Rating the AAA 400: 3 Stars ***

The Monster Mile chewed up and spit out a bunch of cars on Sunday, but Hendrick Motorsports was unaffected as they once again brought home a 1-2 finish. Once again, when Jimmie Johnson goes out and dominates it’s difficult to have a really exciting race, so the second race of the Chase gets a 3 Star Rating.

Just as we have seen many times over the last half decade, Jimmie Johnson jumped out to the mandatory two second lead on the first run. Thankfully, he got put back in the field a bit after the first pit stop and really didn’t make much headway back in traffic. But, once he did get back out front it was all over.

The way Johnson runs races these days reminds me of Jeff Gordon in his prime. There were races where Gordon would dominate all day and easily lead the most laps, but there were also days when he wouldn’t pop up until the very end and steal a victory. I guess we shouldn’t be surprised, though; Johnson was mentored by Gordon and has maintained that same driving style.

For the most part, this was a pretty clean race. Every once in a while somebody would blow a tire, but other than Joey Logano’s wild ride, things were pretty serene. However, the wreck that Logano had was spectacular. People don’t come to Dover expecting cars to flip over seven times. That stuff is usually reserved for Daytona and Talladega.

“It just really scared the heck out of me,” Logano said. “It started rolling, and I was in there, thinking, 'Man, just make this thing stop.' It wouldn't. It just kept going and going.”

Overall this year has seen its fair share of wild crashes. From Carl Edwards at Talladega to Kyle Busch at Daytona to Sam Hornish Jr. at the Glen; there have been some hard licks and yet nobody has come away with much more than a few bruises. The safety of these cars is amazing, and that was NASCAR’s top priority in building the new car.

While the safety of the cars has been a bright spot, NASCAR continues to hurt their credibility when they throw the debris caution with 30 or so laps left in the race. Every time a race looks like it may go green to the end and the leader has a comfortable lead, here comes the debris caution, which just causes more cautions when they line the cars up double-file. I know NASCAR is excited about the double-file restarts, but please stop messing with the finish of these races.

The final northern swing of the season is finished and now it’s on to the heartland and Kansas Speedway. I happened to visit the track earlier this year so it will be cool for me, personally, to watch the race. Hopefully the racing is pretty good. This is another race where an unexpected winner can emerge and fuel mileage can sometimes come into play. That’s it for this week, and the great thing about this time of year is there are no more off weeks, just two straight months of racing.