said that he may have to go over and check it out and bring some boxing gloves for them. I think Bowyer's my new hero.

-- I blame Harvick that I have to look at Stewart for one more week without a haircut. I don't think Stewart's cutting his hair until he wins again. Thanks Harvick.

-- Goodbye Dale Jarrett. Sorry you couldn’t have had a better finish than 37th for your last race.

We're off to Bristol this weekend. I love the racing at Bristol. It's one of those tracks where anybody could win. It's tough to predict a winner here.

Nonetheless, I'll go with Kyle Busch to win this weekend. He is, afterall, the greatest driver there ever was. I think he'll be the point leader in all three divisions after this weekend as well. I am, of course, saying all of this completely sarcastically. But seriously, he is my pick this weekend.

Who's yours?

Let's see how much more Tony Stewart whines about the tires this weekend. I am sure he'll spout off again about them.

I wasn’t all that thrilled with the race at Bristol Saturday night. There really wasn’t all that much excitement, or at least not what I’m used to seeing when I watch a Bristol night race. Kasey Kahne appeared to be the car to beat but that didn’t happen.

While leading the race, Kahne came up on Michael Waltrip who was already two laps down, and instead of Waltrip getting out of the way, he decided to race the leader, which allowed Carl Edwards and Dale Earnhardt Jr. to close in on him. Carl Edwards took the lead and it basically stayed that way until the checkered flag.

Honestly, I can’t understand why Waltrip wouldn’t have just gotten out of the way and let the leaders battle it amongst themselves. It was a bone-head move and he cost Kahne the lead.

The bad luck continued for Jeff Gordon. He pitted under green-flag conditions. The caution came out due to a spin by David Ragan, which put Gordon a lap down on the restart. Then a little later in the race, Gordon was involved in a wreck due to Martin Truex Jr. getting into Ricky Rudd.

Let me repeat that. Martin Truex Jr. got into Rudd, kind of like he got into Juan Pablo Montoya at Watkins Glen. HHHmmm…

On to the Busch race…

Kasey Kahne won the Busch race on Friday night.

I have to admit I didn’t get a chance to watch it. And someone, I won’t name any names, stopped the dvr while it was taping. My brother-in-law said that NASCAR screwed Kyle Busch.

I guess Busch was acting like he was going in the pits and veered back out onto the track like so many drivers do, but NASCAR penalized him saying he hit the commitment line. The crew argued this with the officials but to no avail and NASCAR sent him back to 28th position on the restart.

NASCAR later said they were wrong and apologized. Now let me ask you, what good does that do? It certainly doesn't or didn't do a bit of good for Kyle Busch. Busch ended up finishing fourth but who knows where he would have finished if he hadn't had to start so far back.

Bristol's a tough race track to predict because just about anything can happen there. It is one of my most favorite race tracks. The night race, in particular is the absolute best.

I must say that I was a bit wavered in picking Dale Earnhardt Jr. in Saturday night's Sharpie 500 because of something one of my friends said to me. He said that he had a feeling that Junior didn't want to qualify into the chase just because of Teresa.

I do hope that's not true. I don't want to believe that for a second. Does anyone else feel that way?

In any event, I AM going to pick Junior for the win at Bristol tomorrow night. I know I must sound like a broken record in picking him but there you have it.

My other pick is a little more out there but I'm going with him, it's Ryan Newman. He has finished in the top-10 the last three races here.

Bud Pole Qualifying starts at 3 p.m. today. The weather doesn't appear to be a factor. The race is scheduled to start at 8 p.m. on Saturday.

Busch Pole Qualifying is today at 4:30. The green flag is scheduled to wave at the Food City 250 tonight at 8 p.m. And because I love Bristol so much, I will definitely be watching the Busch race this evening.

Kenny Wallace will again be the fill-in driver for Kyle Petty in Saturday night's race at Bristol Motor Speeday. Petty was so mad at his misfortune at Watkins Glen that he punched a door inside his hauler and broke his hand.

Sterling Marlin will try to qualify the No. 78, Furniture Row car at Bristol.

Let's hope that the weather doesn't play a roll in qualifying.

I am still waiting on the announcement from DEI on who will be driving the No. 8 car in 2008. A decision could be announced by the end of the week. Who do you think it will be?

It hasn't been announced yet which car number Junior will be driving.
(I think I'd like to see him drive the 6.7)