Photo by Jason Smith/Getty Images for NASCAR

Matt Kenseth won the rain-shortened 2009 Daytona 500.  Shortening that race due to rain is very much of a let down.  Number 1 – It’s the Daytona 500!  That just isn’t a race you want to see delayed or shortened because of rain.  Number 2 – If the last 48 laps were anything like the previous 50 or so, there would have been a lot of drama and action still to come.

Photo by Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR

I just don’t know what to say about Junior’s performance during the race today.  I know he’s been battling the flu for the past week which might have had to do with the fact that his head just didn’t seem in the game.  He missed his pit stall during the first caution of the race, which sent him to the back.  Then, during a caution on lap 120, he got a penalty for getting service while the car was not completely in the pit stall.  4 laps after this, he & Brian Vickers get a little tangled up which ends up involving 8 other cars (including Kyle Busch, who seemed to be on his way to a win).

“I got a run on him. He saw me coming. I got a big ol’ run on him and I went to the inside,” he said. “I didn’t try to make any late move or some surprise. He went to block me and hit me and sent me down to the grass.

“I tried to recover my car and I got back into him coming back up the race track. I don’t hate it for him, but (I do) for everyone else that got wrecked.”

Only Dale Earnhardt Jr knows exactly what happened in that race car today.  He obviously shouldn’t have hit Vickers but he did.  I have a feeling I’m going to have to avoid all discussions of this incident this week, though, because the “Junior haters” are going to be out in full force.  The media will also, as usual, not let this incident die.  Every driver involved in that wreck will be asked in every interview this week what happened and how they feel right then.  Oh well, I guess I know what fans of drivers like Kyle Busch and Jeff Gordon feel like.  By the way…Dale Jr ended up finishing the race on the lead lap but in 27th position.

Here is a rundown of mine (& Penni’s) other noteable finishers.

• Tony Stewart – 8th
• Martin Truex Jr – 11th
• Jeff Gordon – 13th
• Mark Martin – 16th
• Kasey Kahne – 29th
• Jimmie Johnson – 31st
• Ryan Newman – 36th

And…I’d like to congratulate AJ Allmendinger on his 3rd place finish.  He raced his way into the Daytona 500 on Thursday, and deserves lots of kudos on his finish.

The next race is next Sunday evening out in Fontana, California.  Let’s hope for a less drama-filled race, at least from Dale Jr’s perspective.

Michigan International Speedway is location in Brooklyn, Michigan.  It seemed quite literally in the middle of nowhere.  There was a town closeby and the track had neighbors but nothing major and there was not really a major highway going in and out of the track.  (Oh yeah…Speaking of the road…A lot of people complain about traffic in & out of Texas Motor Speedway being some of the worst.  We don’t ever have problems at TMS.  MIS was much, much worse.)  Because the track is so close to Canada, there are a lot of Canadian NASCAR fans that come down for the race.  The track flies, not only an American flag, but also a Canadian flag.  Plus, we listened to both the Canadian and United States national anthems.

As I mentioned in my last post, we had weekend pit passes.  These allowed us to be on pit road during qualifying & practice plus there was also an area back behind pit road that drivers passes by when going to & from the garage and their motorcoaches.  Here is a shot from pit road during the Nationwide series qualifying on Saturday.  The 2nd photo is of Regan Smith signing autographs along the fence of fans behind pit road.

Speaking of the fence of fans…Some drivers stop along the fence and are nice enough to sign some autographs.  I got 5 autographs on Friday standing there.  I got the following autographs on Friday.

• Michael McDowell, Driver, Michael Waltrip Racing #00
• Sam Hornish Jr, Driver, Penske Racing #77
• AJ Allmendinger, Driver, Red Bull Racing #84
• Regan Smith, Driver, Dale Earnhardt Inc #01
• Mike Helton, President, NASCAR
• Jeff Hammond, Former Crew Chief & Current Co-Host of NASCAR Trackside

Another advantage of our pit pass was that we were able to be on pit road before the Sprint Cup race on Sunday.  We got to get on the track at the start/finish line.  We were also able to walk along pit road and see the pit boxes & signs for each Sprint Cup team.  Here are shots of Dale Earnhardt Jr’s pit box and pit sign.

On Saturday during Nationwide qualifying, I stood at the front of the line of cars with the JR Motorsports #88 Navy Chevy until it went out for its qualifying laps.  David Stremme (driver of the Rusty Wallace Inc #64 Dodge) decided to take a closer look at the Navy car while waiting his turn to qualify.  I’m almost surprised he didn’t hop in the car.  Maybe that would have made him too obvious, though.

There were a couple Nationwide series cars with paint schemes that I thought might interest a couple of my readers.  Tony Stewart was the driver in Michigan of the Joe Gibbs Racing #20 Old Spice Toyota, and Jason Leffler drove the Braun Racing #38 Great Clips Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus Toyota.

I took this photo during the national anthem prior to the NASCAR Sprint Cup 3M Performance 400.  I’ve always thought it was cool how the drivers, crews, and officials line up on pit road.

We sat across from the JR Motorsports #5 pit during the Nationwide series race.  Rick Hendrick (owner, Hendrick Motorsports) sat up there during the entire race.  Landon Cassill was also up there.  I think he was working for the team in some capacity.  Here is sequence of photos I took during the team’s first pit stop.  (Mark Martin was driving this car in Michigan.)

Carl Edwards won both of the races in Michigan.  His tradition, after winning a race, is to do a backflip off of the car.  Here are the two shots I got of him doing so.