Spring Racing Weekend 09.
04/05/2009
Kyle Busch and Jeff Gordon win their races at Texas Motor Speedway.
It turned into a beautiful day for a race on Saturday: a bit of wind, lots of sunshine and the track was pretty fast. The race only had a couple of cautions for debris before the big caution with 12 laps to go that lead to a stand on your feet finish. Kyle Busch, Tony Stewart and Brad Keselowski took the top three in the Nationwide race on Saturday afternoon.
Brother and I took a detour to Justin TX to pick up some western wear and I managed to find another pair of shoes (I had stopped on Thursday between sessions an found another pair of Tony Lama’s for a steal.) It was early to bed and an early morning to head to the track for the morning festivities.
At the Speed stage I saw David Reutimann, Jeff Gordon and then Elliot Sadler stopped by for the PRN taping. Jeff was looking for his first win at TX and sounded confident but reserved since the track has eluded him for so many years. David had the pole for the race and Elliot is just such a nice guy: I love the part in his contract that used to say, leave me alone for a couple of weeks after the season: I am on vacation and I am going hunting in the woods.
The track activities included a performance by Foreigner, the rock band from my youth. I found myself singing along as they played some of their top hits on the front stretch of the track. The wind and the cool temperatures played havoc with the set ups and the drives struggled for the first segment of the race until the caution flag was thrown for debris. Mark Martin opted to stay out to get track position during another caution, since he had pitted just 5 laps before. Jimmie Johnson used all the laps to pit as Chad tuned up the car since he was going to be the last car on the lead lap. Chad worked his magic again and Jimmie was passing a car at a time.
A late caution and a pit road mistake kept Matt Kenseth from the lead. Dale Jr. and Kyle Busch will not be exchanging any kind words this week after Jr. got pushed up into the turn 1 and 2 debris and scrapped along the wall. It ruined a good run Jr. was having. The last laps had Jimmie Johnson up on the wheel trying to close the 3 second gap between he and Jeff Gordon. I thought at one point with the lap traffic in the way Jimmie might be able to pull it off and leave Jeff with a winless streak in Texas, but Jeff Gordon prevailed for his first Lone Star win: complete with a set of pistols, cowboy hat and a boot style trophy.
It sure was another fun weekend of racing at Texas Motor Speedway.
