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The Cool Down Lap: You miss the Chase? Blame Mother Nature

LONG POND, Pa.—When it comes down to it, the drivers won’t be the ones who have the most to do with who qualifies for the wild-card spots in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup—and who doesn’t.

Nor will it be the crew chiefs, engineers, pit crews, fabricators or the relative depth of the owners’ pockets.

Like it or not, five races hence, Mother Nature will have as much to do with the final Chase lineup as all the combined efforts of the competitors and their support crews.

That’s right—fickle, unpredictable, whimsical Mother Nature. After Sunday’s Good Sam RV 500 at Pocono Raceway, Brad Keselowski will be singing the praises of the grande dame. No doubt Joey Logano would prefer to put a cap in the witch.

During the 100-minute rain delay in Sunday’s race, I did what sportswriters do. I wrote the story of the race on the assumption that it was over, knowing full well the story would be useless if the race resumed.

Here’s what happened in that story:

• “Rain Man” Joey Logano won the second storm-shortened race of his career.

• Logano made a meteoric move from irrelevance to a Chase-eligible position as a wild card.

• Logano thumbed his nose at those who had promulgated rumors that he would be replaced in the No. 20 Home Depot car by Carl Edwards—rumors Edwards quashed by announcing an extension with Roush Fenway Racing.

• Denny Hamlin climbed back into the top 10 in the standings with a top-five finish, opening up a potential wild-card spot for Logano, his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate.

• With Hamlin back in the top 10, Paul Menard held the first provisional wild card spot.

• By pitting right before the stoppage for rain, Brad Keselowski dropped like a rock in the running order, finished 24th and remained outside the top 20 in points, his Chase hopes bleak despite an earlier victory at Kansas.

When the rain began to fall in torrents, it appeared for all the world the story would stand. Even as the track got soaked, there was another storm cell 70 miles to the west, moving toward the speedway fast enough to counteract frantic efforts to dry the track.

But Mother Nature fooled us. The cell to the west broke up, the sun came out, track drying proceeded apace, and the race ran the final 76 laps to conclusion, rendering untrue every assertion in the story written during the delay.

Instead:

• The very pit strategy that would have buried Keselowski in a rainout put his No. 2 Dodge and the No. 22 of Penske Racing teammate Kurt Busch at the front of the field, because the rest of the lead-lap cars had to pit after the resumption.

Divers search NH pond for sign of missing girl, 11 - US news

July 31, 2011 — STEWARTSTOWN, N.H. (AP) — Divers searched a pond in northern New Hampshire on Sunday for clues to the disappearance of an 11-year-old girl, who's been missing for several days.

State Fish and Game Department divers explored Back Pond for any sign of fifth-grader Celina Cass, Senior Assistant Attorney General Jane Young said. The small pond is less than a mile from Celina's home in Stewartstown, a community of 800 residents with one blinking streetlight and a handful of stores.

Vermont and New Hampshire state police, the FBI and other agencies also were continuing their ground search in those states and in Canada, Young said. "We're searching for Celina Cass as a missing person," she said. "We have no evidence to categorize this any other way."

Celina, who lives with her mother and stepfather, was last seen Monday night at her home computer in her small town in far northern New Hampshire. Her stepfather, Wendell Noyes, described her as a quiet girl who would not have left the family's three-story home on her own.

Town residents described Celina as a sweet, friendly child. One of Celina's best friends, 11-year-old Makayla Riendeau, said Celina loves her mother and likes her stepfather and wouldn't run away. She said Celina is very athletic, is a stickler about getting her school work done on time and loves having friends over to her house.

"She's a very good friend, and she never lets anybody down," Makayla said. In the search for the tall, gap-toothed girl, investigators have knocked on hundreds of doors, and hundreds of fliers with her photo have been put up throughout Stewartstown and nearby communities. Law enforcement agencies have set up a command post at the local school.

The FBI is offering a $25,000 reward for information in the case, and a community member has added $5,000. Concerned residents have passed out purple and pink ribbons and held vigils for Celina. About 80 people, many with candles in hand and tears in their eyes, gathered for a nighttime vigil in neighboring Canaan, Vt., two days after she disappeared.

"It feels like a lost section of the town," family friend Rebecca Goodrum, of nearby Beecher Falls, Vt., said at that vigil. "She was beautiful. She was the light of everything.

Field & Stream

Congressional edition

Field & Stream

Field & Stream

Century edition of the American digest, a complete digest of all reported American cases from the earliest times [1658] to 1896