Qualifying
Hendrick Motorsports took the pole for the 2007 USG Sheetrock 400 as Casey Mears put his Chevy on the pole. Martin Truex Jr. started second in his Dale Earnhardt Inc. Chevy.
Ryan Newman started third in his Penske Dodge next to Mark Martin who qualified fourth in his Ginn Chevy. Unfortunately, Mark crashed in practice and had to change to a backup car. By changing cars Mark had to give up his fourth starting spot and drop to the rear of the field for the start.
Drop Of The Green
The top three quickly got in line when the green flag flew, Casey Mears lead the first lap over Truex and Newman. Truex moved past Mears for the top spot on lap seven. Jimmie Johnson was fast early. He came from his eighth place starting spot to take over the lead just a dozen laps later.
Chicagoland's wide multi-groove surface got the cars spread out early. Everyone was just doing their own thing and logging laps towards the finish. We saw a long green flag run to start the race and Jimmie Johnson was blowing through the field and put a number of cars a lap down early in the race.
Storylines
Chicagoland Speedway is wide. There are many different grooves for drivers to choose from so when a faster car catches the driver in front of him they simply drive around them. This does not make for great racing that will keep the fans on the edge of their seats.
Jimmie Johnson lead the race for a long time. Then Tony Stewart lead the race for a long time. That pretty well sums up the bulk of today's race.
Today's race was a good example of the type of racing we have come to expect from Chicagoland. Yawn. Chicagoland Speedway is a cookie-cutter speedway. That is, a race track that looks a lot like many others on the schedule. Its 1.5 mile moderately banked configuration simply isn't interesting and the racing typically isn't very good.
Chasing The Checkers
With 12 laps to go Tony Stewart lead them to the final restart. Matt Kenseth and Kevin Harvick were second and third when the green flag flew.
Tony got clear on the restart and Kenseth just didn't have anything for him. This finish was just about as exciting as the rest of the race. Tony Stewart rolled home for the easy win, his first of 2007.
Top Ten
- Tony Stewart
- Matt Kenseth
- Carl Edwards
- Kevin Harvick
- Casey Mears
- Kurt Busch
- Jeff Burton
- Clint Bowyer
- Greg Biffle
- Ryan Newman
The Points
Not a lot of movement in the points this week. Jimmie Johnson cut a tire and crashed today. His bad finish dropped him three places in the points to seventh.
Jeff Gordon still leads comfortably and Dale Earnhardt Jr. still holds down the twelfth and final Chase qualifying spot. Ryan Newman moved up to thirteenth overall, just thirty points behind Earnhardt.
The top twelve are now:
- Jeff Gordon -0
- Denny Hamlin -303
- Matt Kenseth -346
- Jeff Burton -420
- Carl Edwards -438
- Tony Stewart -482
- Jimmie Johnson -488
- Kevin Harvick -574
- Kyle Busch -597
- Clint Bowyer -630
- Martin Truex Jr. -703
- Dale Earnhardt Jr. -760
Next Week
The NEXTEL Cup series has next week off but they will return to action July 29th at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The 2007 Allstate 400 at The Brickyard marks another of [link url=http://nascar.about.com/od/nascarculture/tp/biggestraces.htm]NASCAR's biggest races[/link] and is an event not to be missed.
