In The Groove: Talladega Baby! - April 28, 2009

In The Groove is dedicated to bring you a peek at the Highs and Lows of racing randomness from Talladega, Alabama. Welcome.

The High Groove

Running first in the High Groove is Brad Keselowski! Way to go BK!! Wow. I sure did NOT see that one coming. I have been cheering for this young man for a while and watching the underdog win sure is glorious, especially at Talladega. Savor it Brad, no one can ever take that away from you. Congrats.

Running second in the High Groove is David Ragan for winning the Nationwide race. Congrats on your first ever victory in NASCAR! Besides that, David looked like he might get a push from Joey Logano again on Sunday and be able to make it interesting for the win. Surely, former UPS-Sponsored driver Dale Jarrett must have given this fine young man lots of great pointers about restrictor plate racing.

Running third in the High Groove is Alli Owens. Nineteen-year-young Ms. Owens finished 6th in the ARCA race at Dega, her best finish this year, in the No. 19 entry for D’Hondt Motorsports. Owner Eddie D’Hondt is a fellow blogger here. Alli started racing on bikes, moved to dirt racing, then to asphalt and isn’t looking back! Alli has her own website, a weekly column on RacingOne.com, and can be found on Twitter. It is not hard to find her if you would like to more information. Let’s hope this well-spoken and talented lady keeps moving forward and we see her in the top NASCAR series in the future, not fade away like so many before her.

Honorable mentions: Marcos Ambrose, Scott Speed, and Joey Logano.

The Low Groove

P1 in the Low Groove is Ryan Newman. Okey dokey. This is a tough one. Ryan was in contention for the big W in both the Nationwide race AND the Cup race this weekend at ‘Dega. But, he didn’t get to VL in either race. Last lap passes in both races. Bummer. However, as a slight "attaboy," he did put that KHI #33 in contention in the NNS race to keep that teams’ momentum sailing, as well as getting a better finish than his boss in the Cup race - for once this season.

P2 in the Low Groove is, wait- I can’t put Dave Blaney? Blaney wasn’t even in the field this week. However, neither was his replacement Michael McDowell. I like you Mee McDee, but you have to do better than that and get that car in the show! Besides, you could have left after lap 49.

P3 for the Low Groove is the fact that the past two races at Talladega have been decided by the "yellow line rule."

And for the checkered flag we have In The Groove’s thought for the day ... did anyone else notice that Morgan Shepherd finished on the LEAD LAP of the Nationwide race Saturday? That was amazing to watch in person!

Quote of the week: "We had a lot of fun tonight." - Brad Keselowski. (Hey, BK, this isn’t short track Saturday night racing anymore. Welcome to the Big Sunday Show!!)

Up next on the racing schedule are two great short tracks ... Richmond and Darlington. Oh, and Kurt Busch (what the heck?) is now the points leader.