Well, the first chase race is now in the books and man what a race it was.  Even with ABC coverage (my local cable company doesn’t have our ABC affiliate in HD), it was a good watch.  Qualifying was rained out so the field was set by points which put Kyle Busch and Carl Edwards on the front row.  Kyle went into the chase first and from the start had problems.  He had mechanical problems and, after a spin, was involved in a crash with Jamie McMurray on lap 84.  His finish put him back in the 8th chase slot.

I was listening to Greg Biffle, Carl Edwards and Jack Roush’s post race press conference and one thing really struck me.  First I should set this up a little.  As I mentioned, Jamie McMurray and Kyle Busch got together, ending Jamie’s day.  Jamie wasn’t the only Roush-Fenway driver to have problems.  Matt Kenseth was taken out also in a crash in lap 220.  During the conference, Jack said that even though Carl and Greg had done so well, he would still have trouble sleeping because of what happened to Matt.  I swear, it’s almost like Jamie doesn’t exist at Roush-Fenway.  It seems that Jack often forgets that Jamie drives for him at least for the time being.  I can only imagine that the reason that Jack neglected to mention Jamie is because he isn’t in the Chase but that’s got to tear the hell out of a teams morale.  I don’t think I’ve heard yet if Jamie is going to be at Roush-Fenway next year. 

Carl and Jimmie are tied in the lead of the Chase with Carl shown in the first slot.  Greg Biffle’s win brought him up to the third slot and you can check out the entire field here.

(Photo Credit: Todd Warshaw/Getty Images for NASCAR)

NASCAR has some great releases that they create in-house and this is one of them.  It’s a quick look at the Chase.  I just had a thought.  Wouldn’t it be cool if Tony Stewart won the Sprint Cup this year?  If he did, he would have a Winston Cup, a Nextel Cup and a Sprint Cup.  Highly unlikely I know but still, it would be cool!

I tried to get this working the other day without success.  Here’s the current standings going into the Chase.

Racing at Richmond never disappoints.  Especially the late summer race at Richmond since it’s the last chance drivers have to get in the chase.  This year was no exception.  After rescheduling to avoid hurricane weather, the Chevy Rock and Roll 400 was an excellent watch. 

I’ve mentioned before that no one covers the races like Fox but, ESPN didn’t do a half bad job.  First of all, props for covering the rescheduled race live.  I was afraid it was going to be a 2:00AM run that was edited down to one hour.  ESPN HD is very nice especially since, sadly, my local Fox affiliate isn’t HD on my cable provider.