Indie Marketplace

GFS marketplace 400: silly Season gets Sillier

The wheels on the bus pass spherical and spherical, spherical and round, spherical and round....

as the 1/3 Chase for the Championship in NASCAR grows nigh, as Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr. try and preserve off Kasey Kahne, Kurt Busch and Greg Biffle, any other conflict has exploded. The war For Silliness.

I wrote a piece of writing a few weeks back on a stupid Season that already included Brian Vickers getting fired from Hendrick Motorsports and assisting begin a new Toyota red Bull Racing crew; Casey Mears leaving Ganassi for Vickers's vintage #25 with Hendrick; Todd Kluever taking on for Mark Martin within the #6 at Roush; Dale Jarrett leaving the iconic #88 for Michael Waltrip's Toyota group; and Juan Pablo Montoya jumping from F-1 to Ganassi's #42. Indie Marketplace but that was before the trendy explosion on the Smokeless Set.

whilst Kahne has threatened the pinnacle 10 all season, his teammate at Evernham, Jeremy Mayfield, has been truly dreadful; he currently sits thirty fourth in factors, and amazingly hasn't published a unmarried top-10 finish through all of 2006 (this from a man who squeaked into the Chase each of the last two seasons). The axe sooner or later fell at Evernham this week, because the an increasing number of-whiny Mayfield changed into relieved of his responsibilities. Amazingly, the guy who'll update him is Elliott Sadler, some other man who is made a Chase, and who was suffering thru a mediocre 12 months at a all of sudden-mediocre crew: Robert Yates Racing. Sadler was 20th in points, had one top-five and 5 pinnacle-10 finishes this yr, and become part of a Yates corporation that has fallen aside at the seams.

Jarrett is gone in November, and no substitute has been named (could Ward Burton really be headed back to Cup riding?), fashionable manager Eddie D'Hondt became fired after being blamed for allowing Sadler to head, and group chiefs Tommy Stanley Baldwin (Sadler's chief) and Slugger Labbe (Jarrett's) have been released. it's been a brutal yr in wellknown for all Ford teams, thinking about Fords have gained simplest 3 occasions all season (they'd received nine at this factor in '05), and Yates simply bears the brunt of this.

This weekend, David Gilliland takes over for Sadler inside the #38, Jarrett maintains his lame-duck run in the #88, and Sadler takes over the #19, whilst Mayfield looks on from the sideline. considering Sadler, Mayfield and Jarrett are 3 of the mega-stars in this sport, this is excellent. (imagine Gary Sheffield and Manny Ramirez getting traded in a three-crew swap, and Vladimir Guerrero being pressured to sit down for the relaxation of the season as a end result.) As we head into Michigan for our second journey to the Irish Hills this weekend, a tune in which the Fords have historically dominated, all you could actually say is: Wow. And let's all solve now not to bet on any of those drivers for the rest of the yr, we could?

remaining Week: Tony Stewart couldn't quite keep off Kevin Harvick at Watkins Glen, so I slightly overlooked on a immediately-up win (albeit one at very slim odds). but, Junior did pinnacle Mears, so I won a -a hundred and eighty head-to-head bet, which gave me the tiniest winning week i have ever had: I finished up .06 devices. Woo-hoo! we are wealthy! anyway, for the season, i'm putting tough at a income of 14.fifty six devices, that's much, a lot better than a pointy stick in the attention. we've posted prevailing weeks in 14 out of 21 tries, too. So let's keep it going.

Take Carl Edwards (+900), 1/sixth unit. Edwards probable had the great car right here on Father's Day weekend, but he in no way quite got the threat to show it. It was a wet June day, and Kasey Kahne (+450) changed into capable of get out of his pits on what could grow to be the race's final prevent only a break up-2d faster than Edwards, whereupon the heavens opened. I don't cut price how top Kahne has been on the downforce tracks this year, however I think he's barely better acceptable to the higher-banked 1.5-milers in Charlotte, Atlanta and Texas (wherein, no longer coincidentally, he's swept thus far in '06).

Edwards, meanwhile, appears to like the ones -milers a ton: his average career end at Michigan is five.25, and he's come second, 4th and fifth the final 3 events right here. he's also notable at Michigan's sister track in Fontana, wherein he's come 3rd, 4th, fifth and sixth the final four times available. His 12 months has sucked, however he's had true motors at Pocono and Indy these days. I suppose he can ruin thru right here.

Take Greg Biffle (+six hundred), 1/sixth unit. hi there, did not I just say the Fords had been sort of crap up to now in '06? nicely, get used to it, due to the fact you are approximately to look a quite clean sample in what I assume to happen this weekend. Biffle has gained twice at Michigan (inside the fall of '04 and spring of '05), and has best did not put up a end in the top six once right here in his last six attempts. The Biff is thought for his love of those big sweeping tracks, which fit his style of going tough into the corners and letting his vehicle slide maniacally up closer to the wall. he's capable of deliver as a good deal pace as everyone in the subject using this technique (which additionally tended to suit him at the A-C-T tracks ultimate season, even though now not as a whole lot in '06). Plus Biffle is determined to get nearer inside the Chase; he currently sits 13th, a hundred and eighty points in back of Dale Eanrhardt Jr. (+1400). he is nonetheless were given time to make the pinnacle 10, but it has to start now.