Every time Mikey moved up in the lineup, he lost lots of spots in the pits. Only
once did he pick up a bunch of spots and that was because he took two tires. Of
course we never did hear much about why he was struggling in the pits because
he's no longer The Almighty Junior's teammate but every time he'd work up into
the top 10, he'd regress during pit stops.

If his pit crew is going to suck that badly, it's another problem he'll have to
overcome. His team's not getting factory support from Dodge, so that hurts. The
Dodges have historically not done well in terms of gas mileage, and guess what,
a gas mileage track is coming up this weekend.

Mikey's immediate task is going to be to stay within the top 35 in the next four
races so he will have provisionals to fall back on once we start going on this
year's points. His long-term task is to stay in the top 35 this year and hold on
until next year when he will be running one of Toyota's factory teams.

I'm afraid it's gonna be a long year for Mikey and us Mikey fans...


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"H.B. Elkins" <hbelkins (AT) mis (DOT) net.restrictorplate> wrote

And how does that differ from the past ;-)

H.B. Elkins wrote:

Gonna be a long year for Dale Jr. also. He didn't do much better. He
said he was going to win a race at Daytona. .

<orlandobay (AT) yahoo (DOT) com> wrote

Junior didn't have a bad race at Daytona. He led the most laps and finished
8th. He wasn't dominant, but I would call it a pretty good day. His test
will come in the next couple races.

Chill out. This was just one race, albeit the biggest one of the year.
There's plenty of time to get the pitwork problems straightened out.


"H.B. Elkins" <hbelkins (AT) mis (DOT) net.restrictorplate> wrote

"H.B. Elkins" <hbelkins (AT) mis (DOT) net.restrictorplate> wrote

Ok, take all the shots at Junior that you wish, but to be fair about these
claims here, you have to admit that the Bud crew is a big reason Junior
stayed as high up the order on Sunday as he did. Seemed to me regardless of
where he came in the pits, he went out 2-4 positions ahead of that when he
left, almost each and every stop. Given that, can't you at least understand,
just a little, why the talking heads covered Junior's stops more and better
than they did Mikey's? Or do you think the mediocre crews should always get
more coverage than the good ones (on any given day)?

We knew that as soon as he left DEI.

On Wed, 22 Feb 2006 01:03:52 GMT, Gregory Bailey wrote:
I hope so. This was Mikey's best track and he had some pretty good practice
runs, as well as showing strength in the Shootout and the Busch race, and yet
they sucked in the 500.


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On Wed, 22 Feb 2006 16:33:14 GMT, SimRacer wrote:

Yes, they did, and that was Mikey's crew from last year...

It really kills me to have been such a big fan of DE but not being able to bring
myself to root for Junior like I did his dad.


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H.B. Elkins <hbelkins (AT) mis (DOT) net.restrictorplate> wrote:

Using Racing-Reference.com, Mikes average finishing position before
this year was... 18.89. He finished 18th. Seems about average for
him. The numbers of course are skewed by his 2 wins, other than that,
he's usually in the 20s and 30s.

Listed car owner Doug Bawel has a average lifetime finish of 26th.
Maybe Michael's doing all he can in the equipment he has.


sam

Easy to make predictions like that after one race... and the biggest
reason he losts spots near the end was because Mike was speeding on pit row
exit. :-(


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