Racin' With Russ
By Russell Schmidt

Bowyer Inherits Wild Win at RIR
Monday, May 12th, 2008

Are you getting tired of those Toyotas dominating NASCAR's top three series? Well, I'd say get used to it. As predicted months ago, Toyota does not have a budget to be successful. Their motto might as well be, "Whatever it takes."

Between Joe Gibbs three drivers, Tony Stewart, Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch, they've already racked up more than a dozen wins between the three top series and I don't see any end in sight.

The younger Busch brother still rose to the occasion as one of the toughest tracks to win at, Darlington, in capturing his third Cup win of the season on Saturday night.

And, for sure, the win wasn't easy. Imagine going down a lap, having loose lug nuts, smacking into the Darlington walls a handful of times and still, walked away with the big trophy.

Stewart had a bad opening to the race when Elliott Sadler got loose, the two ground along the wall for a while before stopping. Sadler wound up many laps behind and Stewart, despite being two laps down drove through the field, TWICE before finishing a very credible 22nd.

When I watched how Stewart and Busch passed cars, and I mean top cars like Dale Earnhardt Jr, Jeff Gordon or Carl Edwards...it was like they were tied to stumps!

I've heard the Toyotas have come up some 30 horsepower ahead of the competition during post-race dyno tests and I certainly believe it...if not more!

When will the competition (read Ford, Dodge, Chevy) jump up and down to complain about the clear advantage the Toyotas are experiencing. NASCAR has a history of evening the 'playing field', but I haven't seen any changes or even hints of one.

Have you seen the laps led charts in either the Nationwide or Cup ranks? The Toy's are way ahead of the competition by either hundreds or in some cases a thousand laps or more!

The race started with Greg Biffle being top dog, but faded as the race wore on with pit stop problems and finally engines woes to sideline the Roush-Fenway driver.

Carl Edwards was strong for a while, but he too was passed by Busch and could not mount a challenge to take the lead, settling for second, just ahead of Gordon, Dale Jr and David Ragan.

I don't know about you, but I'm getting pretty tired of the domination by the Toy's and wait for something to be done to even things out. What do you think? Drop me a line.

As the teams leave Darlington, many of them with heavy Darlington stripes, they are about to prepare for the big weekend at Lowe's Motor Speedway for the running of the big buck All-Star race on Saturday night. More Toy's in the winner's circle? Could very well be.

On the Nationwide series side, the action on Friday night was, well... all Toyota as Tony Stewart took the field to school on how powerful these cars really are.

Between the fine preparation of Gibbs Racing and talent pool involved, they are becoming a tough force to be reckoned with.

Stewart led the most laps (90 of 149), hardly being headed at all en route to his fourth consecutive Nationwide win in the No. 20 Toyota.

Rounding out the top five were the cars of Clint Bowyer, David Reutimann (Toyota), Todd Bodine (Toyota) and Steven Wallace.

Are we seeing a pattern here?

Open Wheel News
The first day of Indy 500 qualifying took place on Saturday with Ganassi drivers Scott Dixon and Dan Wheldon heading up the front row with Penske shoe Ryan Briscoe on the outside.

The top 11 are locked in for the 92nd running of the Great American classic, including Danica Patrick in fifth and Marco Andretti in seventh.

Second day qualifying was rained out, leaving the final spots (12-33) to be filled this coming weekend.

I look for this year's Indy 500 to be one of the better ones in recent memory due to the recent reunion of Champ and IRL drivers.

From Rumorville
Sounds as if Terry Labonte is about to come out of early retirement by filling in for Kyle Petty starting next month for a handful or more Cup races. One week Kyle will be out of contention is for his daughter's wedding and even more weeks are scheduled to be in front of the TNT cameras as commentator. Throw in some appearances by Chad McCumbee and Kyle's driving stints are getting shorter and shorter. Bad thing? Good thing? Drop me a line.

Looks like John Andretti will take a break from the stock car set by attempting to qualify for this year's Indy 500. I was glad to hear of this and wish him the best of luck.

Did you know?
Who's eligible for this week's All Star Cup race? Winning drivers from the past two seasons along with past winners of the event will include Kevin Harvick, Matt Kenseth, Jimmie Johnson, Kyle Busch, Jeff Burton, Jeff Gordon, Casey Mears, Martin Truex Jr., Carl Edwards, Juan Pablo Montoya, Denny Hamlin, Jamie McMurray, Tony Stewart, Kurt Busch, Clint Bowyer, Greg Biffle, Ryan Newman, Bobby Labonte, Dale Jarrett, Mark Martin, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and as yet to be named, the 2008 Sprint Showdown winner and runner-up in addition to a fan vote winner.

That's it for this week. Next week's RWR will review all the action from Lowe's Motor Speedway for the Cup and Craftsman Truck series, Indy 500 qualifying news and more racing news from around the globe.

Questions? Comments? Contact Russ