With the intense racing at the end of the Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma today, I just couldn’t help but let out a little of my own emotions, too. The racing was a bit over the edge, in particular over the last 30 laps and there was more than one person that got his feelings hurt in the road racing that looked more like short track bumpin’ and bangin’.
Actually, at least from my view, the aggressive driving started early and then eased up for a while. It appeared to this fan that many of the drivers put up with some of the shenanigans for a period of time and then a lot of emotion along with the inevitable beatin’ and bangin’ began to spill out. Some of the drivers were able to keep their emotions in check while others let it all hang out.
The one incident that will probably get the most attention this week and at Loudon will be the one between Jeff Gordon and Martin Truex Jr. Jeff did get into Martin and did spin him in turn #11. That incident put Truex in a bad starting position for the following caution and restart and he ended up on the trailer for the rest of the race. In the heat of the moment, Martin vowed to make it up to Jeff this coming weekend at Loudon.
One thing is obvious about Jeff Gordon and his desire to win races and possibly take his fifth Cup Championship, he has been driving very aggressively this season and, at Sonoma, obviously upset more than just Martin Truex Jr (in particular, Kurt Bush quickly comes to mind.) For someone many say is over the hill and on his way out, I’d say they may want to reconsider their opinion. To this fan, it looks like he is ready to put it all on the line and if some think he is overly aggressive or not, seems to me I remember they used to say someone else was overly aggressive – almost intimidating…
At Sonoma it was easy to see some tempers were short, especially near the end of the day, but we’ll talk more about at length in the mid-week article, “Nascar at Sonoma After Thoughts”…
See ya next time… Rusty
All views expressed are strictly the opinion of the writer
© June 20, 2010 – all rights reserved
Rusty Norman and NascarFansView.com
(All audio productions by www.podcastnorm.com and PCNProductions.com)