I don't see why he should be behind the wheel at all.

He ought to be treated the same as any other substance abuser, Alcohol after all is a drug, a socially accptable one. Even so, I don't agree with Rusty at all, or Micheal's statement. It simply strikes me as a case of 'I got caught', not an 'I'm sorry' statement.

Honestly, I hope he gets fired by Rusty and suspended from NASCAR, it wold, IMHO, be the best thing for him.

Let's see. Aaron Fike admits to using heroin, banned for life. NASCAR had no clue, the police arrested him

Jeremy Mayfield, banned for life, currently sueing NASCAR

Kurt Busch, supposed DUI arrest, suspended by his team, no action taken by NASCAR (iirc)

Micheal Annett, Arrested for DUI, DWT, resisting arrest, punishments TBA

Scott Wimmer, arrested for DUI, got 24 hours of community service in a 30-day period (WTF?!)

I'd rather NASCAR takes a hard line against any substance abusers, no matter what substance.

He should get full punishment for that. When A.J Allmendinger got busted for a DUI a year ago, he was only at .08, and he got punished pretty severely.

I forgot about AJ, and agreed, NASCAR needs to come down hard on any driver who gets a DUI. Why? Well. Rumors were (later confirmed) that Aaron Fike used heroin prior to races and that (unconfirmed) both Jeremy Mayfield and the late Tim Richmond drove while high. Now, imagine if rumors start about a driver with a DUI driving while drunk?

All the rednecks can look at this and say "I wanna get into NASCAR just so I can drink beer all day and do whatever I want!".

Wow, I seriously think that NASCAR needs to hand out severe punishments to all of those who abuse substances on and off the track. These guys need to be role models.

I think the Mayfield incident was a good thing for NASCAR to do even though it created so much bad publicity.

I see this as an up year for NASCAR despite the negitivity from all of the usual suspects (International Racing Community & Non-Race Fans mostly). Of course not all of the people who fall under this catagory are doubters either, but as a general group they tend to be the worst.

wtf, Sterling Marlin in the Bud Shootout?

Eligible, no idea if he will actually be there or not.

Cars are on track in preperation for a race for the first time of 2011!

Am I the only one not finding this too enjoyable?

If anything it reminds me of LFS bumpdrafting in the Kyoto 250 (XRT's).

Yeah, it is excelent, but I don't see it working out as well in the 500. They will try to do it, but I don't think that very many cars will survive with substained RPM's around 9700. That's if the crashes don't destroy you first.

i have a bad feeling a car is going to fly upside down if they keep going these speeds, 206 mph + spinning car = by by spectators.

Quote from Cornys :

They will try to do it, but I don't think that very many cars will survive with substained RPM's around 9700.

They are rev limited to around 8700 on superspeedways.

They were constant 9600-9700 RPMs tonight.

Quote from PMD9409 :

They were constant 9600-9700 RPMs tonight.

Hmm, they must've changed it this year.

They seemed to have changed alot this year. I was quite pleased with the racing at Talladega last year. I mean, sure the two car drafting happened, but the racing wasn't solely on that.

It was the opposite tonight. Sure the finish was sorta close, but it was a snooze fest for me.

NASCAR supposedly limited the air ducts for all cars, right. That's why we still had cars bumper to bumper for 12 laps or more...

The end of the first 25 lap segment was pretty good but when those two groups broke away at the end of the race it was pretty boring. It will be hotter out during the day next Sunday though so I'm not sure they'll be able to push each other for as long as they were last night. Also, bad move by Denny, think he had the win if he wouldn't have gone under the yellow line, it looked like Newman gave him enough room to get through.

I thought JJ moved over on Carl just befoe the big one and touched him, anyone else notice that?

Also......Our league starts next week. All 4 of my picks wrecked >< (I went for Conway, Montoya, Jr and Logano)

No chance will the 500 be anything like the race last night (which was awesome). Even by the end of the race last night, the bumpers were knackered and they couldn't push each other anywhere near as much as they had done, and no way will the engines be able to cope with running 9700 for 500 miles, so I expect it to be more like Talladega racing, the odd 2 car breakaway, but mostly pack running.

Quote from DieKolkrabe :

I thought JJ moved over on Carl just befoe the big one and touched him, anyone else notice that?

Also......Our league starts next week. All 4 of my picks wrecked >< (I went for Conway, Montoya, Jr and Logano)

It seemed like Regan Smith pushed Carl down onto JR.

Yeah, I put 80% blame on Regan for coming down, and 20% on Carl for not simply lifting.

Carl never lifts though, did you actually EXPECT him to get out of the throttle?

Not at all, I wouldn't have either.

Now I'm confused. In the Daytona 500 Qualifying, they are only hitting like 8700 rpms, maybe they only had the raised RPM for the shootout.

I'm thinking it is just gear choice. Probably can't hit peak power at the end of the RPM range.

EDIT: Mandatory gears, correct? So they wouldn't be doing 9x00 RPMs unless they are getting drafted or pushed.

Quote from SidiousX :

Now I'm confused. In the Daytona 500 Qualifying, they are only hitting like 8700 rpms, maybe they only had the raised RPM for the shootout.

Well yeah, there's a 20mph+ difference from running alone to running in a draft. They're barely hitting 185 in qual trim, fastest speed in last nights race was 208.