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Nascar and Racing

Sprint Cup N's & Q's: Dickies 500

Posted Nov 09, 2009 6:24PM By Geoffrey Miller (RSS feed)

Filed Under: Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson, Kurt Busch, Kyle Busch, Mark Martin, Chase for the Sprint Cup, Sprint Cup

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Notes, quotes and a dash of commentary from a NASCAR weekend in Texas.

Kurt Busch Texas Motor Speedway NASCAR Sprint Cup Chase Penske RacingWhat a difference a crew chief makes.

Kyle Busch, a Sprint Cup nobody in the last few weeks, rocketed back to his expected form with new team leader Dave Rogers calling the shots Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway. Busch had the dominant car and led 232 of 334 laps before a fuel miscalculation or a blind shot at a win kept him from making history by being the first driver to win three races in one weekend.

And strangely, Busch's old form of letting his crew chief do the post-race talking returned, too.

Busch, credited with an 11th-place finish after running out of fuel with 2.5 laps left, skirted all media on his quick dash out from Texas -- leaving Rogers to stand in the garage area and try to explain what happened on his end.

But what about Kyle? Was he disappointed to miss out on doing a NASCAR first? Or was he late to a race somewhere else?

Kyle Busch fans, I guess you'll never know.

Sunday's margin of victory for Kurt Busch was a whopping 25.686 seconds, thanks to him stretching the fuel mileage game in his No. 2 Dodge.

Since NASCAR's inception of electronic timing in 1993, Kurt Busch's winning margin at Texas was the largest of any race in that time period. That 1993 season featured another fuel mileage race with a large margin of victory as Morgan Shepherd took the win -- his last career Sprint Cup win -- at Atlanta Motor Speedway by some 17 seconds in the Wood Brothers No. 21 car.

Of all the work Jimmie Johnson's crew performed on what was otherwise a completely trashed race car after his lap 3 crash, it's surprising they left out one huge detail: a massive Lowe's decal on the new hood.

NASCAR has long been the sport with sponsors and logos in every imaginable spot, so you'd think the team would just naturally have a replacement nose at least covered with a Lowe's decal -- or even just have a big one ready to peel and stick on the hood.

After all, think about all of the cool marketing approaches Lowe's could use had the No. 48 donned a logo. I'm thinking about pitches involving teamwork, quality repair and, of course, the Lowe's motto of "Let's Build Something Together."

Why do I have a feeling that's something Hendrick Motorsports will have figured out for next weekend -- just in case?

You've got to be happy for Michael McGee, the agriculture education teacher from Broken Bow, Okla.

McGee randomly chose Kurt Busch to take Sunday's race win after the 23-year-old advanced through race sponsor Dickies' American Worker of the Year contest. As a result, he won a cool million bucks.

As a guy who has spent more than my fair share of time in the agriculture education world, it was a cool moment to see a person in a profession that can make a big difference on the lives of his students thanks to a real world education that ag ed can offer. As with so many thankless jobs, the pay is very often not that great.

How does McGee plan to spend the money? He told ESPN after the race that he'd like to pay off his house and maybe build a covered horse barn because he raises horses on the side. There's something to like about a guy who wins money and plans to spend it in a responsible fashion, I say.

On Twitter during Sunday's race, a lot was made about the teamwork amongst Hendrick Motorsports teams to get Jimmie Johnson's car back on the track -- despite teammates Mark Martin and Jeff Gordon being the closest contenders to taking advantage of Johnson's misfortune.

HMS team members wearing colors from all four teams were shown helping with different parts of Johnson's mangled race car.

Sure, there's some element of cooperation going on there, but people should remember that the paychecks at Hendrick Motorsports come from Hendrick Motorsports -- not Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson or Mark Martin. As a result, those crew guys are going to work on anything under the Hendrick Motorsports banner -- not just one car or another.

Tags: Texas+Motor+Speedway

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