Musings in May about the Season

2010 is sure shaping up to be quite interesting! The usual suspects seem to have been hamstrung by the new spoiler while others have risen to the occasion and are enjoying the fruits of their labors! With headlines like "Harvick's points lead not likely to hold at Darlington"  and then it certainly did to the tune of 110 point spread, the season just isn't very predictable!

Major congrats to the Richard Childress Racing stable for coming out strong and staying strong! Who would have guessed Kevin "Mr. Where did he come from" Harvick would be riding the biggest points lead of the season rolling into May and Jimmie "I'm the champion- again" Johnson would have found his achilles heel in this new spoiler?  A couple of DNF's already and Johnson's wondering where his season is going.

And congrats to Jamie "Daytona 500 winner" MacMurray, way to come out of the gate for your old boss and then give us another great show at Talladega with Kevin Harvick for his return to victory lane! Who said knee surgery would slow down Denny Hamlin? Obviously it hasn't. as he's just matched Jimmie Johnson for three victories  each this season. Hamlin's hot! In the meantime, teammate Kyle Busch, who won at Richmond, is now sporting the "new" and "old" Kyle.  Hmm, "new" ?  Doubt it, maybe masked, but not "new"! (Photo Credit: Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR)




But, what's interesting to me is who's not hot right now: the Roush stable, Stewart-Haas and the rest of Hendrick Motorsports. Johnson made his repetitive splash in victory lane at the start of the season, but since the spoiler change, he's been struggling with one issue after another. It's certainly not for lack of trying on Jeff Gordon's part that he hasn't been back to the victory circle. He's practically sweating checkers every week driving for that flag! I don't think I've ever seen him work so hard to get back to victory lane in all his career. As for Dale Jr. he's coming around, week by week, he's more competitive and one of these days he'll make it but did anyone ever think it'd take nearly four years to get there?

Tony Stewart's got to be shell-shocked at his sophomore slump. Goodness! Has he been handed all the R&D material for this season without knowing it? Last season he came out of the gate like a prime racehorse in the hunt, but this year he almost can't find the gate! Although, it's been nice seeing Ryan Newman in victory lane finally.

And the Roushketeers have me dumbfounded. I'm amazed they haven't been stronger. New engine,  excellent resources, but they can't seem to finish higher than 5th so far I'm expecting  to see a surge from the Roush cars coming soon.

Of course, there's "silly season" too. But really, we shouldn't call it silly season anymore, it's really not. Driver's get their contracts on their minds and then want things settled right away. I honestly think that Hendrick is collecting all the most marketable drivers in the field.  He's got the lock on the market now that he's acquired Kasey Kahne. All he needs to do now is get an exception to the AllState/Nationwide issue and bring the AllState gals! Kevin Harvick's played his contract best by not discussing it with the media. It's him and Richard.

The best thing I've seen in a couple of years happened last week when a picture of Richard Childress, Teresa Earnhardt and Dale Earnhardt Jr with his sister, Kelley showed up on the news all together smiling. Later a picture of Teresa and Dale Jr. was shown together, smiling, genuinely!  And I thought to myself, that's the first really happy smile I've seen on him in a long time. And so I mused to myself about that day someday .... And Dale Jr. will be smiling bigger than life again then too!