I took over 600 photos while I was in Michigan at the NASCAR races.  The gallery of the best of these photos can be found here.  I wanted to post a special entry explaining some of the photos and to use some of them to explain more about the weekend.  Feel free to ask questions about any of the photos if you’d like more information than I give here or on the photo’s caption in Flickr.

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.

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Photo by Todd Warshaw/Getty Images for NASCAR

At this point in 2007, Jeff Gordon was leading the Sprint Cup standings (and was 344 points ahead of 2nd place).  He & Jimmie Johnson were tied for the most wins so far with 4 a piece.  After today’s race, Kyle Busch leads all drivers this year with 8 wins and is leading the standings by 242 points.  Both of those stats are alarming to me.  First of all, I expected Kyle to do ok in his first season with Joe Gibbs Racing.  I figured he’d have 1 or 2 wins and probably make the Chase.  Instead, he has 8 wins and is a sure thing for the Chase (if not the championship).  The 242 point differential between Kyle and 2nd place is a big surprise to me.  Jeff Gordon had 4 wins at this point last year but was farther ahead of 2nd place than Kyle is with 8 wins.  This makes me think that it may be any one’s ballgame once the Chase starts.  Kyle has definitely had some great finishes this year (very reminiscent of Jimmie Johnson at times in 2006 & 2007 when nothing seemed to stop the team from a top 5 or win).  Unfortunately, he has a handful of very poor finishes (including Martinsville, which is a Chase track).  He will more than likely need no stumbles (or bad luck) in the Chase to keep his roll going and end up 2008 Sprint Cup Champion.

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