Joey Logano made the highlight reel today as he barrel-rolled through turns three and four but walked away safely.
Qualifying
Four Chasers topped qualifying with three-time defending Sprint Cup Champion Jimmie Johnson on the pole. Juan Montoya qualified second. Row number two was made up of Ryan Newman and Greg Biffle. Non-Chaser David Reutimann rounded out the top five.
Drop Of The Green
A hard rain scrubbed the rubber off the track in the morning so NASCAR intended to throw a competition caution on lap 25.
Jimmie Johnson pulled away and lead lap one easily. Johnson continued to show strength during the early going and stretched out a 1.7 second lead over Ryan Newman and Juan Montoya before the competition caution came on lap 25 as planned.
Ryan Newman, Kurt Busch and Kasey Kahne won the battle off of pit road and continued to lead the early going.
Storylines
When the race returned to green on lap 32 Joey Logano was involved in one of the ugliest crashes of the year. Going into turn three a number of drivers had to check up and he got turned from behind by Tony Stewart.
Joey Logano spun down onto the grass and back up across the track in front of heavy traffic. He hit the outside wall and then Reed Sorenson got into his passenger door. This caused Logano's car to tumble violently. Logano barrel-rolled seven and a half times before the car settled back down onto its wheels.
This was one of the ugliest wrecks of 2009 but NASCAR's safety features all did their jobs and Joey Logano was able to walk away.
Chasing The Checkers
The final green flag flew with 27 to go. Jimmie Johnson had dominated much of the afternoon and was in the lead. Matt Kenseth was second, Juan Montoya third and point leader Mark Martin was fourth.
Johnson moved back to the lead on the restart and stretched out a comfortable lead over Kenseth and Martin. Martin caught Kenseth for second but nobody had anything for Johnson. Jimmie Johnson rolled it home for the easy win.
Top Ten
- Jimmie Johnson
- Mark Martin
- Matt Kenseth
- Juan Montoya
- Kurt Busch
- Jeff Gordon
- A.J. Allmendinger
- Kasey Kahne
- Tony Stewart
- Ryan Newman
The Points
The top two drivers in the Sprint Cup points finished 1-2 in the race with Jimmie Johnson getting the nod ahead of Mark Martin. Martin holds on to the point lead but Johnson is right on his heels.
The top twelve are now:
- Mark Martin
- Jimmie Johnson -10
- Juan Montoya -65
- Kurt Busch -75
- Tony Stewart -106
- Denny Hamlin -108
- Ryan Newman -110
- Jeff Gordon -122
- Greg Biffle -138
- Brian Vickers -151
- Carl Edwards -153
- Kasey Kahne -189
