Well, the first race in the 2009 Chase for the Sprint Cup was very exciting. There were several cars that had a chance to win, but few were as dominant as Juan Pablo Montoya. The polesitter from Bogota, Columbia looked to be headed to his second career victory, and his first of the season. That is until pit strategy came into play and the Target Chevy, along with several other teams, got off sequence with the rest of the leaders. Montoya raced back up to the front, with the help of several late cautions, and looked poised to win. But on the last restart, Mark Martin's #5 Impala SS beat Montoya's back to the line and the 50 year on championship chaser was declared the victor. The crowd erupted with cheers. But that isn't where the excitement starts.
There were several incidents through the day as well. The first involved several cars and was started when the 19 Stanley Tools Dodge of Elliott Sadler was tapped by the 20 Home Depot Camry of Joey Logano. This sent Sadler spinning, collecting the #55 NAPA Camry of Michael Waltrip, the #98 Menards Ford of Paul Menard, the #82 Red Bull Toyota of Scott Speed, along with several others. Speed and Menard sustained the most damage with the other cars sustaining next to none.
There were other smaller incidents, like the shoving match between Montoya' s #42 and the #31 of Jeff Burton. Montoya drove into turn three over his head and slid into Burton's CAT Chevy. Burton is not someone that you typically want to aggravate either. He'll race you clan until you hit him. Then the courtesy goes out the window. Under the subsequent caution, for an unrelated incident, Jeff hit the rear of JPM's car for some well deserved payback. There was also an incident between Marcos Ambrose's #47 Bush's Baked Beans Camry and AJ Allmendinger's #44 Dodge. AJ hit Marcos and almost wrecked the Aussie phenom (thus spilling the beans. ha ha). Then Marcos found "Dinger and returned what he started. Marcos jacked the 44's rear tires off the ground and showed him who's boss. Ambrose, like Burton, is very well liked and respected, but if you race him dirty, you'll regret it.
But the incident everyone will remember involved an unlikely duo. David Reutimann and Dale Earnhardt, Jr went into turn three side by side. Jr didn't give Reutimann a whole lot of room and David's #00 Aaron's Dream Machine slid up into his #88 AMP Energy Chevy sending it into the wall and rendering it unraceable. Junior got out of the infield care center, got on camera and preceded to throw Reutimann under the bus. "Some guys you can't race side by side with" Junior said. "I know that he can't hold his line and I should've know that... David just ran out of talent." Oddly enough, Reutimann was never given an interview to apologize and explain his side. Everyone will tell you that Junior was right and Reutimann is the idiot because he can't drive and he races for Michael Waltrip Racing and his team stinks, but that is not the case. Reutimann is one of the cleanest racers out there and one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet. The fact that he is being accused of wrecking someone intentionally is absurd. I'll give Junior some credit and think he was just mad and didn't mean what he said but Reutimann would never run someone over without a very, very, VERY good reason. That wreck was not all Reutimann's fault.
Onward to Dover. Can Mark Martin parlay a victory at Loudon into his first championship, or can someone else turn the tide in their favor? That's why they run the races. We'll find out on Sunday afternoon.
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