All you savvy observers of the NASCAR Nextel Cup scene know all about loose and tight. No I don't mean the denizens of the Thunder Lounge. Although if you've ever actually attended a race, in person, and ventured into the deepest darkest infield, you know about that too.
Loose and tight handling race cars are sure to be a topic of much discussion tonight as the talking heads of the broadcast teams attempt to fill four hours or so of mostly boring laps at the Coca Cola Lowes 600. Loose and tight, in racing terms does require some explanation to the uninitiated race watcher and if you stumbled here from a blog for normal people, like ,Regeneration, here's a good tutorial.
Poker players are sometimes categorized as loose or tight as well. The terms refer, respectively, to aggressive and conservative playing styles.
The Chevy teams are playing some serious engine poker this weekend at Charlotte.
Lee Spencer has a great read on the whole engine story. But there are two distinctly different strategies being employed.
There's still the question of reliability. Chevrolet selectively rolled out the new R07 engine at Texas and 11 Chevy teams have made the transition to running it full-time, including all of the Hendrick Motorsports partners — the four Hendrick cars, Ginn Racing and Haas-CNC — and Joe Gibbs Racing and its partner, Hall of Fame Racing.
That's pretty loose. Maybe not as loose as Paris Hilton at Texas Speedway, but pretty loose. That leaves the soon to be joined at the hip RCR and DEI cars running the old engine.
The R07 is the same power plant that carried Kevin Harvick to Victory Lane in the Nextel All-Star race, but neither Richard Childress Racing nor Dale Earnhardt Inc. was comfortable running the R07 for 600 miles on Sunday. RCR will wait until Dover to debut the R07 in a point race.
The 600 is the longest and toughest test of engine reliability on the circuit. Richard Childress and the Earnhardt teams are playin' tight even if the Chevy teams have some margin for error because of their dominance of the 2007 series up to now.
Toyota is the other manufacturer with a new power plant for the Coke. With every team committed to the new motor, Toyota has pushed it's teams all in.
In the gambling world I am very lucky. Now...what do you think the chances are that I would miss your email about Ryan and then miss talking to him.
Crap!!! Crap again.
Email on the way with a contact or 2.
**walks away kicking self in the ass.
Posted by: Clance' | May 27, 2007 at 05:54 PM
Dumb dee dumb...
Yes...I am lucky...so are you. Just got your other cancel that email. YAY!!
Posted by: Clance' | May 27, 2007 at 05:55 PM
For normal people? Since when? :) Thanks for the linkage.
Posted by: Stephen Shores | May 29, 2007 at 09:08 AM