Jimmie Bump-and-run-someone-up-the-track Johnson wins Martinsville; Death to the 15 wheel!

Well, just in case you ve been living under a rock, and didn t know there was a race this weekend .the Goody s Agonizingly Slow Pain Relief 500 was everything nobody thought it would be .not too terribly bad, for a COT race. That s funny, isn t it? Since the COT came out, it s almost like the entire NASCAR writing public now has to add a COT asterisk to the reporting of a NASCAR Sprint Cup race. The Angry Dwarf 500 this last Sunday was a pretty good event .for a COT race . That speaks volumes about the Car of tomorrow, doesn t it? I can hardly think of a worse slap to be dealt to the COT, especially when you have to treat the COT, due to its poor design, like it s some sort of uncoordinated, bumbling idiot of a cousin that you are really trying to say something nice about and can t come up with anything. For the first time in quite some time, I enjoyed Darrell Waltrip s comments about the Car Of Some Hideous Alternate Tomorrow during the race. While Mike Joy and Larry Mac spent a considerable amount of time brown-nosing NASCAR, Darrell actually spoke of some (okay, some ) of the problems that the teams are faced with since having the COSHAT dumped into their laps, during the 2007 season. He made note of how freaking temperamental these cars are, and how there is so much brake rotor and caliper inside the back of the wheel, that you can t get any air in there to cool the brakes off and we get the same problems that we had at the last Martinsville event in 2008 .where tire beads were melting off of front wheels .and of course, we already knew this. That problem was relegated to the backmarkers for this race, but the problem is still there. To be honest with you, NASCAR needs the 17 wheel and tire assembly that Goodyear is working on now, not in 2011 .when nobody is going to care. The 15 wheel that s being used currently in Sprint Cup needs to be .not retired, but needs to be relegated to the history books .as Darrell said, the 15 wheel has been used in Sprint Cup Racing .since the start of NASCAR. By the way, speaking about the 15 wheel .don t even get me started on Mike Joy comparing the COSHAT with....of all things .a Formula 1 car. Yep, Mike Joy had the audacity to compare a COT car with the latest in Formula 1 technology. You know, that s priceless. It s like comparing 1940 s steam locomotives with the latest in Diesel-electric trains. It s like comparing a World War II Curtiss P-40E Kittyhawk fighter plane (yes, the same plane that Claire Chennault s AVG The Flying Tigers used in China, before and during WWII) to the F-22 Raptor. It s like comparing Mike Joy .to someone who actually knows a heck of a lot more about these cars than Mike Joy does. Formula 1 limits the wheel diameter in order to limit the brake technology? And then in the same breath, you then say NASCAR is intelligent for doing the same thing? Uh, gee, Mike, the last time I checked, NASCAR actually needs the larger brakes due to the minimum weight of the COSHAT being a

punishing 3500 pounds .and the last time I checked, Formula 1 cars were only around 1500 pounds, fully-loaded . Thank you, Darrell .but the fans would like to hear more of the same, due to this car needing to be retired, or completely reconfigured for the start of the 2010 season. NASCAR missed the boat for the 2009 season, arrogantly leaving the COSHAT as it is, and the fans are don t agree, in ever-increasing numbers. Speaking of the fans .did anyone else notice vast stretches of empty seats? Did anyone else notice how they got increasingly more deserted-looking as the race wore on? By The Way: After seeing the COSHAT run on a short track, where they don t run an inner liner? Now I know why that splitter is on the front of the car; NASCAR is aware that they will have X amount of blowouts during the race .the splitter is doing double duty; it s there primarily to cause blowouts and yellow flags, and it s also there to scrape the track surface when a car does have a blowout up front. By The way: Concerning the Martinsville Hot Dog ; I think someone in the producer s booth really thought these red hot dogs were gross, otherwise, when prompted to show driver s reactions to the dawg in question, why show drivers who all looked like they wanted to vomit when asked about it? By The Way: Anyone remember the beer can out on the track that caused (I believe) the last caution of the race? Does anyone else think it would have been more funny had a fan accidentally tossed an entire beer truck out onto the racing surface? Whoops! ( Fan runs away .) By The Way: I saw yet another unrealistic, and obnoxious Budweiser commercial (where the guy is explaining what he likes about cheap Budweiser to the dame that s looking increasingly annoyed about the lame pickup lines .). Had I been the woman standing there? I would have taken a short step to my right, and thrown a left elbow right at his jaw. By The Way: Oh, boy, another Osbournes show. By The Way: All of the Hendrick Racing stable finished in the top-ten. Normalcy is restored. By The Way: Even though A.J. Wallbanger is still a nerd, he finished 9th .a heck of a lot better than a lot of teams with ten times his team s budget. Here s to hoping he somehow pulls off an entire season, and makes the chase . By The Way: There are still too many men over the wall during pit stops. Gee, how about dry-break fueling systems, and on-board jacks? 5 guys over the wall .tops. But no, in a pit-stop atmosphere where pit crews are working harder and harder in order to advance their driver further up in the field (because you can t pass too well with this car) .I predict something happening to a pit crew member, sometime in the future. Yes, it s vague .but pit row is hideously overcrowded.

By The Way: Speaking of Formula 1 cars? After watching a bit of the Australian Grand Prix Saturday night on Speed .man, are those cars ugly. See you next time .