Why no boos for Busch in his bail out?
By Staff
Dale Earnhardt, Jr. can't win from losing. His decision to jump into Kyle Busch's no. 5 Chevy for the last few laps at Texas last week has been criticized by many in the media. I think that criticism is very much undeserved. After wrecking, putting Junior out of the race when he had the strongest car on the track, no less, Busch's team worked hard to get back on the track.
Master mechanic Kyle decided that there was no possible way for his crew to get the car back out, so he packed up and headed home. Much to his surprise, his crew did get the car in good enough shape to go out and make laps. But guess what? Kyle was probably somewhere over Mississippi in an airplane, headed back to Charlotte.
Junior was asked by one of his friends, who happens to be on Busch's crew, to jump into the car and complete and last few laps. He leapt at the chance and completed the last nine laps of the race, gaining a position and three additional points for Busch in the process. The fact that Junior drove the car is not the issue, in my view. The bigger question has to be, why did Busch leave the track? There must have some glimmer of hope that the car could be repaired and return to the track. If not, the effort would not have been made.
I bet it was tough for Busch to look his crew members in the eye back at the shop on Monday. Many of those guys' livelihoods depend on his performance and he bailed out on them. Will they work quite as hard the next time the situation presents itself? Busch has to be wondering the same thing.
Jeff Burton is a real deal contender for the championship this year. He led only one lap at Texas last week, but he picked the right lap-the last one. He walked away with the cowboy hat and second position in the championship standings, trailing Jeff Gordon. Kudos to David Stremme for his first career top-ten finish.
We had a short-track race at Phoenix International Raceway last night.
Typically, Michael Waltrip failed to qualify for the seventh consecutive race. Reports surfaced this week that Waltrip is on the hook to rebate NAPA, his primary sponsor, $300,000 for every race that he misses. How much longer can this continue? Those same reports indicated that Bill Elliott was being considered to take over the wheel of that car. Just so happens that Elliott has six unused championship provisional starts in his back pocket. That comes to about a $1.8 million savings for Michael Waltrip Racing.
Jeff Findley is a guest columnist for the Franklin County Times.
