I’m tired of it all

Michael Waltrip, who finished second Thursday night in the Denny Hamlin Short Track Showdown, had a suggestion for making Sprint Cup competition more fun to watch.

“I tell you, if you put the Cup cars on bias-ply tires and watch those guys race, it would be amazing—I promise,” Waltrip said. “It would look more like a dirt race than an asphalt race. They would be so sideways. … We always talk about what would be cool to do in Cup., that’s something that would be fun to watch.”

Waltrip admitted that NASCAR was unlikely to follow his suggestion. The idea certainly did not impress one Sprint Cup star.

“I’ve raced on bias ply tires pretty much the whole beginning of my career, but that would be like asking you to got back in time and do your job without your computer,” Kevin Harvick told a group of journalists in Richmond International Raceway’s Media Center Friday. “I think that’s ridiculous.”

Twitter no party for Bowyer

Clint Bowyer entered the world of new media recently, spending an hour online exchanging “tweets”—short messages no more than 140 characters long—with fans on the Web site Twitter.
Bowyer was not overly impressed.

“What a joke!,” Bowyer said. “I was involved in a Twitter party. Did I host the Twitter party? I attended a Twitter party. I don’t know why we didn’t get on the phone and talk to each other.”

Kyle Busch not going against the flow

Kyle Busch took a rare break from the Nationwide series Friday night—the last time he sat out a Nationwide race was in 2008 in Michigan. When asked about his plans for the evening, he suggested that interested reporters should ask his wife, Samantha.

He acknowledged that going out to dinner might be an option, but there are downsides to a night out with one’s spouse.

“You go out and have dinner or something like that and you try to come back to the race track,” Busch said. “They’re all one lane in and even sometimes they don’t let you back in. They cut all lanes to go out. So that would be pain … to try to get back in here after a race gets let out. You’re better off just staying put.”

Never too young, never too old

Jeff Gordon spent Thursday night watching the races rather than competing. The first race Thursday, the Blue Ox 100, a K&N Pro Series East race featuring host of potential future NASCAR stars. The second race, the Denny Hamlin Short Track Showdown, featured a mix ranging from teenagers to literally grizzled veterans.

Gordon was impressed by some of the young talent, starting with Blue Ox winner Darrell Wallace Jr..

“Wallace, he had a shot at winning both of those races. I was impressed with that,” Gordon said. “You had (Max) Gresham—he impressed me. I know Chase Elliott, things didn’t go well for him in the K&N race, but it went pretty well for him in the other one.”

Gordon had the highest praise for someone at the other end of the age spectrum.

“I tell you who impressed me—Michael Waltrip. Where did he come from?” said Gordon. “That was impressive to see him run as well as he ran in that late model race.”

Waltrip finished second in the Short Track Showdown.

A hard road to travel

NASCAR driver Jennifer Jo Cobb was hoping to make a successful debut in Richmond on Friday night and become only the sixth female driver to run a Nationwide at the track. But Cobb’s day ended before it began. Instead of driving in one of the biggest races of her life she faced disappointment and never even touching the track.

A driver without major corporate sponsorship, Cobb had a new Ford Mustang build specifically for Richmond. But in pre-practice inspection it did not meet the template therefore the race team could only pack up and head back home.

Though hugely disappointed Cobb tried to take the setback in stride.

“Obviously we didn’t plan or expect this to happen,” she said. “It’s been one of the toughest years of my career with everything that has happened.  But, I know God has a plan and we’ll keep moving forward.
“We all want to be competitive on the track,” Cobb said. “That’s why I do this. So, yes, it’s frustrating.  But, I try to keep things in perspective. We had 300 lives lost in storms this week.  Peoples lives are lost or ruined. So, you think about that and that puts things in perspective quickly.  For us, we are going back to the shop in North Carolina, fix our issues and move onto the next race.”

Cobb plans to return to Richmond in September and once again enter the Nationwide race.

Charlie Leffler contributed to this article.