After a rain soaked weekend in northern Texas, there were 800 miles of racing that took place on Monday afternoon. Both the Sprint Cup, and the Nationwide races were canceled leaving us with yet again a Monday morning race, only this time I was lucky enough to avoid finding out the results yielding an enjoyable Monday night race viewing for me (conveniently the Yanks were off).
The race was dominated by Hendrick Motor Sports, with the 24, 48 and 88 combining to lead 209 out of the 334 laps run. Unfortunately for HMS none of these drivers lead the money lap. However the domination by the 24 of Jeff Gordon was an eye opening experience for the entire field of drivers. With flashes of the Gordon of the '90's, the 24 set the pace and demanded the lead all afternoon. If Gordon can rekindle his old ways we just might have a driver and a team good enough and with enough experience to dethrone team 48 (remember Gordon has 4 cups on his mantle as well). When challenged for the lead it was as if Gordon were a lion protecting its cubs, Jimmy Johnson found this out the hard way. Johnson tried to pass his fellow team mate and was ungraciously and acrimoniously slammed on the driver side door panel causing a plume of smoke to rise like a genie from a bottle from the 48's wheel well. This is the kind of rubbing that gets the good ol boys out of their seats, it also caused the 48 to fall a lap down. But this is the 48, they are not going to let a little thing like being a lap down hinder their performance now are they? Of course not.
As luck would have it the 48 came to pit road, took 4 fresh goodyears and returned to the track. Moments later the caution would wave and the leaders would hit pit road. Chad Knaus made the decision to stay on the track being that their tires were merely 5 laps old, so once again, just like Henry Higgins, a little bit of luck and the 48 just might win! They were back on the lead lap and poised to deal with the 24. Like a fortune cookie once told me "the best revenge is massive success", the 48 would have their revenge by simply avoiding a late race wreck that hoovered up about 15 cars including the dominant 24. Gordon would finish 32 after leading 124 laps, the 48 finished 2nd. 1 more lap and they would have been driving to victory lane yet again.
Meanwhile we had another cherry picking victory for Denny Hamlin. The 11 car led a whole 12 laps in his winning effort. Bad but not that bad, last week Ryan Newman won on the dog-leg of Phoenix notching an entire 4 laps out front. This is the paradigm in NASCAR now a days, dominant performances by dominant drivers and their teams, a late caution flag waives, and a less deserving driver steals the trophy, and drives off in to the sunset with the big purse. Parody, yes, fair, of course not. Dale Jr. spoke about this in a post race interview, stating that "we go out there and run a clean 450 miles just to have the whole thing jumbled around at the end there".
Don't get me wrong, I absolutely applaud the gritty performance by Hamlin, who won just weeks after having his knee scoped. This amazes me, recently a good friend of mine had ACL surgery and was laid up for weeks, withering in pain. It is not just the win by Hamlin that has me so impressed, his 30th place effort last week in Phoenix has to be the greatest 30th place finish in NASCAR history. Why you ask? Because at three different times during the race in the desert Hamlin was offered relief from his wheel-man duties by stand by driver Casey Mears, each time he refused to get out of the cockpit. Hamlin's reasoning for not exiting stage left, "The only thing I was going to gain was maybe some respect of the team guys just because I knew our day was shot," He went on, "I wasn't going to give up on them. I wasn't going to lay down on them." Hamlin also mentioned that he would have been embarrassed to hand off such an ill fated car to Mears. "To be honest with you, I would have been too embarrassed to give Casey (Mears) the car I had today, It's not what we're accustomed to."
The spoiler was given rave reviews by the drivers after its first true test at a super-speedway. The consistency of the spoiler in the corners was a welcome difference from the wayward performance of the wing in turbulent wind. We will see how this new set up will effect the cars when restrictor plate racing commences next week In Talladega.
Note: Kyle Busch raced 800 miles on Monday finishing 3rd in the cup event and then winning the Nationwide series event that started about an hour after the completion of the cup race. This capped off the "weekend" sweep for Joe Gibbs Racing. Of the 15 drivers to pull double duties on Monday, Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick and Greg Biffle were the only ones to complete all 534 laps.
Michael Clark (emsea)
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