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Martinsville shaped up pretty much as we had predicted...with Jimmie Johnson winning holding off teammate Jeff Gordon, who finished fourth. And Denny Hamlin finishing second. Dale Earnhardt Jr. got back on track somewhat with an eighth place finish...lower than we had thought, but still a Top 10 and our final pick Jeff Burton was a disappointing 15th.
The spotlight this week turns to Texas Motor Speedway and Gordon, who is still looking for his first win since 2007. Despite the 47 consecutive races without a win, he is still leading the Sprint Cup standings, as his consistency has been absolutely astounding.
In six races, the No. 24 car has four Top 5 finishes and six Top 10s.
But is Texas where he ends the winless streak?
It's a tough call. His stats here aren't great. It's one of only two tracks Gordon has never won at, though he does have six Top 5s and eight Top 10s in 16 races. Interestingly, it's also the only track where he's finished 43. And he's done that twice. So which Gordon shows up this time.
My best guess is it's a Top 10 for Gordon. He's running too good not to get one, but I don't think he picks up the win.
I like Carl Edwards dominance in Texas, winning both races last year, and winning three total here (the career leader). Just as interesting is that Edwards has run 8 races here. The three wins also represent his only top 10 finishes here. So it's really all or nothing for him here. I'd bet on the all if I had to pick between the two.
This could also be a race the Busch brothers find the winners circle. Neither has won here, but both have been decent.
Kurt has seven Top 10s in 12 starts and Kyle has four Top Tens (three Top 5s) in eight starts. And the way they've run this season, you have to seriously consider them.
The other two drivers I like are Tony Stewart and Matt Kenseth, who each have eight Top 10s.
Despite all of that that I just mentioned, for some reason I have a feeling that this is where David Reutimann picks up his first career win.
If you like cautions, don't expect much from Texas. The track had problems in its early days, with drivers complaining about grip among other things. But the track was resurfaced and is one of the better speed tracks around. Very few wrecks and a lot of speed.
This post can also be found at pro sports wrap up
Last week wasn't exactly a great week for our NASCAR preview as the five drivers we had to watch, well one didn't even finish the race, a couple probably shouldn't have and well....well, let's just focus on this week, where we don't think a Busch will win.
Martinsville is another short track, but has a different look from Bristol. It's a little bit shorter and has shorter straightaways. There's a lot of strategy in the turns here.
Jimmie Johnson has dominated the short track at Martinsville.
One guy who has seemed to figure out that strategy is Jeff Gordon. In 32 races at Martinsville, he has finished in the Top Five 20 times and 26 Top Tens. That's pretty impressive, as is his 6.9 average finish at the track. But this year, Gordon has yet to win a race yet still is the overall points leader.
The one guy who could keep him from winning this week is his own teammate, Jimmie Johnson, who has even better numbers at the track. Johnson had five wins and 10 Top Fives in only 14 races. He has 13 Top Tens here (his only finish outside the Top Ten was his first race here) with an average finish of 5.6.
Between the two of them, they have won nine of the last 12 races here. By contrast, the Busch brothers have only eight Top Tens in 25 races here and Kurt has the only win.
Denny Hamlin, who settled for second place last week while concentrating on holding off Johnson while Kyle Busch won the race, can make a good run this week too. His win here last year was his only win here in seven races, but has six Top Ten finishes and four Top Fives.
We also like the third Hendricks driver, Dale Earnhardt Jr., to be in contention here. He has eight Top Fives.
And for a fifth drive, watch Jeff Burton. He won't won (he never seems to want to win nowadays, just happy to finish strong), but could make the top three.
Last year this race saw 18 cautions, and 17 drivers finished on the lead lap. We like only about 10 drivers on the lead lap this year, with about the same number of cautions (18). It should be a fun race.
Don't forget to check out the new blogsite prosportswrapup where myself and a lot of your favorite orble.com bloggers have begun bloging.
Ah the women in bikinis (or often less), the well-cut males, and the free flowing beer and party atmosphere. It's Spring Break time on South Padre Island.
It's a weeklong party fest for college kids everywhere. South Padre Island, Texas has become one of the top destinations for spring breakers as it has the nice warm beach, the bars and clubs that cater to the beach goers, and the close proximity to Mexico where the underage party goers on the Island who aren't luck enough to find free flowing booze can go to find some, legally.
These photos shot by dhruvaraj, a photographer on flickr, show some of what is to be found during spring break:
Spring break on South Padre
Spring Break party atmosphere
(I do not know this photographer, but he has some really nice nature stuff I would suggest checking out).
Anyway, I do believe that Spring Break on South Padre is something worth checking out just once in a lifetime.
I grew up and worked on South Padre, and I can say from personal experience, that it's a time that locals love and hate. We absolutely love it because of the money it brings, and many of us learned to enjoy the atmosphere there.
We hate it because, unlike the college kids who go for a week and leave, it lasts a full month for us. Traffic is a nightmare (although the Island has improved the street and signal structure since I grew up there) and often getting to and from work can go from a 10- minute chore on a normal day to a 30-45 minute chore on a spring break day.
Plus for locals, who enjoy the island dining scene, we know not to even bother during March. Blackbeard's, which started as a patio restaurant many moons ago when I was there, is now a thriving multiple deck joint that even in non spring break days can have waits of over an hour. But it's worth it. Other places, like the Palmetto Inn and Manuel's are local favorites also turned into top attractions.
I could go on about that, but now I'll just suggest if you ever want to visit South Padre and want to avoid the crowds, obviously never go during Spring Break. Also avoid the Holy Week around Easter, as it is very crowded with Mexican Nationals who like to come up.
Most of the summertime is busy, but you can still generally have a good time and avoid a huge crowd. But if you want a relaxing experience, and can get away, the best times to go are January and February, leading up to spring break, as well as the period of time between Thanksgiving and Christmas. That time is usually filled with Winter Texans (a.k.a. Snowbirds). There are a lot of them there but they usually take their RVs and stay to themselves. They don't often dine out and kind of stay to a limited beach area, so the island is pretty quiet.
After a week off, NASCAR heads to the short track of Bristol in a race that has extra importance with it setting the top 35, which determines the automatic qualifiers for each week's races.
We've already briefly explored who is where on that list, so now lets focus on Bristol and who will be the person to beat
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I wanted to update the earlier story I posted as the Temple Daily Telegram now has a full report.
In summary, an 18-wheeler was driven on Interstate-35 (a very busy route in Texas and beyond) and in Temple, Tx police think the driver may have fallen asleep. The truck went off the interstate, across a frontage road, through a parking lot up an incline which sent it flying and it landed in the back of a hotel room.
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There isn't a NASCAR Sprint Cup race this coming week, so we'll look instead at where NASCAR stands four races in.
Of course last week the winner, Kurt Busch, wasn't on our radar. We weren't thinking about back-to-back Busches so we admit we overlooked that one
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Texas lawmakers are currently debating a proposal to open casino gambling in Texas. The summary of the bill proposes several resort area casino options (like South Padre Island and Galveston Island) and would limit casinos to just 12 counties.
But right now most experts, and many lawmakers, expect the bill to fail. The Texas Senate has the votes to carry it, the House might, but in either case, Governor Rick Perry has already indicated it would be met with a veto
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If you've been paying attention to our NASCAR posts so far, you've no doubt noticed the winner of the last two races have been in our short list of guys to watch for each time. And last week, of the seven drivers we spotlighted (including Brian Vickers and both Busch brothers, even though we looked mainly at Kyle), we had the winner, the third place, 7th place and 8th place finisher. Most race teams would be thrilled with that percentage of top tens.
So now that NASCAR is going to Atlanta and getting out of the western time zones, what do we look for this week?
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Comments (1)
Comment by CenTex Guy
on Obama Voters are Really on Top of Things...
Texas Musings
And do you think we shoud continue to try hunt him down.
Some funny anwers ensued.
But yeah, it's much easier to not be informed. Thinking for youself takes too much time. Like when I read Obama's "Universal" health care plan, and did a little research...the numbers don't add up.
But it was much easier to take his word for it because the sound of everyone having health coverage just sounds good.