Sunday: Live from Martinsville Speedway
The Martinsville Midway at 9:30 a.m. I like to create a surreal situation by walking through with T.I. playing in my earbuds.
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Lap 495: Doesn’t look like anybody has anything for Johnson. Would take something crazy, methinks.
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Lap 490: Junior spins. Edwards also. Caution out.
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Lap 485: Johnson ducks under Keselowski and takes the lead…Now he’s pulled clear by three car lengths.
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Lap 478: Keselowski stays out during caution. Rollin’ the dice. Earnhardt also stays out and takes second. Johnson, Gordon and Ky. Busch the rest of your top five.
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Lap 467: Gordon is on Johnson’s bumper for the lead. Decent-sized gap back to Bowyer in third.
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They’ll restart Johnson, Gordon, Ky. Busch, Bowyer, Kahne.
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Lap 438: Johnson turns Montoya but avoids getting spun himself. Caution out. Leaders hit pit road. Meanwhile, Hamlin has returned to the track but is 34 laps down in 33rd place.
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Johnson wins the race off pit road, followed by Bowyer, Ky. Busch and Kahne.
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Lap 392: Hamlin’s title hopes are dying in the most excruciating way here. His car eases to a stop on the front straightaway, bringing out the caution.
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Lap 384: Hamlin slowing down, speeding up, repeating. He’s in all sorts of trouble.
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Lap 372: Hamlin drops from third to eighth because of some sort of ignition problem.
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Lap 353: Green-flag pit stops have included Bowyer, Gordon, Johnson.
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Lap 346: Good job so far today by Keselowski, who is up to sixth. Bowyer still leading, followed by Hamlin, Vickers, Ky. Busch and Johnson.
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Lap 282: Bowyer still leading, followed by Gordon, Kahne, Vickers, Hamlin and Johnson.
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Lap 233: They’ll restart Bowyer, Johnson, Gordon, Junior, Kahne.
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Forget checkered flags. These are better (middle one says "cocktails")
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Hamlin punted to 28th.
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Lap 200: Wow. Hamlin caught speeding on pit road for second time today. He was your leader.
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Lap 182: Bowyer your new leader. Johnson second, Hamlin third. Earnhardt in eighth.
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Lap 170: Johnson takes the lead from Hamlin.
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Lap 164: Hamlin ducks under Vickers to take his first lead of the day. Johnson follows him to the bottom of the track and assumes second place.
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Lap 151: New top four after pit stops: Vickers, Hamlin, Earnhardt, Johnson. Keselowski in 21st.
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Lap 130: Your new top three after a round of pit stops during a Kvapil caution is Gordon, Ky. Busch, Truex. Hamlin up to sixth.
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Lap 106: Gordon regains the lead. Hamlin has rallied to get up to 12th. Keselowski in 22nd back there battling with the Travis Kvapils of the world.
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Johnson regains the lead, followed by Ky. Busch and Gordon.
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Lap 98: A hush (puppy) comes over the track as the Long John Silver’s Ford hits the wall. Leaders pit.
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Lap 81: Gordon is your new leader. Not sure what lap he took over. Too busy considering the fast food options. Johnson second and Kyle Busch third.
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We’ve got two Burger King Toyotas, a Long John Silver’s Ford and a McDonald’s Chevrolet out there today. I call them the Dream Team.
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Check that. Hamlin too fast entering pit road, has to go to the back. That drops him to 31st place.
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Lap 45: First caution of the day. Big break for Keselowski, who might have fallen a lap down to Johnson had the race stayed green for about 15-20 more laps. Johnson was on the move. Leaders pit. They come off Johnson, Gordon, Hamlin.
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Lap 17: Earnhardt has gained eight spots already and is up to 12th.
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Lap 4: Johnson’s car looks stout early. He draws out to a four-length lead on the few opening laps.
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Nothing says “divine reverence” quite like shouting “AMEN! WOOOOOOOO!” at the end of the invocation. National anthem in the books.
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Woman playing some kind of Goody's Plinko game in the midway. The prizes at the bottom were various Goody's products. There was a long line to do this game.
Looking for Rick H. but haven’t found him yet. I’m sure he’s digging into some Dodge’s chicken right about now.
No live blog would be complete without discussion of odds. Denny Hamlin and Jimmie Johnson are your co-favorites at a little more than 3-to-1. No argument from me on that. As I wrote today, this race really sets up for those two (and especially Johnson) to make up big ground on points leader Brad Keselowski, who has only one top-10 finish in five Martinsville starts.
Hamlin won the truck race yesterday, so he’s got to be feeling good coming into this one.
Jeff Gordon is 6.5-to-1. Clint Bowyer is 8.5-to-1. Dale Earnhardt Jr. is 11-to-1, Tony Stewart is 12-to-1 and Keselowski is 16-to-1. Ryan Newman, who won here in the spring, is 30-to-1.
October 28, 2012 - 10:08 AM
To eye something humorous;follow Knappy around.
Is it too late to bet on the under on blog visitors? Appreciate the shout out, but it is kind of hard to find somebody in a crowd of 70,000, or whatever the ‘official’ number will be. The chicken and red dogs were about as expected. No yellow flags on the way home, reasonably quick out, so that was a plus, too.
Tough luck for Hamlin, on whatever his electrical issue was, but he’s toast, and his inability to observe the speed limit on pit road. Not sure how that happens, when things are that bunched up, but somehow it does.
It is a 3 dog fight now, and the 3rd dog is a wild card, it could be either Bowyer, or Kahne, at this point, whomever doesn’t have a bad race, assuming Bad Brad and 5-time do both have a bad one. If they both have one, and the other two do not, it might set up for a nice final 4 later on, but Johnson is a very safe bet going into these last 3 tracks. Keslowski did really well, holding close, given his starting spot, but he is a couple years away.
Love the fast food ‘dream team’ – don’t forget the Pepsi Max car to wash it all down with.