The 600 is one of the biggest events on the schedule. It is the longest race of the year and with qualifying speeds of over 192MPH winning here requires a fast, but reliable ride.
Qualifying
Ryan Newman once again took the pole, this time with a new track record lap of 192.988 MPH. This is his fourth pole position of the year in just 12 races. Starting beside him is Jeff Gordon. Kenseth, Kahne and Johnson rounded out the top five starting spots.
Drop The Green Flag
The early part of the race was all Hendrick Motorsports as Kyle Busch, Brian Vickers, Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson held down the top four spots.
Storylines
Since October track crews have filled cracks in the track with a hard rubber filler. Unfortunately this filler just didn't hold up and it started to come up during the race. Jeff Gordon hit a big chunk of the hard rubber which did some significant damage to his #24 Chevrolet. This bit of bad luck evokes memories of last April when Jeff Gordon hit a chunk of concrete that came up at Martinsville Speedway, knocking Jeff from contention in that race.
Wrecks, wrecks and more wrecks. I don't know what was wrong with the drivers this weekend but they just couldn't keep 'em pointed straight and not run into each other. The race set a new all-time record for cautions in a NASCAR NEXTEL Cup series event with an astounding 22 yellows. The 400 lap race saw 103 laps completed behind the pace car.
One of those wrecks was particularly interested as Dale Earnhardt Jr. got into the back of teammate Michael Waltrip causing both to wreck hard. Is this the frustration of a season that's not going as planned? Pressures of a team that seems to be rapidly losing faith in their driver?
Is this just the Dale Earnhardt Inc. (DEI) way? You'll remember that Michael Waltrip took out his frustrations on Jeff Green with a blatant punt a couple weeks ago in Darlington. Also, part-time DEI driver Martin Truex Jr. caused at least two wrecks during the Coca-Cola 600. This is a team with anger issues across the board so maybe we shouldn't expect more?
Chasing The Checkers
with just ten laps to go Joe Nemechek had a solid lead and it looked like he might take the win. But with eight laps to go he cut down a tire and hit the wall bringing out a red flag.
Bobby Labonte inherited the lead over Carl Edwards and Jimmie Johnson who was on fresher tires when they took the green with five to go. Johnson quickly passed Edwards and set his sights on Labonte. He caught him with a couple of laps to go but wasn't able to find a way around.
When they took the white flag it looked like Bobby Labonte was going to hold on for the win but Johnson tried him low in turn one and couldn't make the pass stick. He then got a run up on the outside in turn four and the two raced towards the finish line side-by-side for the win. Johnson on the outside inched past and took the win by about three feet over Labonte.
This is Jimmie Johnson's third consecutive Coca-Cola 600 victory.
Hats off to both Jimmie Johnson and Bobby Labonte for a very clean race. It would have been easy for Jimmie to put a bumper on him to take the win or easy for Bobby to aggressively block. Both of these drivers are class acts and put on one heck of a great show for the fans.
Top Ten
- Jimmie Johnson
- Bobby Labonte
- Carl Edwards
- Jeremy Mayfield
- Ryan Newman
- Greg Biffle
- Martin Truex Jr.
- Dale Jarrett
- Ken Schrader
- Rusty Wallace
The Points
Jimmie Johnson is stretching out his lead with another win while many of his competitors had problems. At the back of the top ten Mark Martin fell from 10th to 12th. and Carl Edwards moved up five spots to take over eighth.
- Jimmie Johnson 0
- Greg Biffle -71
- Elliott Sadler -205
- Ryan Newman -217
- Jeff Gordon -231
- Tony Stewart -259
- Kevin Harvick -262
- Carl Edwards -288
- Jamie McMurray -296
- Kurt Busch -306
Next Week
Next week NASCAR invades Delaware as Dover International Speedway hosts a triple-header featuring all three of NASCAR's top touring series. The Craftsman Truck Series runs Friday, the Busch Series on Saturday and the NEXTEL Cup series on Sunday. This is a great weekend of racing.
