WIN AT BRISTOL!!!!

Smell that? That is the scent of victory lap tire dust in the afternoon, y'all!!! Chad went for 4 tires, and Jimmie mashed on the gas during the final restart to take the 48 team's first win at Bristol Motor Speedway! Congratulations, guys!

Have I said how much I love Bristol recently? I love Bristol. Not only because it's an awesome race, and not only because Jimmie just got his first win there, but also because Tony Stewart came in 2nd after holding off Kurt Busch and raining on his parade. YESSS!!! Today is officially an awesome day, everybody.

48 starting 4th at the Valley

It's nice when you get a chance to use "the Valley" to mean something other than San Fernando...because usually I'm not talking about anything pleasant when I mention that Valley. However, at Thunder Valley, which is totally awesome, Johnson and the Knaus Sausage House (ladies and gentlemen, we now have our very own appropriately inappropriate nickname for the 48 team) qualified 4th today for the Food City 500, which is coming up on Sunday. ...I should really change this blog to 14 years and older, shouldn't I? *evil grin* Sometimes I wonder how clean is clean, but I'm pretty sure that crosses the line, haha.

I didn't find any Chad quotes from today (but I didn't look that hard...I really am the worst blogger ever...well, scratch that - just the laziest!), but I did find this quote from Jimmie and had to share, because who doesn't love a Ward Burton story?

"One funny one was when Ward (Burton) and I got into it one year at Loudon. We were coming from the back and coming up through there and we got together going into Turn 1 and I got into him and turned him around and he hit the fence. He got back on track and spent like four or five laps trying to crash me. So then I was pretty nervous about what went on and started tracking him down. I called his office but that didn't work and somehow I got his home phone number. And I don't know what made him more mad actually, whether it was me calling him on the phone or calling him at home. I think he was cussing at me because it was a little tough to understand him (laughter) but he went on for 30 seconds in just four-letter words and he finally calmed down and we talked it out from there. That's just a part of it." (Motorsport.com)

The next big news story: "Golf ball car fails post-race inspection"

So I was watching MythBusters reruns last night, and doods, they had the most awesomest thing ever on there! It was...drum roll please...a golf ball car! You know how golf balls have little dimples on them? Well, apparently I'm a clueless idiot (yay for redundancy) because I thought that they were just, I dunno, pretty, pretty decorations or something, like maybe it was a promotional thing - "Space Age Golf Balls, everybody! Craggy like the surface of the moon!" I mean, they have pink golf balls, right? Other than making it easier to remember which ball is yours, that really brings nothing to your game. The dimples, however, do! Here's the science-nerd explanation from Wikipedia:

Firstly, the dimples on the surface of a golf ball cause the boundary layer on the upstream side of the ball to transition from laminar to turbulent. The turbulent boundary layer is able to remain attached to the surface of the ball much longer than a laminar boundary and so creates a narrower, low pressure, wake and hence less pressure drag. The reduction in pressure drag causes the ball to travel further.

So, in a nutshell, the dimples create less drag! This is where MythBusters comes in. They thought maybe if they put similar dimples on the surface of a car, the car would create less drag and get better gas mileage. They were skeptical about it, but it turns out the theory was right. The car, when covered with modeler's clay but not yet dimpled, got 26 mpg. The car, with dimples (and weighing the same as before...they put the scooped-out clay in a box in the back seat), got 29 mph. Nice!

Pic of the golf ball car (too lazy to upload it)

Now, 3 miles a gallon more in a NASCAR race will do you quite a lot of good, right? Oh, Chad, yoohoo! I think I have an idea here that's calling your name! Of course, if a car went through pre-race inspection looking like that, the officials would laugh if the team's face, but come on, this is Chad "Skinny Windows" Knaus we're talking about here! There's GOTTA be a way to make the car appear flat during inspection, but then suck in to make dimples in certain spots during the race, right? I mean, obviously you'd have to use some sort of material other than metal, since duh, it's not that bendy, and even if you could make it dent in a little, it would bulge back out when you tried to straighten it out. I mean, obviously this needs a lot more thought and ironing out of "minor" details, but man, I'd love to see Chad or any similarly devious-minded crew chief take a swing at this (if, you know, it didn't result in major penalties and/or suspension, which it probably would).

(P.S. Ya know, I couldn't come up with anybody who could play Jimmie or Chad in a movie...Jimmie I probably just didn't try hard enough, but Chad? Nobody looks like Chad! Chad is just...Chad, man. I know, I know, I'm the one who came up with the dumb idea, so I should at least have the courtesy to answer my own dang question, but...too bad!)

Cast a Team 48 movie!

HOLD EVERYTHING!!! Ladies and gentlemen, I have an idea!! I just wrote a big whine & complain fest about how I totally had writer's block and had absolutely nothing to say, but I guess that got it out of my system because now I actually thought of something! I mean, granted, it's not exactly a Cheesin' Chadwick quality idea, but it's better than nothing!

So, if you were to cast a biopic about the 48 team, who would you pick to play Jimmie, Chad, Mr. H, Ron Malec, etc.? Um, I don't actually have any ideas myself, which is lame, I know, but I'm going to think about it and get back to you. Meanwhile, if you guys have any great ideas, feel free to post them in the comments! *Wonders how many posts will go by before someone mentions Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal for Chad and Jimmie*

(I do, however, have an awesome idea for a '90s Red Wings movie, which is what spurred this whole thing. Wanna hear? Too bad, I'm gonna tell you anyway, lol. Okay, so Steve Yzerman will be played by Johnny Depp, which is a bit of a stretch, but check out Stevie with a mustache - I swear the resemblance is there! Brendan Shanahan will be played by Patrick Dempsey, which would be fookin' PERFECT, am I right? Then Jeff Bridges is Darren McCarty - actually, I'm pretty sure Darren really IS Jeff Bridges in disguise - and Paul Bettany is Nicklas Lidstrom. Too bad country singer Gary Allan doesn't act...I swear he and Nick look alike. That's what I've got so far, anyway...I'm still trying to think of somebody for Osgood and Fedorov. The only problem is most of these actors are older than the players themselves are now, so it'd be kind of hard for it to be set in the '90s, but eh, who needs logic?)

NASCAR.com Video

Chad tries out a "hot" new pair of shades and gets to work at Atlanta:

All Access: Jimmie Johnson

(They're so you, Chad. lol)

12th at Atlanta

Welp, no three-in-a-row for Jimmie, but the 48 car did finish 12th and moved up to 4th in points. I had to leave before things got exciting, so I didn't see the team's pit problems or the run-in with Newman. Or the Edwards-Keselowski incident, either! I GOTTA go back and watch that! I never thought I'd say this, but HECK YEAH EDWARDS!! Somebody needed to teach that kid (haha, "kid," he's almost a year older than me) a lesson. I don't care if the original contact between them was an accident; Brad's been stockpiling bad karma for I don't know how long, and it was time for someone to cash it in for him. Thanks for doing the honors, Carl.

I have to say, I don't like seeing anybody's car going airborne, though, and I'm glad Brad's okay. On the other hand, they now have their tit-for-tat: Brad flipped Carl at Dega, now Carl flips Brad. As much as I really am concerned about safety, a part of me can't help but think there was a measure of just deserts being doled out here.

Speaking of safety, Brad himself had a Public Service Announcement to make about clean racing afterward: "To come back and just intentionally wreck someone, that's not cool. He could have killed someone in the grandstands." (AP) Gee, Brad, ya think? Maybe you should have thought of that at Dega before you flipped Carl into the stands, which actually did hurt people! Oh wait, but that was totally accidental, I forgot. Just like all the other times you've "accidentally" wrecked people in the Nationwide Series. I'm so glad to hear that the safety of the drivers and fans is what's really at the forefront of your mind, and all that wreckin' stuff was purely coincidental.

Sorry this doesn't really have anything to do with Chad and the 48 guys...what can I say, they didn't spend last year wrecking half the Nationwide field, so they're just not as exciting to talk about at the moment. (While we're off the subject, I would also like to say congrats to the Red Wings for beating the Blackhawks 5-4! Honestly, I was not expecting that, and it was awesome!)

Fontana and Las Vegas Photos (and the crowd goes wild!)

All righty, I'm FINALLY starting to pick up the slack here! I've come up with yet another system of managing all the Chad piccy goodness - from now on I'm going to post each week's photos to its own set on my new Flickr account, so each week I'll be giving you a link to the last race's set of pics, and you can all have at it!

Here is the link to the Fontana set:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/16834443@N00/sets/72157623443403717

And here is the Las Vegas set:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/16834443@N00/sets/72157623443406171

Have fun! Oh, and if you're a total Ron Malec fangirl like I am, be sure not to miss either of photos - we've got Chad AND Ron pics, people!

Daytona will be coming along soon.

Car Falls on Jimmie Johnson (almost)

Hilarious "outtake" from an interview with Jimmie and Chad...don't worry, no 48 team members were harmed in the making of this film.

48 wins at Vegas for 2nd in a row!!

JJ passes Jeffie on lap 251 to take a second win in a row at Las Vegas Motor Speedway - and I WAS THERE, WOOHOO!!!

The bummer is that I didn't get to use the Neon Garage pass because it took so long to get into the place that the pace car pulled off and the green flag waved just as we got to our seat, so no awesome Chad pics. :(  I should have left earlier, but when it takes an hour and a half to get there, I would have had to leave a BOATLOAD earlier, so I don't really know if I could've shaved that much time off it. ARGH!

Anyway, the race was fun, I got to listen to the 48 radio, which was pretty funny ("Gogogogo, HAUL ASS, HAUL ASS!"), saw them win, and I had a good time, all in all!

Pics WILL follow here shortly, I swear!!