Well, we're not in Kansas anymore. Literally. NASCAR's once yearly stop at the midwestern oval wrapped up yesterday afternoon and it was an exciting one. The action didn't take long to start, as just two laps after Mark Martin and Dale Earnhardt Jr took the green flag, Joey Logano lost his #20 Home Depot machine off turn two. It was only single car spin and nothing that four fresh Goodyears couldn't fix. A few laps after the restart, Paul Menard spun his Menards Ford off turn two, the same spot where Logano lost his car. The difference was that Menard held his brake pedal, keeping his car in the middle of the track, while Logano rolled his car to the infield grass when he spun. Menard's car created a slight road block that collected the cars of Reed Sorenson, Michael Waltrip, Bobby Labonte and David Ragan. All the drivers, except Labonte were able to continue, but Mikey would later fall out of the race as well.
There were almost no wrecks after this point, aside from Brian Vickers going for a spin off turn four during a round of green flag pit stops. The race was dominated early by Dale Jr, who led the first 41 laps with his National Guard Chevy. Then during the first round of pit stops, a lug nut was left off the left rear tire, prompting NASCAR to bring him back in to replace it for safety reasons. Greg Biffle then emerged as the favorite to win it all. Crew chief Greg Erwin put two right side tire on the #16 Sherwin-Williams Ford and it came to life instantly. Later, it all came down to fuel mileage. Who would have enough gas to make it to the end? Would a Chase driver win or would some falter? We'll never know, since the caution came out for fluid on the race track, possibly oil from Junior's #88 which had just suffered a possible broken oil pump. Now tire strategy would come into play. Would drivers take two tires or four? Several driver elected to take four, even Biffle, whose car was so dominant on two tires, and a few, including Tony Stewart took a gamble and bolted on two.
On the final restart, Stewart's #14 checked out on the rest of the field, but not without a challenge. Jeff Gordon was also shot out of a proverbial cannon and closed in to within a half a second of Stewart. But Tony's two tires trumped Jeff's four and the Office Depot Chevy returned to victory lane and to Chase contention after a rough first two races. Biffle maintained to grab a third place finish, Juan Montoya finished fourth and Denny Hamlin fifth. Kasy Kahne nabbed sixth, Mark Martin seventh and David Reutimann grabbed a hard fought eighth place finish to be the only non chaser in the top ten. Ninth and tenth were Jimmie Johnson and Carl Edwards respectively. Mark Martin still has the point lead, albeit a slim one, over Jimmie Johnson by 18 markers and Juan Montoya can still play spoiler, being only 51 in third and fourth place Tony Stewart can still overcome a 67 point deficit to become the first owner/driver champion since Alan Kulwiki in 1992. Now on to the Auto Club Speedway in Southern California to help make the Chase picture a little bit clearer.
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