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.

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.

Until today, Dale Earnhardt Jr was 2nd in the Sprint Cup point standings and had been gradually shrinking Kyle Busch’s points lead.  Unfortunately, a 22nd place finish dropped him to 4th in the standings behind Carl Edwards and teammate Jimmie Johnson.  Junior isn’t known to be a great road course racer so I’m happy with the finish.  I’m just a little upset he lost all of the points he had been gaining.  The series is on to Michigan next weekend where Junior won the spring race.  Did I mention I’m going to be there in person?  I’m hoping for a repeat performance of his win in June. 

A belated congrats to Ron Fellows.  Ron was driving a JR Motorsports car last weekend in Montreal and brought home the 3rd NASCAR Nationwide series trophy for JRM in 2008.  (Mark Martin & Brad Keselowski have both taken home trophies this year.)  Now, it is Landon Cassill’s and Junior’s turns to win one for JRM.