Qualifying
Brian Vickers has a great qualifying setup for Michigan. He put his RedBull Toyota on the pole for the third Michigan race in a row. This was his sixth pole of 2009.
The rest of the top five qualifiers were Mark Martin, Juan Montoya, Jimmie Johnson and Martin Truex Jr.
Drop Of The Green
Mark Martin won the battle into turn one and held on to lead lap one. Kurt Busch went to the top and jumped to second place on the first lap. Unfortunately the racing didn't last long as a rain shower halted the action on lap 7.
NASCAR has had incredibly bad luck with the weather this season. NASCAR fans are a hardy bunch but they have had to endure some terrible luck with weather so far in 2009.
This time the shower was small and the sun came back out allowing NASCAR to get back to green fairly quickly.
When they returned to racing Mark Martin held the lead over Kurt Busch and Jimmie Johnson. Johnson was steadily moving forward. He took over the lead on lap 24 and continued to lead the rest of the early going.
Storylines
Michigan is one of the rare race tracks on the NASCAR Sprint Cup schedule where Jimmie Johnson has never won. In June he was leading on the final lap but ran out of gas.
Today Jimmie was leading with three laps to go but never made it back to take the parallel flags marking two to go.
As Jimmie said in his post-race interview this is a team that just isn't good on fuel mileage. A Michigan win for Johnson will have to wait until 2010, or beyond.
Chasing The Checkers
Michigan once again became a fuel mileage race. With twenty laps to go Jimmie Johnson was leading over Brian Vickers, Jeff Gordon, Carl Edwards, Mark Martin and Dale Earnhardt Jr. Junior was the first driver on the track who was comfortable on fuel.
With the top five all saving fuel Junior was closing in on the leaders in a hurry.
Jimmie Johnson ran out of fuel as they came to take the two to go. Brian Vickers took over the lead with Jeff Gordon 1.5 seconds behind. Vickers was able to make it the last two laps and claimed victory in Michigan.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. was third.
Top Ten
- Brian Vickers
- Jeff Gordon
- Dale Earnhardt Jr.
- Carl Edwards
- Sam Hornish
- Casey Mears
- Joey Logano
- Clint Bowyer
- David Reutimann
- Denny Hamlin
The Points
Jimmie Johnson's fuel mileage woes cost him a spot in the points. Johnson slips to third behind Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon.
Mark Martin also ran out of fuel at the end of the race. Martin was up to ninth in points but coasted to the checkers out of fuel and ended up losing one spot to twelfth.
The top twelve are now:
- Tony Stewart
- Jeff Gordon -284
- Jimmie Johnson -303
- Carl Edwards -505
- Denny Hamlin -514
- Kurt Busch -543
- Juan Montoya -613
- Kasey Kahne -616
- Ryan Newman -655
- Greg Biffle -679
- Matt Kenseth -689
- Mark Martin -709
