Well, here it is. A NASCAR blog. Been thinking about doing this for awhile now. I guess we just dive right in.

End of the race weekend and your winner at the Cup level is Brad Keselowski. Obviously I'm a Jeff Gordon fan (points to avatar), but Brad's a pretty cool dude. This is the first time he's led the most laps and won at the Cup level, I think he'll take a lot of pride in that, as well he should. It's his second win in a row at Bristol. I feel there's some vindication for him because last year when he won people say he abused the timing lines on pit road to win. He certainly took advantage, but ultimately didn't do anything outside the rules; which boils down to it being smart racing and a well-deserved win. Now, they've adjusted the scoring lines to prevent that from happening again and he still wins. Good for him. Plus, I think it's great to get a win early and alleviate the fear of having a winless season and that win could very well come in handy should he need it for the wild card come chase time.

Gordon, meanwhile, had a great car, at times the best, but slight contact from his teammate cut down his left rear tire and ultimately ruined his day. He finished 35th and fell to 23rd in points. Ouch. And Jr, the aforementioned teammate who also had a great car, got hit speeding on pit road and had to settle for a 15th place finish. The accident wasn't really anybody's fault and it was only a matter of time before two of my favs wrecked each other, but it just kinda stinks when they both have top 5 cars and don't get the finish they could've. Oh, well. We'll head to California and look for a change of luck out west. Oh, and the press is going to make the accident a much bigger deal than it is. They'll both be fine.

Jeff and Jr's teammate Kasey Kahne had yet another terrible day, wrecking early and settling for a 37th place finish. In his first 4 starts with Hendrick Motorsports his best finish is a lousy 19th place. Not the results many anticipated. I like Kahne, but I can't say I'm surprised, this kinda thing just always seems to happen to him. Jimmie Johnson was the only Hendrick driver to finish in the top 10. Probably glad the poor showings of his teammates took some of the attention off him, he's been the subject of the media for over a month because of penalties incurred prior to the Daytona 500. Final appeal will be heard Tuesday. At least win or loose he can just deal with the aftermath and move on. While I disagree with NASCAR's decision to penalize him I don't think he has a chance with the appeal process. But props to Rick Hendrick for sticking up for his guys.

As for the Nationwide race, the winner was Elliott Sadler. This is the 4th race in the season and Cup regulars have yet to visit victory lane. With Carl Edwards taking a break from Nwide and Kyle Busch running for his own team (which, at least so far, doesn't have the resources of JGR) the Nwide regulars are having much better luck at getting to victory lane. I expect will see more wins from Sadler and last week's winner defending champion Ricky Stenhouse Jr in victory lane much more often.

Well that was the first effort. Pretty unpolished, I know. Well see if I can keep it up and add some more finesse to it.

~Later