Qualifying
Jamie McMurray scored the pole on Saturday as he nipped the Roush Racing teammates of Kurt Busch and Mark Martin who qualified second and third. Perpetual top starter Ryan Newman was on the outside of row two. Ricky Rudd qualified fifth to make if four Fords in the top five.
Drop The Green Flag
Kurt Busch lead lap one from the outside of the front row as drivers settled in for a long day at "the superspeedway that drives like a road course." After the first round of pitstops it was Kurt Busch, Mark Martin, Ryan Newman and Tony Stewart up front with Joe Nemechek working his way towards the front during the first half of the race.
Storylines
The good news is that the big story of the week never really materialized. When we were here in June tire problems were a major concern. Over 20 flat tires plagued the field. This time everyone was expecting the worse, but Goodyear came back to Pocono prepared and there were no significant tire problems this week.
Gah! I had hoped that the media would better balance out its Dale Earnhardt Jr coverage when NBC/TNT took over from Fox but it's not to be. Lets review. Junior is 13th in points and was running deep in the thirties in the race yet we were still kept well abreast of his race. This is getting rediculous. Dale Jr. is getting too much coverage for the year that he's having! It's not fair to other drivers.
For example, Dale Jarrett and Jeremy Mayfield should have been bigger stories today as their runs caused them both to drop back and juggle the tenth points spot back and forth between them. They both spent the day ahead of Junior both in points and in the race, yet both were barely mentioned.
Chasing The Checkers
Kurt Busch dominated all day long but had trouble under caution with just 75 laps to go. He restarted in eighth with quite a bit of time left in the race, but more trafic to work through than he had seen all day. He battled his way back up to second for the final pit stop.
With 40 laps to go the yellow flew and everybody headed to the pits for the final stop of the day. Mark Martin was leading with Kurt Busch in second as they hit pit road for the final time.
Four drivers lead by Rusty Wallace, Carl Edwards, Kevin Harvick and Greg Biffle went for two tires or less. Mark Martin got four tires and came out fifth with Kurt Busch, also on four tires right behind him. This was shaping up to be a real shootout for the final 34 lap run to the checkers.
Kurt Busch got around Mark shortly after the restart and set sail for the front. He was rapidly closing on leader Rusty Wallace and it was just a matter of time. This one was never really in doubt.
With 18 laps to go Kurt got under Rusty for the lead and was long gone.
Top Ten
- Kurt Busch
- Rusty Wallace
- Mark Martin
- Carl Edwards
- Ryan Newman
- Kevin Harvick
- Tony Stewart
- Bobby Labonte
- Mike Bliss
- Ricky Rudd
The Points
Jimmie Johnson maintained the lead and Tony Stewart moved up from third to pass Greg Biffle for second spot. That was the only points position change in the top twelve.
- Jimmie Johnson 0
- Tony Stewart -66
- Greg Biffle -87
- Rusty Wallace -182
- Kurt Busch -262
- Ryan Newman -292
- Mark Martin -309
- Elliott Sadler -405
- Jeremy Mayfield -408
- Dale Jarrett -427
Next Week
Next weekend is a very rare off week on the NEXTEL Cup schedule. In two weeks, August 7th, the NEXTEL Cup teams head to Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard.
