The term slip sliding away doesn’t even begin to describe Kyle’s long weekend. It probably did seem that it would be hard to get through the long weekend with strong finishes in all three races, but how could anyone have expected the downhill slide he made from Friday to Sunday. Some of it might not have been entirely his fault, but you can’t deny the toll all the traveling would have on him. Maybe he pushed it too far and maybe it was just a slowly increasing bad luck weekend. One thing for sure, Wild Thing is going to have to come out rowdy and giving it everything next weekend to make up for the points loss of this weekend.


Kyle started this weekend off great. He was in the truck on Friday night at Texas which started off all his traveling with a second place finish. Things sure seemed like it would go good for him with a qualifying of 10th, but things started falling apart after that. During a practice Rowdy got a little too rowdy with the primary car and wrecked. The crew got to work on the back-up car, but he would still have to start at the back of the back. As if that wasn’t enough, he got caught up in things during the Nationwide race and ended the night laps down in 20th. Could it be the beginning of the long weekend catching up to him or would he be able to overcome it all on Sunday when it really counted? Kyle has overcome a lot this year during a race and he is one of the best drivers in the Cup right now, but those were all on the same day.


Kyle defiantly is the dominant force right now with being on top of the points and staying there almost from the first week of the season. Sure he’s had some downfalls, but there’s no denying Kyle has climbed right back to the top quickly and stayed there steadily until something major messed up one weekend. Most weekends though, everything has been steady from the beginning and even a small issue has been easy enough to overcome with the M&M’s crew and how dominant of a force they have been as well. Starting this weekend in a back-up car at the back of the pack could have been the first sign of a rough day for the Cup points, but as it seems the crew has always been able to overcome things… I personally didn’t worry too much about it. I found out I was really wrong about that though. Sure it looked good at the beginning as Kyle was making his way toward the front just fine, but things didn’t stay that way as Kyle ended up taking himself out. Whether his spotter didn’t have a clear angle or was just tired as well from all the hard work he’s done all this year or Kyle just thought he was clear before Jeff told him he was… Kyle was not clear when he tried to move back into line and it ended up finishing the downhill slide of the weekend with a 43rd finish. The crew did all they could to get him back out there running, so he didn’t get a dnf. That along with his points lead he had before the day started, kept him from losing the points lead. He is barely 21 points ahead respectively. Next week the Cup and Truck race is at Michigan while Nationwide is at Kentucky. The Truck and Nationwide race on the same day, so the question is how far is Kyle going to push himself next weekend. The Truck race would require no traveling, but so far he’s went Nationwide when he’s had to make a choice. Whatever it is, here’s hoping Rowdy gives us another good showing in the Cup race and starts opening up another points lead.


I’m still on vacation and it’s been going great. Some of the information I have from the races maybe wrong or missing stuff because I’ve missed bits and pieces of the races while visiting with family and partying at a one day rock music festival. I should be back home Wednesday sometime, so I’ll be good to go for next weekends recap.