Winston-Salem Journal writer Mike Mulhern details a post-race meeting between Stewart and crew chief Greg Zippadelli, where Zippadelli seemed less-than-pleased with Stewart. Maybe, just maybe, that could open Stewart’s eyes to the fact that his frontier-style justice affects others, too.
There. Told you it would be brief.
While Hamlin and Stewart dominated the headlines, a lesser-known fact slipped further down in the stories: Besides Hamlin, the most consistent drivers at the Pocono races this season have been Kurt Busch and Brian Vickers.
Busch was second in both races behind Hamlin. In the June race, that began a run of top-10s for the elder Busch; the streak reached five races before a wreck at Loudon left him with a 38th-place finish.
That has helped to turn around an otherwise forgettable season. Prior to the first Pocono race, Busch had top 10s at Bristol, where he won, and a seventh at Talladega. And that’s it.
Vickers, a lame duck driver at Hendrick Motorsports who is headed to Red Bull Racing next sea-son, finished fourth in both races. Besides the Pocono races, Vickers has just three other top 10s all season.
Vickers is essentially eliminated from the Chase for the Nextel Cup. He’s 16th in points and more than 350 points behind Stewart, who is 10th. Busch’s situation is not as bleak, but he’s 13th in points and around 160 points behind Stewart. Busch will have to make up 120 points just to catch Greg Biffle, who is in 12th.

When it comes down to it – and all drivers will agree – NASCAR is a business. Whether it’s the teams or the sanctioning body itself, it’s still a business. And you know the old business edict: If you’re not growing, you’re shrinking.

NASCAR wasn’t content with being a regional presence, so it went national. Currently, they’re not happy with just being a national presence, they want to go international and have begun to do so with a race in Mexico City and one, eventually, in Montreal.

They weren’t happy with where they were, and nor should they be. It would be far better to try to climb a mountain and fail than to see it and keep walking, you know?

One of the unfortunate results is that people that have watched NASCAR for years and years now feel as if their support is less valuable than it once was. It’s a shame that some of the AJC readers feel that way, but it’s the price of progress.

Like visiting a building in your old hometown a few weeks before it’s scheduled to be demolished. You’ll have plenty of good memories in that building, and you’ll likely curse the brand new building that replaces it.

But your feelings won’t stop construction one way or another, sad though it may be.

This is the way NASCAR is now, and it’s hard to begrudge that. Any business plan includes growth, and NASCAR’s growth over the past two decades is exponential. Growth like that always leaves some innocent people in its wake.

Sad, for sure. But that’s just the way it is.

Martin has run in every event there since 1988 — as well as both events in 1982 — but has never recorded a win. Maybe that’s not so surprising, given that even Cup’s most successful drivers have certain tracks that simply prove to be an obstacle.

But that’s not the case for Martin: Traditionally, he’s run very well at Pocono. And, one would imagine, that’s where the frustration comes in.
Martin has six second-place finishes at Pocono among 27 top-10 finishes. Those 27 top-10s and 19 top-fives rank first among all drivers, active or retired. His average starting spot of 7.33 is also the best in NASCAR history at Pocono.
It’s not been a Roush problem, either. Carl Edwards won the first time he raced at the track. Kurt Busch scored one of his final wins for Roush there last season as well.
Back when I worked in Pennsylvania, Thursdays were always about the time when we would start wondering if Martin could finally break through, if this would be the weekend he could end that frustration. Each time, I hoped that he would.
Now, he’s got one final chance. And I’ll still be pulling for him.
(Photo credit: Harold Hinson/NASCAR)

My feelings on the racing at Pocono have already been documented on here (I wrote this entry prior to the circuit’s first trip there last month); Pocono’s 2.5-mile course is difficult to navigate 200 times.
As a result, wrecks can and will happen. The frontrunners are generally immune, as most of the wrecks happen in traffic. But if one of the Chasers finds himself in that position, it’s bad news.
Of course, this can happen at any track. But the odds increase greatly at places like Pocono, where numerous wrecks have pushed races close to the five-hour mark. Some tracks are inherently more treacherous than others.
Pocono can be dangerous because of the high speeds achieved on the long front stretch and the sizeable Long Pond Straight (between Turns 1 and 2). Most wrecks happen between the start-finish line and Turn 2, the Tunnel Turn.
Because of the high speeds, wrecks are not only dangerous physically, but they are all but guar-anteed to rip a car to shreds, rendering it unusable and ending the drivers’ day.
Moreover, the setup can be hit or miss. Because the three turns and three straights are so dis-tinct, crews set up cars to be as good as possible in two of the three turns (usually turn 3 — to get the most possible speed onto the front stretch — and one of the other turns). And a setup for the June race may not work for the July race.
“Everything changes,” Kyle Petty said Tuesday during a conference call with reporters. “You know, the weather changes at Pocono hourly. So if that changes hourly, then the racetrack has got to change. I think that’s the one thing that’s pretty cool about coming to Pocono twice and coming so close together is it seems like it’s two entirely different racetracks.
“The racetrack does one thing the first time and does something totally different the second time ... Some people go up there and even bring different cars. It’s a totally different setup. You have to approach the racetrack different, and sometimes it can be slicker and sometimes it can have a lot more grip. Depends on the weather and what it’s done in between.”
For different reasons, the other two obstacles left on the schedule are Watkins Glen (in two and a half weeks) and Bristol (a week after the Glen). We’ll cover those reasons in the week leading up to those races.
• Speaking of Pocono, longtime NASCAR writer Tom Higgins takes a look at the brutal history of the Tunnel Turn and why it’s so dangerous.