Sunday, Sunday, SUNDAY! It's the day that god gave us to nest in a tree full of sports, sports, sports! Some call Sunday a false sense of joy when the countdown of doom (read: Monday morning) looms -- especially after the post-St. Patty's Day hangovers. Football may be out of season, but there's no need to sulk with March Madness, PGA events, critical NBA games and NASCAR races. Some quick weekend observations...
A day after St. Patty's day... and we, Bengals fans, are relieved.
TIGER WOODS shot a 76 on Sunday to lose by 11. He finished three over par. What happened? Waggle Room wonders...
But then he stalled out, and after that he crashed and burned: 3-putt double bogey on No. 11, bogey on No. 16, 2-over on 17, 3-over on 18.
Let's repeat: On 16-17-18, Tiger Woods finished bogey-double bogey-triple bogey. That's almost unfathomable.
THERE'S ONE THING I won't ever pay for... Pay Per View Boxing matches. Perhaps because of the once dominating Mike Tyson era. Not that I don't like them, but I have HBO and see great fights a week after they happen on Pay Per View. I'm always worried that the Main Event ends after only three rounds and I don't get valuable entertainment in return. And the undercards do not justify paying that much if the Main Event fizzles.
That wasn't the case Saturday night as Bad Left Hook examines the Marco Antonio Barrera and Juan Manuel Marquez main event.
Simply wow... Xavier vs. OSU.
THEN THERE'S Sunday's main event -- in my mind. The stars of the Nextel Cup (soon to be the Sprint Cup or the Sprint to the Nextel Cup series) took to Atlanta -- the self-proclaimed fastest track in the world. If you watched from beginning to end, then it was pretty much assumed that Jimmie Johnson would win. He was fast early in the race, fast in the middle of the race and fast at the end of the race. Only Tony Stewart competed for the win.
Tony Stewart led 121 laps (to Johnson's 135) and, at one point, appeared to be his race. Jimmie Johnson, when not in first, was constantly one to two seconds behind Stewart -- just "hanging around". But the self-dominence feeling that Stewart had slowly disappeared as the race wound down and Johnson picked up. On the closing laps, Johnson made his move down low in turn two while Stewart protected the preferred middle groove -- preventing Johnson from mashing the gas pedal giving Stewart the advantage of having more momentum on the outside. Johnson got inside position and finally forced Stewart to slow up by cutting him off. Stewart still trying to race for the win, tried to squeeze enough on the outside but didn't have enough room. After skinning the wall, Stewart lost his momentum and Johnson took off. It was over at that point.
Juan Pablo Montoya, a rookie, had his best oval track finish at fifth. Reed Sorenson, second of Ganassi's Dodges to finish in the top-ten, finished ninth. All three of Ganassi's teams finished in the top-13.
Jeff Burton, Saturday's Busch series winner, finished fourth -- his third top-five finish.
Mark Martin will be giving way to Regan Smith in the #01 Army car fulfilling his promise of only racing a partial schedule. Martin, after his fourth top-ten finish of the season, will lead the points heading into Bristol (with the much anticipated Car of Tomorrow) over Jeff Gordon by eight points.