Chase Race 1: New Hampshire

I am raising my glass of Jack Daniels to congratulate Clint Bowyer. Before yesterday he was the only Chaser who had not won all year long. Well, I guess he took care of that yesterday. Clint dominated the race by starting on point and just taking over the race. He went from 12 the to 4th in the standings and only 15 points behind leader Jimmie Johnson. What a great way to start off the Chase.

Tony finished a solid 3rd yesterday. I remarked to Postman yesterday that in 2005 when he won it all, he won Indy. Does this bode well for Smoke this year? I hope so.

Here is how the Chasers finished yesterday, where there are in the points standings, and how far back from the leader.

1. Jimmie Johnson 6th

2. Jeff Gordon 2nd

3. Tony Stewart 3rd -10

4. Clint Bowyer 1st -15

5. Kyle Busch 4th -35

6. Martin Truex 5th -40

7. Matt Kenseth 7th -54

8. Carl Edwards 12th -63

9. Denny Hamlin 15th -82

10. Kevin Harvick 17th -88

11. Jeff Burton 18th -91

12. Kurt Busch 25th -102

I am hoping this will shape up to be an exciting Chase. I still am standing by my dark horse pick of Kyle Busch. There are still 9 races left in this thing and you know anything can happen. I have a feeling Talladega will shake it up a bit once the Chase gets there in a few weeks.

Next week onto Dover.

Announcements this week...

1. Kasey Kahne will now be the face of Budweiser. Taking the place of Dale Jr. who will be at HMS next year with a new sponsor and number.

2. The wait will be finally over this week...we will all finally know who will sponsor Dale and what his number is. Thank you. Now perhaps we can all move onto other things. Junior watch 2007 is officially over.

Now for the other sports news of the weekend

NCAA Football

1. Michigan vs Notre Dame--Michigan finally won. I would have at least thought Notre Dame would have put up something on the scoreboard.

2. USC vs Nebraska--I really was hoping this would have been a decent game, but alas it wasn't up to the task. I still don't like USC, but they showed why the have the #1 ranking.

3. Texas vs Central Florida--I REALLY wanted CFU to win. I don't care if UT is representing the home state, I don't like Texas.

4. Texas Tech vs Rice--This wasn't pretty. I watched the WONDERFUL television coverage (sarcastic tone here) and even though they were in Houston, with all the red there you would have thought they were playing in Lubbock. This week Tech will be tested when we head to Stillwater, OK to play to the OSU Cowboys. OSU got beat pretty handily by Troy this weekend.

NFL Football

1. Cowboys looked good. They are 2-0. Keep it up Boys!

2. Colts scraped by the Titans

3. And finally, the whole thing with the Patriots. He should have been suspended. He is too good of a coach to be doing this. And the fact that EVERY TEAM was told prior to the start of the season, this was ILLEGAL. Um...does this sound familiar (i.e. COT)? I believe the Pats are a good team and they didn't need to do this. I mean come on...3 time Super Bowl champs. And you have dominated the first two games of the season.

Oh well...that's all for now. Have a great week everyone!