The Original King Nationwide Makes a Statement: The Sam’s Town 300 Review

What a wild finish! New King Nationwide Kyle Busch looked to continue with his dominating ways. Busch was trying to win at his home track for the first time in Nationwde racing, but a four tire stop put him back in traffic.

When trying to make up for the bad stop Kyle got a great run on Michael Annett and Brad Keselowski, who were running side by side, and Busch dove to the inside of both of them. Keso went down to block Kyle and Busch ended up in the grass, sending him spinning into the inside retaining wall, and his day would be done.

This made Las Vegas very mad.

I don’t get it, we had 70 laps to go at that point and I feel there was no reason for Busch to try to take it three wide with so many laps left, but at the same time, what Keselowski did was something that Nascar may want to look into too - it’s not like it was the last lap and they were going for the win.

Speaking of strange things, the end of this race really perplexed me. Everyone seemed to think a late race caution would come out at sometime. It didn’t. WIth 20 laps to go, some guys had to start pitting or they would risk running out of gas. Most of them took right side tires and fuel, including leader Carl Edwards. I was shocked that so many crew chiefs and drivers would bank on a late caution to save their day. Even the announcers seemed to not make a big deal about the race leader green flag pit stopping with 15 laps to go.

When all was said and done, Brad Keselowski seemed primed to take his first win of 2011. Keso just had to hang on for 2 more laps.

This is where Las Vegas got it’s revenge.

While Brad’s fuel seemed to hold up, his tire did not. After taking the white flag, Keso started to slow, allowing Mark Martin to gain on him and begin to pass him. Then suddenly Keso shot to the outside wall, and pancaked it. Martin and Justin Allgaier both passed Brad and took the checkard before he did.

The Original King Nationwide has returned. And he’s returned with a statement, ‘I’m not done yet’.

Danica Patrick, who was a lap down until the final caution of the day, managed to hang on to what little fuel they had left and finished fourth. She now tops the charts of finishing positions by female drivers, beating the old record by just one place. She is only the second female to score a top 5, the first in the Nationwide Series.

Patrick did it on mostly luck, and a good plan by her crew chief.

The only way Patrick will ever quiet her critics, which include me, is to win a race. Until then, she will still be nothing more then a marketing gimmick, while other more talented Female drivers like Alli Owens, MacKena Bell, Katie Hagar, and Johanna Long continue to struggle to find good rides and good equipment.

I would love it if Nascar started to pay more attention to the Drive for Diversity program. It would be great to see Nascar reward teams for hiring minority and female drivers. Racers like Paulie Harraka, Sergio Pena, Jason Romero and Darrell Wallace Jr continue to impress me, but very few Nationwide, Truck and Cup teams seem to even notice them. Pena and Harraka have the success to back up thier talent, yet neither have been signed to a Nationwide deal.

Results and more after the JUMP!

Here’s a fun fact, If we still had the old point system in place, our points leader would be.....Reed Sorenson. Second would be Ricky Stenhouse, Third would be Jason Leffler, and Kyle Busch would be fourth. I was confused as to why Joe Nemechek put Kevin Conway in his #87 Chevy instead of the #97 Chevy like he was originally scheduled to run. There was no chance of him missing the race, and with Conway only running 2 laps, it hurt Nemechek in the owner points.

Speaking of Reed Sorenson, he remains our points leader. Here’s the battle:

It’s great to see the likes of Sorenson, Stenhouse, Patrick and Allgaier up there. This is shaping up to be one of the best points battles ever. In terms of owner points, something awesome took place. Turner Motorsports has begun to show they are a premier race team. Here’s the battle for Owner’s Championship:

Turner has all four of it’s Chevy’s in the top 10 in owner points. That’s pretty amazing. We only have two more races under last years top 30 in points, so those who are outside looking in need to have a good run in two weeks. Here’s the battle for the top 30 in owner points:

Next week the Nationwide boys have off, so no Preview or Review. Join us leading up to March 19th when the Nationwide Series heads to Bristol for some good old fashion short track racing. Enjoy!