Qualifying
A Ford has never won at Chicagoland Speedway and qualifying looked like that streak might remain alive as the top Ford was the eighth place effort from Matt Kenseth.
Jeff Burton and Brian Vickers took the front row with their Chevrolets. Kasey Kahne qualified his Dodge in third. The rest of the top five was made up by the Chevrolets of Kevin Harvick and Jimmie Johnson.
Drop The Green Flag
Jeff Burton lead the early laps as the drivers settled into single file very quickly. Green flag pit stops began around lap 57. Jeff Gordon's crew made a great stop and got him back out in the lead with Burton hot on his heels.
The first caution finally flew for debris on lap 68. Different pit strategies shuffled the running order and Kevin Harvick lead the next section of the event over Bobby Labonte and Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Storylines
One of the biggest stories of the week happened well before the race. Chip Ganassi announced that Formula One driver Juan Pablo Montoya will be taking over the #42 car in 2007. Casey Mears currently drives the #42 but he has already announced that he will be moving to the Hendrick Motorsports #25 next season.
Montoya will be the first driver to ever make the move from F1 to NASCAR. Montoya won the 2000 Indianapolis 500 and has been a full-time Formula One driver since 2001.
Montoya is a talented driver but NASCAR racing is quite different from the high-tech F1 speedsters that he is used to driving. It will be very interesting to see how quickly he can get up to speed with the much heavier NASCAR cars.
Chasing The Checkers
With five laps to go Jeff Gordon reeled in Kenseth and made a race out of it. As they drove into turn one with four laps to go Jeff Gordon got into the back of Kenseth's car and spun him out. Jeff Gordon then survived a green-white-checkers finish for the win.
This was an aggressive way to take the win. After the race Matt said "I know for sure that it was intentional." It looked to me as if Gordon could have cracked the throttle and raced Kenseth cleanly for the win. He simply decided to take the win aggressively. The fans voiced their displeasure after the race by throwing garbage on the track.
Matt Kenseth had the fastest car in 2005 but got snookered on pit strategy and lost the race. This year Matt Kenseth made all the right moves and was ready to score the win when he got dumped by Jeff Gordon. Tough luck for Kenseth as a Chicagoland victory slipped away for the second year in a row.
Top Ten
- Jeff Gordon
- Jeff Burton
- Kyle Busch
- Kevin Harvick
- Dale Earnhardt Jr.
- Jimmie Johnson
- Reed Sorenson
- Kurt Busch
- Clint Bowyer
- J.J. Yeley
The Points
Jimmie Johnson continues to lead over Matt Kenseth who would have taken over the point lead if not for that late race bump.
Jeff Gordon's win slipped him back inside the top ten in points. Rookie Denny Hamlin finished fourteenth in the race but dropped two spots to twelfth in the points. Greg Biffle remains in eleventh, one spot out of a qualifying position in The Chase for the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup.
The top ten in points are now:
- Jimmie Johnson -0
- Matt Kenseth -48
- Dale Earnhardt Jr. -257
- Jeff Burton -324
- Kasey Kahne -348
- Mark Martin -360
- Tony Stewart -377
- Kyle Busch -386
- Kevin Harvick -398
- Jeff Gordon -432
Next Week
Next week the NEXTEL Cup series heads north to Loudon, New Hampshire. New Hampshire International Speedway is a one mile oval that lately has seen tempers flare. The racing can be tight as handling is everything in Loudon.
