When the race did go off it was worth the wait. The Car of Tomorrow once again brought great racing to the fans as there was exciting side-by-side racing and multiple lead changes throughout the race.
Qualifying
Jeff Gordon sat on the pole for the third week in a row. The last two number one starting spots lead to wins. This did not bode well for the rest of the field tonight.
Carl Edwards Put his Roush Fenway Ford on the outside of the front row. The second row was made up of Scott Riggs and Jimmie Johnson. Kasey Kahne rounded out the top five in his Ray Evernham Dodge.
Drop The Green Flag
The track was still a little bit wet and there were raindrops in the air when the race start time came. The race went green and yellow at the same time to start the event. This means that NASCAR started counting the laps but the cars did not actually start racing. NASCAR threw the red flag on lap 13 and rescheduled the full 400 laps for Sunday afternoon at 1pm.
Sunday brought beautiful blue skies for a fresh green flag. Jeff Gordon took the early lead and commanded the first 32 laps until his teammate Jimmie Johnson took over and lead to the competition caution on lap 40. Gordon beat everyone off of pit road to retake the lead and dominated the rest of the first 100 laps of racing.
Storylines
After a couple of weeks of controversy it was nice to see that the big story of Richmond's race was the racing itself. Hendrick Motorsports dominated much of the day. Jimmie Johnson, Jeff Gordon and Kyle Busch were the top dogs for most of the race.
At one point Kevin Harvick looked strong and lead through the middle portion of the event. However Harvick got tangled up on pit road with David Ragan. The incident wasn't fatal for Harvick but it did do enough damage to kill his chance to win.
NASCAR's Car of Tomorrow seems to be fulfilling its promise of improving the racing. The less aero sensitive cars allow for much more passing as being out front in clean air is much less of an advantage than it used to be. I am looking forward to having NASCAR go full-time to the Car of Tomorrow.
Chasing The Checkers
Jimmie Johnson and Kyle Busch battled door-to-door for much of the final 100 laps. There were a number of cautions over the final laps as the drivers visibly turned up the aggression towards the finish. Kyle Busch had a nose on Jimmie Johnson when the yellow flag flew for one of those incidents and he had the lead over his teammates Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon.
The final green flag flew with just twenty laps to go. Jimmie Johnson jumped to the inside of Kyle Busch and was able to squeeze past with 18 to go. A few laps later Denny Hamlin got underneath Jeff Gordon for third. The top four finished out the race just like that.
Top Ten
- Jimmie Johnson
- Kyle Busch
- Denny Hamlin
- Jeff Gordon
- Kurt Busch
- Ryan Newman
- Kevin Harvick
- Tony Stewart
- Clint Bowyer
- Matt Kenseth
The Points
Jeff Burton finished dead last today and dropped three spots in the standings to fifth as Jimmie Johnson's win allowed him to move up two places to second.
In the battle for The Chase Dale Earnhardt Jr. moved into the top twelve as Jamie McMurray dropped six spots to thirteenth. Jamie is nineteen points behind Junior for the twelfth and final Chase spot.
The top twelve are now:
- Jeff Gordon -0
- Jimmie Johnson -211
- Matt Kenseth -260
- Denny Hamlin -332
- Jeff Burton -339
- Kyle Busch -462
- Tony Stewart -466
- Kevin Harvick -488
- Kurt Busch -493
- Clint Bowyer -532
- Carl Edwards -560
- Dale Earnhardt Jr. -573
Next Week
Next week the Car of Tomorrow returns for another Saturday night race. This time the NEXTEL Cup series invades Darlington Raceway. Since teams are having trouble getting the handle on the new CoT chassis the very tricky Darlington oval is sure to give them real problems next week.
