Rating the Autism Speaks 400: 3 Stars ***

After a couple weeks under the lights, the Sprint Cup Series returned to Sunday afternoon for a battle at the “Monster Mile.” Miles actually didn’t tear up too many cars as this was a pretty clean race. However, similar to last week at Darlington, a late mistake cost the race an exciting finish. The Dover spring race gets a 3 Star Rating.

This had the feel of a classic race in a couple different ways. Five cautions was the lowest number of yellows in a race since the fall race at Phoenix last year. As I said last week, this group of drivers is slowly but surely maturing and not wrecking as much, which will lead to fewer cautions overall. Now, take Sam Hornish Jr. out of the mix and the number of cautions would drop in half. Also, to have a five caution race at Dover was rather unexpected. Dover is one of those tracks that is known for collecting more cars than normal in a given wreck because of the banking around the track. However, there wasn’t one wreck Sunday that involved more than a single car.

One thing that may have lowered the number of cautions, however, was the large number of start and parks Sunday. No less than seven cars parked without any real damage early in the race. Plus, only 13 cars finished on the lead lap. For once NASCAR didn’t throw a caution to bunch the field up, especially after Johnson’s pit miscue that allowed Busch to check out from the rest of the field. Thank you, NASCAR. The integrity of the race is appreciated.

Had Jimmie Johnson not sped coming out of the pits on his final stop, there would have been one heck of a battle to the finish between Johnson and Kyle Busch. Those two were by far the two best cars in the second half of the race and after Johnson was penalized, Busch destroyed the rest of the field. Once again, many conspiracy theorists (race fans) thought NASCAR was holding the #48 team’s hand throughout each race and wouldn’t let anything bad happen to it. Well, that theory can be thrown out the window because that penalty directly cost Johnson a shot at the win.

Also, there have finally been a couple of races that didn’t have a caution in the final 10 laps. Those things seem to go in cycles. Last year there was a stretch where every race came down to fuel mileage. We have yet to have one of those yet, but we are coming up on several tracks where fuel mileage often comes into play.

Now everything moves back to Charlotte for All-Star week. Lots of things will be going on in the Charlotte area with the pit crew challenge Wednesday, the Rev’d Up concert Thursday, racing Friday and Saturday and the Hall of Fame inductions Sunday. No, this is not an off week for the Cup series. If anything, even though no points will be handed out, the teams will be busier this week than on a normal weekend.

This is always an exciting weekend and is made even better this year with the inaugural Hall of Fame inductions. Congratulations to Bill France, Bill France Jr., Junior Johnson, Richard Petty, Dale Earnhardt and their families. The sport cannot hand out any bigger honor than being elected to the first NASCAR Hall of Fame class. Enjoy the week because there will be plenty to keep a NASCAR fan busy.