Qualifying
Jeff Burton put his Chevy on the pole, his third of the season. Rookie Clint Bowyer had a good qualifying run to start second in his Chevy. Row two was all Dodge as Kurt Busch and Kasey Kahne qualified third and fourth. Fifth place went to Jimmie Johnson in his Chevy.
Michael Waltrip failed to qualify for today's race. This makes the first NASCAR NEXTEL Cup race since the beginning of the 1976 season that did not have a Waltrip in it. Brothers Darrell and Michael Waltrip have been a fixture in the sport for over thirty years. Hopefully Michael will get his troubles figured out and get back to the top when he leads Toyota's charge into NASCAR in 2007.
Drop The Green Flag
Jeff Burton lead them into turn one as the field rushed to get in line. Indianapolis Motor Speedway is flat and narrow. This forces drivers to get in line as there is only one fast way around the speedway.
Tony Stewart and Kurt Busch were both on the move early. Working their way through the field and hoping to be a factor before the day is over.
Jeff Burton dominated the entire first half of the race.
Storylines
There was a mandatory caution on lap 15 as NASCAR wanted to make sure that the tires were not a problem. In practice the tires were not lasting very long. NASCAR and Goodyear mandated the minimum tire pressure to help with the problem and wanted to make sure that the problem was resolved.
NASCAR had planned another competition caution on lap 40. Just before it came out Jimmie Johnson blew a left front tire bringing out the caution.
Fortunately the mandatory air pressure seemed to have solved the problem and there were not a large number of tire problems during the race.
Chasing The Checkers
A late caution caused a mixture of strategies to play out as four drivers stayed out, some took two tires and some took four. Kyle Busch took the restart in the lead over Dale Earnhardt Jr. Leading before the caution, Jimmie Johnson and Matt Kenseth took four tires are restarted further back in the field. Johnson was eighth on the restart.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. took over the lead with ten laps to go, but Jimmie Johnson got to the lead just one lap later. Matt Kenseth got around Junior for second place shortly after but Johnson was already over one second ahead.
There were two separate crashes on the last lap. One of those involved an incredibly hard hit by Kasey Kahne. I was happy to see Kasey walk away.
Jimmie Johnson coasted home for the easy win.
Top Ten
- Jimmie Johnson
- Matt Kenseth
- Kevin Harvick
- Clint Bowyer
- Mark Martin
- Dale Earnhardt Jr.
- Kyle Busch
- Carl Edwards
- Tony Stewart
- Kurt Busch
The Points
The top two in points finished one-two today and moved even further out front.
Kasey Kahne's last lap crash cost him dearly in the points. Kahne was in the top ten in the race when that incident happened. Kahne ended up in 36th spot and lost four points positions. Kahne is now eleventh in points. This opened the door for Dale Earnhardt Jr. to slip back into that critical tenth place points position.
The top ten in points are now:
- Jimmie Johnson -0
- Matt Kenseth -107
- Jeff Burton -366
- Kevin Harvick -391
- Kyle Busch -391
- Mark Martin -412
- Denny Hamlin -486
- Jeff Gordon -497
- Tony Stewart -509
- Dale Earnhardt Jr. -512
Next Week
Next week the NEXTEL Cup stars run their second and final road course race of the year. Watkins Glen International brings the NASCAR teams to beautiful upstate New York to challenge them with the twisty, scenic road race.
