Sunday, June 30, 2013

Matt Kenseth wins at Kentucky


Matt Kenseth won the Quaker State 400 today for his fourth victory of the season.

Kenseth's crew chief made a gutsy call on the final pit stop of the race to forgo tires in lieu of gaining track position. The gamble paid off as once again, Jimmie Johnson messed up a restart and ended up getting spun out and buried deep in the pack.

You have to give Johnson some credit though. After pitting for fresh tires, he raced through the pack to get a top ten finish though he was chirping on the radio about Kenseth's supposedly illegal move on the restart. This is some high dudgeon from a driver who's already been penalized himself this season for illegal restarts and even Kyle Petty remarked that maybe Johnson should just be allowed to make up his own rules on every restart.

heh

I'm glad that Kenseth won and also glad that Johnson did not. As Jimmie was running away with the race, I was just thinking ho hum, Johnson wins again. My buddy at work thinks Johnson's the greatest driver ever. But it is my contention that his success is more due to crew chief Chad Knaus and Hendrick Motorsports as car owner. Knaus just simply has a way with these cars that is supernatural, and I think any driver that was put with him would be winning at the same rate as Johnson.

Also, some small ups to Ryan Newman for quietly working his way forward all race and nearly cracking the top ten. Tony had a crappy day and Danica was fairly racy all day though she didn't get above 20th.



And the Red Sox won today on a walk off error to beat the Blue Jays 5-4 and take three of four in the series.

Some sads for Toronto catcher Josh Thole who was installed at first base due to an injury earlier in the game and ended up booting a routine grounder to allow the winning run in the ninth.

As a life long Boston fan, the image of Bill Buckner letting that grounder go through his legs is permanently burned into my brain. And that was all I could think of when I saw Thole get handcuffed by Victorino's grounder.

Eesh! That sucks! I'm glad Boston won the game, but I truly feel sorry for Thole. Keep your head up dude.

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