Qualifying Suckage
Well today pretty much sucked for MWR. I figured from the get-go that DJ and Michael were going to have a hard time making the race because while Michael was decent in practice he was the second car out during qualifying, a disadvantage against those making their runs as the track cooled; Dale had a better draw but was just plain horrid in practice. So to see them slipping down the list of star cars on Trackpass (ESPN is always far behind real time) didn’t surprise me as much as it saddened me. Okay, I thought, David will make me smile. He was the fastest go-or-go-homer in practice with a very late draw and has commonly been the MWR car to make it while the other two do not. His name came up on Trackpass…and just sat there. It didn’t take long for my heart to sink and I vainly hoped that Trackpass froze or something, but then Denny Hamlin’s name came up and a brief thing about a delay due to track conditions. I was left to fret and wonder what happened until the TV broadcast caught up.
David was on the track when they came back from commercial and the motor sounded awful, so I figured the next scene would be full of smoke. But instead the cause of the problem was so small the tape had to be slowed down: a bolt. A freaking bolt. It came flying out of the back of the car and a belt followed soon after…the booth guys said it was to the oil pump. And that little bolt proved fatal.
All three MWR Cup cars are going home. For the first time.
It was an empty feeling I haven’t experienced since the shock of Michael’s first DNQ back in 2006. While I love each MWR driver individually and always feel cruddy if any one of them DNQs, to have all of them go home was far worse because I look at it as a setback for MWR as a whole. It stings because things were starting to improve. They were all qualifying and running well for a while. But this just shows that anything can happen and knock you right back down. It sucks. And I’m still scared thinking about the future and that Michael and David could have to live with qualifying days being the worst days of their lives all over again next season.
David still has the Busch race, which he has a good chance of winning. Michael McDowell looks pretty good too, and was following Kyle Busch around during practice, learning from one of the best. Tomorrow appears very promising and I have to look on the bright side of things, I guess, and keep focused on that.
David was on the track when they came back from commercial and the motor sounded awful, so I figured the next scene would be full of smoke. But instead the cause of the problem was so small the tape had to be slowed down: a bolt. A freaking bolt. It came flying out of the back of the car and a belt followed soon after…the booth guys said it was to the oil pump. And that little bolt proved fatal.
All three MWR Cup cars are going home. For the first time.
It was an empty feeling I haven’t experienced since the shock of Michael’s first DNQ back in 2006. While I love each MWR driver individually and always feel cruddy if any one of them DNQs, to have all of them go home was far worse because I look at it as a setback for MWR as a whole. It stings because things were starting to improve. They were all qualifying and running well for a while. But this just shows that anything can happen and knock you right back down. It sucks. And I’m still scared thinking about the future and that Michael and David could have to live with qualifying days being the worst days of their lives all over again next season.
David still has the Busch race, which he has a good chance of winning. Michael McDowell looks pretty good too, and was following Kyle Busch around during practice, learning from one of the best. Tomorrow appears very promising and I have to look on the bright side of things, I guess, and keep focused on that.
