Weekend Recap

Let me get a couple of things out of the way first. Tiger Woods won the British Open this weekend, two of those in a row and 3 overall. As he's done in the past, if he's near the top early, you can forget about it. Nice showing by Chris DiMarco, who finished 2nd. He seems to show well in majors but comes up a little short to players with more ability. That makes 11 majors overall for Tiger.
Ricky Craven's ride was a short one at Martinsville in the Busch race Saturday. He started near the back, got spun out and went a lap down; and then he was out of the race and I didn't hear why, if they said why. He finished like 39th in a race won by Kevin Harvick. Oh well.
The Red Sox lost a couple of tough ones to Seattle over the weekend, though a lot of that had to do with the young pitchers they're having to use. These kids have a lot of ability and in the long run it means great things for the future of the Red Sox.
Now to the Nextel Cup race at Pocono. Before I go to far, my friend Robbie at Greetings From America's Finest City has some great race caps on his site. Denny Hamlin won the race and thus swept both races at Ponoco. It's been 5 times at that track. What I'd like to know is whether a rookie has ever swept both races at a track before. He also won both races from the pole in dominating fashion.
What follows are just some observations of things that transpired during the race. Early on Michael Waltrip smacked the wall and didn't bring out a caution. It's gotten so that Nascar waves a yellow flag for almost no reason. So it's quite noticeable when they don't. Kyle Petty was running decent, decent for him, but blew a right front tire and smacked the wall hard, finishing 42nd. Kasey Kahne was good early. He qualified 3rd and was a top 10 car but for the latter 3/4 of the race his car was extremely tight and faded badly. What I don't understand is this (warning, announcer gripe): This is a 2 1/2 mile track, and so it takes quite a number of laps to lap even the backmarkers. At the last restart Kasey's on the lead lap but gets lapped within 10 laps. This is a car that's in the top 10 in points; it was obvious something happened to the car, and yet no mention of it by the announcers! Bobby Labonte in the 43 started around 30th and quickly moved up to be a top 15 car for most of the race. He received a penalty late for speeding on pit road but raced hard and finished 8th. So my weekly kudo goes to my 43 car.
My fantasy race pick was a good one, Brian Vickers, who was solid all day and finished 4th.
Now on to my whipping boy of late, Tony Stewart...he has to be the most self-absorbed driver in recent memory, which makes him a humongous hypocrite. This time? Well, let's do this sort of backwards and refer to his post race interview first. It seems like he says the same thing every time, and the press corps bows at his feet like he's some wise professor. He essentially said regarding his run-in with Clint Bowyer, "If they'd just use some give and take" and some crap about being careful racing around faster cars. Heeeeeey Tony, in both instances in the last two races, the other car involved was the faster car. When Tony talks about give and take, he means the other drivers should give so that he can take and not to expect his heiness to reciprocate.
Clint Bowyer gets a little loose coming off the turn under Tony while he's trying to pass him (something Tony never does apparently); Tony reacts and brushes the wall. He then makes a gesture at Bowyer, turns into Bowyer, which spins Bowyer out and takes Carl Edwards with him. Later in the race Edwards spins Tony on pit road. What I didn't know until after the race was that Edwards said he earlier drove up beside Tony to kind of gesture "what was that all about?" and that Tony flipped him off. Edwards said it was as much the bird as it was being collected in Tony's anger that made Edwards decide to spin Tony. LOL Tony was strong all day. So even though he was penalized a lap for rough driving, he got the lap back and finished 7th. Not so lucky was Edwards...the accident cost him a lap and then he was penalized a lap for rough driving as well and finished 39th. Bowyer also finished a few laps down.
And I forgot an "old man" update. As some of you know, Shadow turned 17 this spring and is showing his age now. He's arthritic in his back hips and a couple of weeks ago his right eye stopped focusing. Within the last few days that eye has gotten cloudy. So he definitely has a cataract in that eye.

Pocono British Open Royal Liverpool Hoylake Nascar Woods Tiger Petty Tony Stewart Nextel Cup Carl Edwards Bowyer DiMarco Labonte Kahne Hamlin