Michael Waltrip rolls to second place! Enough said.

OK, I’ll say more.

J.J. Yeley in third!

Just about sums up the topsy turvy finish Sunday in New Hampshire.

That said, good for Waltrip and his race team, which is only in its second year of Cup racing and, after a rocky first year, has two of its three cars in the Top 35 in points. I’m a fan of startup operations that compete against the big boys, guys like Robby Gordon and even the Red Bull cats. Bully for them.

The second-place finish was Waltrip’s best with his own race team and only his third top-10. It also was his best finish since placing second at Phoenix in 2005, his last year with DEI.

Naysayers will say Waltrip didn’t have a second place car Sunday. My take? So what? That’s the beauty of NASCAR, race strategy and Mother Nature. The fastest car on the day, or even at any point in a race, doesn’t necessarily win. I love the team aspect of NASCAR, in both the interpersonal communication areas and the engineering areas. It’s almost like each car is a living breathing organism, constantly changing as the ambiance changes whether on the track or with the weather. The crew chiefs and the crew have to be on their toes, mentally and physically, to keep pace with the changes. 

About Yeley … He lost his ride to Kyle Busch at Joe Gibbs Racing after last season, and this was his best finish, and first top 10, in the 96. I think the cat has some talent and it’d be interesting to see what he could do with a top-flight team, tho he had a prime opportunity at Gibbs before the younger Busch became available.

Oh, well. Now for more musings from New Hampshire.

– Looks like Dale Earnhardt Jr. needs to get that left-rear turn signal fixed.

– Juan Pablo vs. Kyle Busch … I’d give the edge to Juan Pablo if they were to have duked it out after their on-track dustup on the final caution.

– Bum luck for Tony Stewart, with the rain shortening the race, but would he really have had a chance to run down the cats who stayed out on the final round of pit stops? 14 spots is a lot of ground to make up in 15 laps. So I wonder whether that was the right call to take tires on the last stop, while the guys behind him went for the spash-and-go.

– Kurt Busch, of course, was the big winner Sunday, taking the race win thanks to the strategy to stay out and also moving up four spots in the standings, to 18th. But with just nine races to go before the Chase, he’s 225 points behind Kevin Harvick in the 12th and final Chase spot.

– The second-best move in the standings Sunday was Martin Truex Jr., whose team  strategeried him to fourth and jumped four spots in the standings, to 14th, just 71 behind Harvick (who himself jumped ahead of Matt Kenseth into the 12th spot.)

– Left Turns fave Elliott Sadler took fifth, with a little strategerie of his own. But after some bum luck crashing out early in a couple of races in which he qualified well, Mr. Bologna Burger deserved a little luck on his side.

– Outside of Montoya’s dustup with Kyle Busch, Chip Ganassi Racing showed some life with Reed Sorenson taking sixth.

– Don’t look now but Casey Mears, recently given the heavy ho (after this season) by Hendrick, got his second consecutive top 10, with a seventh place finish.

– Bobby Labonte placed 10th, his first top-10 of the season but his 10th in the top 20. Nice to see the Petty 43 running fairly well this season.

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