Busch Sweeps Richmond, Brown Beats the Beer Car in St. Louis
By: Drew Hierwarter
Kyle Busch continues to make NASCAR’s three major race series his personal playground. Over this past weekend he entered three different races, in three completely different types of race cars, on two different tracks, and he won them all!
On Thursday night he raced and won in a charity event driving a short track late model car against guys like Tony Stewart, Joey Logano, and Denny Hamlin, among others. On Friday night he won the Nationwide Series race at Richmond International Raceway. Then on Saturday night, his 24th birthday, he won the Sprint Cup Series race also at Richmond.
This was his third Sprint Cup win of the year, the fifteenth Sprint Cup win of his career, and his 50th win in all three of NASCAR’s top divisions! By any measure his performance is already a phenomenal record, and at 24, he’s just getting started.
In NHRA action in St. Louis Top Fuel sophomore, Antron Brown got his fourth win of his career when he defeated Brandon Bernstein 3.85 to Berntstein’s 3.88. Brown recorded the fifth fastest speed, 318 mph, since the fuel cars began running the 1,000 foot distance. Del Worsham was victorious in the Funny Car division, while Jeg Coughlin won in Pro Stock.
Why do road course racing series insist on running in the rain? The Rolex Sports Car Series race at New Jersey Motorsports Park started in a down pour with almost zero visibility and before the first lap was completed cars were colliding and spinning off course and there was a full course yellow flag. And once the race resumed it was just a matter of the cars tip toeing around going just fast enough to stay in position but slow enough to not run off the track. That’s not racing.
An hour into the race another full course caution period was required because there was too much standing water in certain places around the track. Just because they have rain tires and windshield wipers doesn’t mean they can still go just as fast. Racing in the rain during a 12 or 24 hour race is one thing, but a two and half hour sprint like this should be postponed for everyone’s sake.