Racin' With Russ
By Russell Schmidt

Childress Cars Win Wild Ending at Bristol
Monday, March 17th, 2008

After leading most of the laps at the always tough Bristol Speedway, Tony Stewart appeared to be well on his way to his latest Cup win.

But, once again, it ain't over 'til the checkers wave. With five to go, Stewart is out front, yet is passed by teammate Denny Hamlin. He was still within striking distance of getting the lead back until he got dumped by his buddy Kevin Harvick. Stewart went fairly hard into the wall backwards, yet able to wind up 14th overall.

That set up a green-white-checker with Jeff Burton in second.

Hamlin made a good start, then faltered on the front stretch allowing Burton to zoom by and take the win with Harvick, Clint Bowyer, Greg Biffle and Dale Earnhardt Jr wrapping up the top five.

Hendrick boys Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon struggled all day with set up, both trying many different adjustments, but none seemed to be effective in getting among the top ten.

They wound up 20th and 11th respectively which puts them one point apart at 13th and 14th in points.

Veteran racer Dale Jarrett made his final start in a points race coming out 34th in the final results.

Points leader Kyle Busch made it to the front only to have a steering problem send him into fence mid-race. He still managed to finish 19th and stay on top of the charts, but only by 24 over Biffle.

The Cup and Craftsman trucks are off this week for Easter, while the Nationwide gang heads to Nashville SuperSpeedway on Saturday.

Clint Bowyer ran hard and strong from the drop of the flag in Saturday's Nationwide race at Bristol.

Throw in the threat of inclement weather and the boys ran like it was the last lap every lap. From around lap 100, the crews reminded their drivers the threat of rain was near. Bowyer got up on the wheel and stayed out front despite the hard charging Kasey Kahne and others looking to get out front.

Race officials pulled the plug on this one by lap 171 of a scheduled 300, giving Bowyer his first win of the year, this one in front of Kahne, David Reutimann, Brad Kesolowski and Mike Bliss.

Kyle Busch dropped out early when his car was barely clipped by a spinning Martin Truex Jr. The non-personable driver immediately left the track in a huff, avoiding reporters.

Harvick's seventh place finish was good enough to put him atop the points, some 49 points ahead of Bowyer and 50 ahead of reigning champ Carl Edwards.

Open Wheel News
Some things never change. Lewis Hamilton picked up just where he left off by dominating the Formula One opening round in Australia.

From the drop of the flag, the young Brit took off and left the pack in the dust, seemingly never putting a wheel wrong all day en route to his fifth career win. Capping off the top five were the cars of Nick Heidfeld, Nico Rosberg, Fernando Alonso and Heikki Kovalainen. The lack of traction control made the racing more exciting.

From Rumorville
Don't look now, but there appears to be some more points swapping about to occur in the Cup ranks. One swap is more bizarre than the next. With Kyle Petty slugging around the tracks each week, it's no wonder the veteran racer is sitting 40th in points. I'd expect Team Petty to swap teammate Bobby Labonte's 14th place points with Kyle's 40th spot after this weekend.

Then, if you thought it wasn't fair for Kurt Busch's points to go to ex-open-wheel racer Sam Hornish Jr allowing him to get into the first five races, how about they are about to switch points AGAIN!…this time swapping Kurt's 10th place standing with Sam's 36th.

I think this whole process is wrong, wrong, wrong! You should have to earn the standings, not be handed them. What do you think? Drop me a line.

Ever since Tony Stewart made his feelings known about how bad he felt the Goodyear tires were at Atlanta, other drivers have chimed in with similar comments. Next topic of conversation has people speaking of the need for a driver's union or at least a panel of drivers to represent the majority. Interesting...

Did you know?
That Sunday's Cup results had a number of honorable mentions. It was the first win for Chevy this season, something Chevy has not been able to do for four races, an unusual situation based on last year's stats for sure. It was also only the second time in NASCAR history with starting 43 cars that all 43 were running at the end of the race.

And for the first time in the long history of Childress Racing that the team finished 1-2-3 in any kind of NASCAR race.

That's it for this week. Next week's RWR will review the action from the Nationwide series and more racing news from around the globe.

Questions? Comments? Contact Russ