Happy Hour: It revolves around the Busch brothers
Happy Hour is back, back again. Happy Hour is back, back, tell a friend.
Throughout the week you can send us your best questions, jokes, rants and just plain miscellaneous thoughts to [email protected] or @NickBromberg. We’ll post them here and have a good time.
Llamas, llamas everywhere on Thursday. We even heard they were testing a car or two at the track as part of a new NASCAR program designed to get animals into the sport. In case you were wondering if a llama could make the Chase, here are five reasons it could.
QuikTrip is the title sponsor of Sunday’s race, and to celebrate, QT is providing the media food for the weekend.
Thanks @QuikTrip for the media center food this weekend! #FoHQT500 pic.twitter.com/IefMW48NBi
— AtlantaMotorSpeedway (@amsupdates) February 26, 2015
Holy carbohydrates. If you live in an area with QuikTrips, you probably like them. QT seems like the type of convenience store that’s impossible to dislike. Fountain drinks are cheap, the food is pretty good (relative to gas station food, not a nice steakhouse, of course) and they’re clean. Back in our younger days we could take down some cheese taquitos and a 52 oz. fountain drink with no problem. Of course the fountain drink was Diet Dr. Pepper, though. Because health.
Let’s start with an email regarding the Daytona 500 finish.
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Saturday night’s wreck was unfortunate sure, but should have had no bearing on [Sunday’s] race as long Daytona management did what they said the were doing. It should have been a clear race to the checker, not a finish under caution. I bet money that I am not the only one who thinks this way! – Joel
No, it shouldn’t have been a race to the finish under green. And Joel brings up Saturday’s race because of our explanation here.
It was a mess on the backstretch and there’s no way to call a caution flag for just part of the field. You can’t tell the drivers behind the crash to stop barreling through it in the hopes of improving their finishing position while allowing the leaders to race to the checkered flag.
Do we really want drivers knowing that there will (almost) never be a caution flag on the final lap? Or do we want a rule saying that every race must end under green even if there is a caution flag?
And for the sake of discussion, let’s extrapolate the latter option out for a moment and say NASCAR institutes a rule that if a caution flag comes out on the last lap, the race isn’t over and it needs to finish under green.
What happens the first time someone crashes in turn four as the leader (with a sizeable lead) is about to hit the start/finish line for the win? And then when the ensuing restart happens, that leader loses the lead and the race? Can you imagine the amount of complaining then? Do we really want both that situation and the complaining? We certainly don’t.
You may think the green-white-checkered rule that’s in place right now may be flawed, but you’re not going to find a perfect solution.
@NickBromberg With the Rice and Peterson saga this year in the NFL why hasn’t NASCAR been looked at w/ the same outrage with the Busch situa
— Josh Anderson (@JoshAnderson09) February 26, 2015
@NickBromberg situation. Did NASCAR handle it better? Or was the outrage always there through the process, it was just not as documented?
— Josh Anderson (@JoshAnderson09) February 26, 2015
No matter what NASCAR did, there were going to be complaints. The sanctioning body was, quite frankly, in a scenario with no good options. Either side was going to elicit complaints from observers.
(Now, if the Delaware attorney general announces soon there will be no charges stemming from the alleged incident, then it’s going to get tricky. But we’ll worry about that scenario if/when it happens.)
Simply put, the precedent that the NFL set with it’s handling of the Ray Rice case is the big factor here. It’s fair to wonder if Busch is suspended before the NFL was the disaster it was because of the way it handled Travis Kvapil’s situation. However, with the increased scrutiny, the public opinion parameters are certainly different.
And it’s also important to note that NASCAR is not nearly on the same scale the NFL is in the minds of the casual sports observer. The NFL’s platform magnified the scrutiny it received.
@NickBromberg question if one of the substitute drivers wins in the 18,34 or 41 which driver gets the chase spot ? The regular or the sub
— Todd C. Lewis (@NJParrtHead) February 26, 2015
It depends on the Chase! Yes, there are two Chases.
Let’s say David Ragan wins in the No. 18 car and goes back to Front Row Motorsports in July. He would be qualified for the Chase no matter what car he’s driving, so he’d be a member of the Chase in the No. 34 car in the driver’s points standings. However, the win is also credited to the owner, so when it comes to owner’s points, the No. 18 car would be in the Chase while the No. 34 wouldn’t. Clear as mud, right?
Just think of it like the title scenarios in the Xfinity and Camping World Truck Series last year. While Chase Elliott and Matt Crafton were the drivers’ champions, the Team Penske No. 22 and Kyle Busch Motorsports No. 51 were the owner’s points champions.
So if you’re a fan of complicated scenarios, you’re rooting for a substitute driver to get a win and vacate his ride before the Chase. And then for either Kyle Busch or Kurt Busch – assuming either return this season – to be incredible in the Chase (despite not qualifying themselves). If either Busch brother was top points-accumulating driver in the Chase and his car was in it, the car would win the owner’s championship while another driver would win the driver’s title.
Imagine trying to explain that to any casual observers who tune in for the final race of the season.
@NickBromberg Want a Chase redo since Busch Nations were toppled? Is the hat part of NASCAR loud clothes collection? pic.twitter.com/BnSJzpkkoW
— Brian Cullather (@Briancullather) February 26, 2015
Do we all get mulligans? If so, let’s go with Jamie McMurray and Martin Truex Jr. as the replacements for the Busch brothers in the Chase.
And yes, that hat officially goes into the loud category. We were looking forward to the look of the hat given NASCAR’s New Era partnership, and, well, it underwhelmed. Too bad it couldn’t have been closer to this Dale Earnhardt Jr. hat.
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Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
