Denny Hamlin, winner of 4 Sprint Cup races in 2009, tore his left anterior cruciate ligament while playing a pickup basketball game on Friday.  Due to the lengthy recovery time required from the surgery to repair the tear, Hamlin will not have the procedure until after the 2010 season is complete.  Good thing for Denny: Gas pedal is on the right!

Red Bull Racing announced today they have resigned driver Brian Vickers to a new multi-year contract.  This is a great move by the team to lock in the 25 year old driver.  Vickers and the team struggled in their first season, but started to turn things around last year.  On Sunday Vickers earned the first Sprint Cup win for the team in Michigan.  Vickers is currently only 12 points behind Mark Martin for the final chase spot, so a chase berth could also be in the future for the team.  It feels like Vickers has been racing forever, and it’s easy to forget he is only 25 years of age.  Locking him under contract will solidify the foundation the team has built.  I applaud Vickers for sticking with the team through the times, and rewarding them with their first win.  I believe Vickers is one of the most underrated drivers on the circuit and usually stays out of the limelight.  I am sure he also gained some fans this past Saturday with his post race interview directed towards Kyle Busch.

I will start this post by saying I am not a fan of Kyle Busch.  I do respect the hell out of his talent and his desire to win every race he enters.  There have been many things throughout his career that have rubbed me the wrong way, but his celebration in Nashville this past weekend was not one of them.  In the pre race show from Pocono on TNT, Busch was asked about the controversy surrounding his actions in victory lane.  He replied there was no controversy, and for once I agree with Busch.  For those of you who did not watch the Nationwide race from Nashville, Busch won the race and received the cool Gibson guitar trophy in victory lane.  Busch then smashed the guitar rock’n'roll style.  His reasoning for his actions were that he had made a deal with this team members he would share the trophy with them.  So he smashed it, then said  they boys would cut it up at the shop and each crew member would receive a piece of the guitar.  Cool if you ask me.

What has surprised me more than Busch’s actions, are the members of the media who made a big deal out of this.  I just read an article written by Bruce Martin of Sports Illustrated slamming Busch for his antics.  In the article Martin called him a punk.  Really?  Smashing a guitar to share it with the “guys at the shop” makes someone a punk?  Busch has acted like a punk at times, but this was not one of them.  I actually think it made victory lane a little interesting.  Normally you hear the same words every week from the winner.  At least this was different.

What a new beginning this season has been for Tony Stewart.  A lot of people in the garage were questioning his move of leaving the well established Joe Gibbs operation and jump into team ownership with Stewart-Haas Racing.  Wonder what those same people are thinking now?

Up to this point of 2009, Stewart is enjoying some of his best success points wise in his career.  Never before has he been this high in the points at this point of the season.  Not only that, he is leading the points, and is the first owner/driver to do that since the late Alan Kulwicki.  It gets even better for Stewart-Haas, as Ryan Newman currently sits 5th in the points.  This team has gone from back of the pack performance to top of the leader board overnight.  Most of the credit for this goes to Smoke.  Whether you are a fan of Tony Stewart or a hater, you must respect what he has done with this race team in such little time.  Good job Smoke!