Rating the Bank of America 500: 4 Stars ****

The top three Sprint Cup Series championship contenders dominated Saturday night at Charlotte Motor Speedway, but the driver now fourth in the Chase, Clint Bowyer, outlasted everyone to grab his third win of the season. The final race of the season at Charlotte gets a 4 Star Rating.

Brad Keselowski, Jimmie Johnson and Denny Hamlin were the class of the field all night. Keselowski used pit strategy to move up from his 20^th-place starting spot after the third caution in 36 laps. The race went incident free the rest of the way with only a couple of debris cautions for NASCAR to make sure it stayed entertaining.

Keselowski, Johnson and Hamlin combined to lead 228 of the 334 laps, but fueld mileage came into play after the final debris caution on lap 223. Johnson and Hamlin both couldn’t make it to the finish when they pitted with about 55 laps to go. Surprisingly, neither could Keselowski, who usually has good fuel mileage.

Keselowski’s chance at winning the race ended anyway on that next-to-last pit stop because he ran out of gas going down the backstretch and had a 22-second stop once he got there. That put him outside the top 10, and he would never recover, finishing 11^th.

Johnson and Hamlin also had to come back to pit road for a splash-and-go stop late in the race, but they managed to finish second and third, respectively.

While all that was going on, Bowyer had enough fuel to make the finish, although not complete a celebration burnout, and give Michael Waltrip Racing its first Chase win. The victory also moved Bowyer up to fourth in the points standings, 28 points out of the lead.

Bowyer is still a bit of a long shot to be a factor by the time the series reaches the final race at Homestead, but he has shown once again that he is on the cusp of being a championship contender.

Bowyer has made noise in just about every Chase in which he’s competed. He finished third in 2007 and fifth in 2008. He also made the Chase in 2010 and won the first race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, but his car didn’t pass postrace inspection and NASCAR docked him 150 points. That took him out of the picture, and he finished the season in 10^th place.

This year Bowyer could be in a similar position. He still doesn’t have the consistency to match Keselowski, Johnson and Hamlin, but he is the best of the rest.

He is also headed to his hometown track, Kansas Speedway, next week and could have another good finish there, but it would still take a flawless run through the rest of the Chase to have a legitimate shot to win the title.

The track in Kansas now has a brand-new surface and progressive banking in the corners. Does that mean it will be a more exciting race to watch? Probably not. The progressive banking has worked at Homestead but hasn’t made much difference at other tracks once the idea became popular.

In any case, expect the Chase frontrunners to lead the field as they did at Charlotte. It might stink to have the same guys up front each week right now, but their battle to win the championship will be a good one if they can all stay in contention throughout the next month.

Have a great week, everybody.

Rating the AAA 400: 2 Stars **

Brad Keselowski and the #2 team outsmarted the Sprint Cup Series field again Sunday at Dover International Speedway to win their second Chase race of the season, with seven more to go. Late strategy drama saved what was left of an otherwise boring race that deserves a 2 Star Rating.

Keselowski now leads the points standings and stands five points in front of second-place Jimmie Johnson. This has all the makings of a three-man championship battle among Keselowski, Johnson and Denny Hamlin, who sits 16 points behind in third, and Keselowski is leading the charge.

Those who thought Keselowski would be a factor once the Chase started might have thought he would play the role of Clint Bowyer in past years. Bowyer often had a great start to the Chase and would hang around through most of October before falling behind the real championship contenders.

Keselowski is better than that. He and crew chief Paul Wolfe can pull out top-five finishes on days they have a mediocre car that qualified in the mid-20s because they play the strategy game better than anyone in the sport.

That team looks at every part of the race as an opportunity to gain an advantage while most people focus on the final two runs. Keselowski is on top of the sport because he and his team have made calls early in races while other teams follow the leader and make the same call as everyone else. Granted, they have to have good cars to be able to pull off those moves, but good cars and good strategy are key ingredients in a championship run.

On the other side of the battle, Joe Gibbs Racing drivers Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin walked out of the Monster Mile disappointed even though they had top-10 runs. Busch dominated Sunday the way Hamlin had the week prior at New Hampshire, but fuel strategy got in the way and both drivers had to pit late in the race.

The loss means nothing but frustration for Busch because he isn’t in the Chase this year, but Hamlin gave up six points that could prove extremely costly late in the season. Johnson also had to back down on the final run to make sure he had enough gas to the finish.

While other drivers are leaking points, Keselowski is capitalizing. The rest of the Chase field better take the #2 team seriously or they will be saluting the team with a championship toast at the end of the year.

Overall, there wasn’t much on-track action. J.J. Yeley blew a tire during green-flag pit stops on lap 69 that knocked all but six drivers off the lead lap, but the race wouldn’t have been any more exciting if everyone was on the lead lap.

At this point in the season, the good cars are head and shoulders above the rest of the field so a race among the top six at tracks such as New Hampshire and Dover is about as exciting as it would be if 30 cars were on the lead lap.

That will all change next week, though, as the series heads to Talladega Superspeedway for the final restrictor-plate race of the season.

Those races are nearly impossible to predict, which is part of their intrigue. However, if Keselowski, Johnson and Hamlin finish in the top 10, the window of opportunity for the rest of the Chase drivers will virtually shut.

But for one week at least, the Chase will take a back seat to 500 miles of intense 200 mph drama at the biggest track of them all.

Have a great week, everybody.

Rating the Sylvania 300: 1 Star *

Denny Hamlin won the Sylvania 300 Sunday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Nothing else happened, so this race gets a 1 Star Rating.

Hamlin dominated the race by leading 193 laps, all of them after lap 93, but he started in 28^th position. He had what might have been the most dominating car of the season, if not several seasons. Jimmie Johnson has won some races when he could race for three days and no one would pass him, but that hasn’t really been the case this year.

The win also gives Hamlin his fifth of the season and vaults him back to third in the points standings, just seven behind perennial leader Johnson.

So far two of the three championship contenders have proven they belong in the title hunt with victories, and Johnson has back-to-back second-place finishes to lead the points standings. Brad Keselowski won at Chicago. He, Hamlin and Johnson could easily be the three drivers fighting for the championship at Homestead.

All of the Chase drivers finished inside the top 20 at New Hampshire, but that did nothing to spice up an afternoon of lackluster racing. NASCAR threw a competition caution at lap 40 and then threw three more throughout the rest of the race, including a late-race caution for “debris” in a vain attempt to keep Hamlin from pulling into Victory Lane before anyone else even crossed the finish line.

Thankfully, Hamlin still won the race so we don’t have to worry about NASCAR officials destroying the presumed integrity of the sport this week. Had Hamlin lost the race and gone on to lose the championship by a few points, he would have a good argument that NASCAR’s quest for exciting racing kept him from winning the championship.

There wasn’t a real caution all day. Every car that didn’t start and park finished the race with nothing more than a dent in a fender.

So, after a week that did nothing to change the outlook of the Chase, next week the Sprint Cup Series heads to another one-mile oval to race at Dover International Speedway.

Dover is another track where a driver, most likely Johnson, can dominate an entire day. However, there should be a little more close racing this week because of Dover’s high-banked corners that allow drivers to race instead of scoot around trying to roll the middle of the turn.

It’s also a track that has bitten Chase drivers in the past, and it would be surprising if all 12 Chase drivers finished in the top 20 again. Either way, Talladega will eliminate any boring racing the following week.

Have a great week, everybody.

Rating the AdvoCare 500: 2 Stars **

After a rough-and-tumble night at Bristol Motor Speedway a week ago, the Sprint Cup Series brought back the long green-flag runs more typical of 2012 on Sunday night at Atlanta Motor Speedway. The relative lack of action earns this race a 2 Star Rating.

Denny Hamlin won the race to put him in prime contention for the championship once the Chase begins in two weeks at Chicagoland Speedway, but Martin Truex Jr. should have won the race. Shockingly, it wasn’t NASCAR’s fault he didn’t win.

Truex Jr. led 40 laps Sunday night and had a substantial lead with five laps to go when Jamie McMurray blew a tire and pounded the frontstretch wall. That sent the leaders to pit road to get four tires because the surface at Atlanta is so rough. Denny Hamlin came from fourth to first on the exchange of pit stops and lined up alongside Truex Jr. to settle the race.

Truex Jr. had trouble getting through the gears so Hamlin and Jeff Gordon checked out in front. Gordon almost had a shot at Hamlin on the final lap, but he got loose, Hamlin won and Truex Jr. finished a disheartening fourth place.

Truex Jr. still clinched a spot in the Chase, but instead of the papers being full of stories that say Truex Jr. is a serious contender for the championship, he is left as an afterthought that happens to be in the Chase but probably won’t be much of a championship threat.

This loss is a tough won for Truex Jr. and the #56 team because they have come extremely close to several wins this year and have come up empty every time. Truex Jr. has six top-fives, 14 top-10s and should’ve won the spring Kansas race if not for a late caution.

A win might have been even more beneficial than the three bonus points he would’ve received once the Chase standings are set. Sometimes a breakthrough win can open the floodgates for several more wins in the near future. It’s amazing sometimes how difficult it is to break into Victory Lane but then seems relatively easy to return after that first win.

For example, Jimmie Johnson and Hendrick Motorsports had gone 16 races without a win before Johnson won the Southern 500 in May at Darlington Raceway. Since then, Johnson has won three more races (including the All-Star Race) and Hendrick Motorsports has won seven races.

Truex Jr. hasn’t won since Dover in June 2007, a span of 192 races. That streak certainly weighs on him, and Sunday night’s fourth-place finish was devastating. However, if he can get that win during the Chase, he could go on a roll and really be a factor in the championship at the end of the season.

Sunday’s race might not have been the most exciting race in the world, but next week’s race at Richmond International Raceway could be thrilling. Seven drivers are in wild card contention, but the only way most of them can make the Chase is to win the race. That could make for a memorable short track race.

The final regular-season week of the season is always a fun one, and all the ingredients are in place for another wild race to send us to the Chase. We’ve been waiting for this race seemingly the entire season, and hopefully it satisfies our hopes.

In any case, have a wonderful week, everybody.

Rating the Irwin Tools Night Race: 5 Stars *****

Now that’s some good old-fashioned Bristol racing. The annual night race at The World’s Fastest Half-Mile was a slugfest that brought out the beating and banging that made Bristol Motor Speedway famous. The track changes worked. The Bristol night race gets a 5 Star Rating.

Denny Hamlin got the win in rather mundane fashion, but everything that happen up to the final run was stuff we hadn’t seen in the Sprint Cup Series in quite some time.

Sure, the finish at Watkins Glen was exciting, and Jimmie Johnson’s blown motor with five laps to go at Michigan prevented a matter-of-fact finish, but everyone got up on the wheel from the drop of the green flag Saturday in Bristol.

The bump-and-run returned to Bristol after track owner Bruton Smith decided to shave off the top groove of the track to create less racing space. His hope was to bring back a narrow groove that forced drivers to bump each other for position. Smith got what he asked for, although perhaps not in the way he envisioned.

Instead of the reconfiguration sending everyone hunting for the bottom of the track, the drivers spent all night fighting for the very top of the track, right where Smith took away the banking. But the passing dynamics that existed at Bristol before Smith installed progressive banking in 2007 still came back with a force.

It became impossible to pass on the low side throughout the night, so drivers had to nudge (or forcefully push) each other out of the way to gain a spot. That’s what gave us the most memorable part of the night.

Matt Kenseth and Tony Stewart battled for the lead on lap 332. Stewart got a run on the high side, but Kenseth didn’t leave him much room. They started trading paint and eventually slid across the frontstretch and crashed into the inside wall.

Stewart jumped out of his car and waited for Kenseth to come around pit lane. As Kenseth came around, Stewart threw his helmet off the front of Kenseth’s hood and then turned around to salute the fans.

That’s the kind of stuff that has been missing from the sport of late. Notice that Stewart was not called to the NASCAR hauler after the race and won’t receive any penalties for his actions.

Some people will moan and groan that Saturday night’s race wasn’t “real racing” because there were 13 cautions and wrecks all over the place. That’s fine. Those folks can watch “real racing” at tracks such as Chicagoland, Kansas and Fontana. Saturday night’s race was fun, intense and has fans a lot more pumped up about NASCAR than any race this season outside of the Watkin’s Glen finish.

Hopefully the momentum from Bristol will carry on to Atlanta and Richmond to finish the regular season. All of a sudden the monotonous races from the first half of the season seem like they are far in the past.

That’s a good thing as the Sprint Cup Series heads to Atlanta Motor Speedway for its Labor Day weekend race. The points standings heading into the final two races before the Chase are as tight as ever, and that should make for exciting finish to the season.

Have a great week and blessed holiday weekend, everybody.

Rating the Lenox Industrial Tools 301: 2 Stars **

A dreary afternoon at New Hampshire Motor Speedway set the stage for a dreary race where the second-best car in the field won because of a terrible pit call by his opponent. But, it didn’t rain, so the Sunday afternoon drive in Loudon gets a 2 Star Rating.

Kasey Kahne had a good car, but Denny Hamlin had a better one. Hamlin dominated the entire weekend. He qualified third, had the fastest lap in each of Saturday’s practice sessions and led 150 of the 301 laps on Sunday.

Unfortunately for Hamlin, he and crew chief Darian Grubb weren’t on the same page on their last pit stop and took four tires while the rest of the field took only two. That sent Hamlin from the lead to 14^th with 62 laps to go. Hamlin made a great charge at the end but still came home second.

Although Kahne received some good fortune with Hamlin’s pit call, he had a strong car all weekend, and this win is not a fluke. He now has two wins on the season and sits 12^th in the points standings, leading the pack of wild card contenders.

My, what a difference three months make. After a 38^th finish at Martinsville in April, Kahne sat 31^st in the points. At that point he had to pay more attention about not falling out of the top 35 in points than making the Chase.

People started to write him off and wait for the #5 team to try again next year. That might have been an accurate assessment back in the Winston Cup Series days when there was no Chase and the driver with the most points at the end of the season won the championship.

These days a driver has many more opportunities to contend for a championship. A driver can have a bad start to the season and still win the championship. Brad Keselowski was 23^rd in the points standings at this point in the season last year, and he ended up 11^th by the time the Chase started.

Kahne is still 66 points behind Keselowski for 10^th place, but he has two wild-card spots available. That option keeps all of the top 20 drivers in the points standings in contention to make the Chase up until only a few races remain before the cutoff at Richmond in September.

Overall, this was not a high-quality race in terms of action on the track. Kyle Busch led the first 66 laps and never drove away from Kahne and Hamlin, but Busch had major pit problems and a speeding penalty on his first stop that was the beginning of a tough day for the #18 team.

From that point on Hamlin checked out and did his best Jimmie-Johnson-at-Auto-Club-Speedway impression. Hamlin had more than half of the field a lap down until that fateful pit stop that forced him to race his heart out for second.

And as has been the case most of the season, the first caution didn’t fly until lap 90 when NASCAR threw one for debris. Race officials did the same 101 laps later, and then David Reutimann’s engine blew up on lap 235. Other than that, nothing happened, and it was extremely difficult to pass.

Unfortunately, we might be stuck with this type of racing the rest of the season. NASCAR has made a few modifications to the cars lately, but it hasn’t had any effect. The Race to the Chase will be fun with several drivers in contention for the wild-card spots, but the actual racing during that stretch could easily be less than thrilling.

In any case, next week is the final off-weekend of the season for the Sprint Cup Series. The teams will head to Indianapolis Motor Speedway in two weeks to begin the final stretch of the regular season.

Have as great week everybody, even though it won't be followed by a Cup race next weekend.

Rating the Quicken Loans 400: 4 Stars ****

He did it. NASCAR’s most famous son won his first race in four years at the same track and on the same holiday as the last one: on Father’s Day. Dale Earnhardt Jr. spanked the field Sunday at Michigan International Speedway. Although all of the attention will obviously focus on Dale Jr., there was also the rest of a race, and it gets a 4 Star Rating.

It took 143 tries since that June day in 2008 when Earnhardt Jr. coasted across the finish line to win his last race. Now, I’m not going to say it is better to have it this way because fans of any driver would say life would be great if their driver won every race, but Earnhardt Jr.’s odyssey to reach Victory Lane made Sunday a pretty special day.

As we said last week after Joey Logano’s win at Pocono, for whatever reason getting that first win, either in a career or a very long time, is extremely difficult. Just ask Martin Truex Jr. or A.J. Allmendinger.

Logano got caught up in a wreck at Michigan, but don’t be surprised if he contends for several more wins before the season is over. The same can also be said for Earnhardt Jr.

Like it or not, Earnhardt Jr.’s win Sunday was a big moment in the sport. The stands at a racetrack haven’t shook like that since … well, a very long time. Earnhardt Jr. is the most popular driver in the sport, and therefore a large portion of the NASCAR fan base had been sitting on its collective hands for four years.

People will also talk about Earnhardt Jr. and the #88 team now as a legitimate championship contender. However, that team would’ve contended for the championship with or without a regular-season win. This is a Hendrick Motorsports team that has run as consistently well as any team in the sport this year. It was just a matter of time before the win happened.

The race itself was OK. The action on the track might have been a tad better than expected aside from Earnhardt Jr. pulling away from everybody during the final run of the race. However, NASCAR and Goodyear narrowly sidestepped the second edition of the 2008 Brickyard 400 when the race had to be stopped every 10 laps or so because tire wear was so horrible.

Plenty of teams had issues with the tires Sunday, but thankfully no tires blew out while at speed on the track. Drivers entered Turn 1 at 215 mph. A blown tire at that point would’ve been plenty dangerous.

Instead, Denny Hamlin provided the danger highlight of the day when he spun out on lap 133 and his car caught on fire as he drove down pit road. He was OK, but that will also likely be forever imbedded in the highlight package for Earnhardt Jr.’s streak-busting win.

So, next week the series heads out to California for the second time this year to bob-and-weave through the myriad of turns at the road course in Sonoma. That might be a bummer for Junior Nation considering he has never had a top 10 at that place.

Anyway, now that the trip through the repaved tracks is over, the upcoming schedule should be entertaining. The road course is next week, followed by the return to Kentucky and the Fourth of July weekend race at Daytona.

Hold on to the couch with both hands next week. Sonoma has been the site of intense races in recent years, and that should be no different this weekend.

Have a great week, everybody.

Rating the Coca-Cola 600: 1 Star *

A long race that finished a long day of racing Sunday ended with Kasey Kahne in Victory Lane for the first time as a Hendrick Motorsports driver. Unfortunately, the longest race of the day was also the most boring, and the Coke 600 gets a 1Star Rating.

Besides a freak problem like the tire situation at the Brickyard a few years ago, Sunday night’s race had all of the elements of a snoozer. It was a long race dominated by just a few drivers, there wasn’t much side-by-side racing and debris cautions plagued the race throughout the night.

The Coca-Cola 600 is billed as an endurance event, and that is certainly how this year’s edition played out. The drivers struggled to merely get to the end of the race and didn’t have much time to wage a real battle near the front of the field.

Plus, one of the few intriguing battles of the night was cut short by a debris caution on lap 318 as Kahne, Greg Biffle and Denny Hamlin raced hard for the lead among lapped cars.

After that, Kahne dominated the remainder of a race that had no drama.

Now, before we overreact and say NASCAR is horrible, the cars are horrible, the drivers are horrible and everybody should be fired because it wasn’t an exciting race, we still need to realize that not every race is going to be exciting.

Sure, it would have been a real shot in the arm to have a tense, exciting race for the Memorial day weekend special in Charlotte, which is one of the most prestigious races on the schedule. But that wasn’t the case. Fans will get over it and more on. At some point this season there will be a thrilling 5 Star race and everyone will say NASCAR is the best thing going.

For the first time in a long, long time, the Indianapolis 500 was the better race Sunday. IndyCar had a record number of lead changes in a race that was as close as open-wheel racing gets to NASCAR’s restrictor-plate style racing.

Anyway, congratulations to Kahne and the #5 team. Kahne has run well all season, but he is finally starting to register the finishes to match the way he’s run during the race. Don’t look now, but he’s 15^th in the points standings with one win. That puts him just seven points behind Ryan Newman for the final wild-card spot in the Chase.

Speaking of overreactions, many people crossed Kahne of the list of Chase candidates early in the season when he was just a few spot away from falling out of the top 35 in points. My what a difference two months make.

We probably should have seen this coming. Brad Keselowski taught everyone last year that drivers can make comebacks with the new points system. Shoot, Keselowski was 24^th in the points standings at this time last year.

With that backdrop, Jeff Gordon still has a real chance to make the Chase. With a good couple of months, Gordon could be at least fighting for one of the wild-card spots by the time NASCAR visits the Brickyard in August.

Now it’s time for the first northern swing of the season. It’s starting to get hot across the country, so the sport will leave the South for the next month until it comes back to Kentucky Speedway for the last weekend in June.

The Monster Mile at Dover is next week. Although that track can tear up racecars as much as any on the circuit, the way this season has gone we could be in for another mundane race, especially if one team hits the setup perfectly and runs away from the field. They might not be caught until Pocono the following week.

For now, have a great Memorial Day and honor those who have served and are currently serving our country.

Rating the STP 400: 3 Stars ***

The Sprint Cup Series visited its second consecutive mile-and-a-half racetrack Sunday and delivered nearly the exact same race with few cautions and long green-flag runs. The finish was closer this time, however, and gets the race at Kansas a 3 Star Rating.

Greg Biffle passed Jimmie Johnson with 30 laps to go to win the Texas race a week ago, and this week Denny Hamlin passed Martin Truex Jr. with 31 laps remaining to win the race. The Kansas race also set records for fewest cautions (three) and race speed (144.122). The race at Texas last week set similar records for that track. For whatever reason, the drivers are running these races as if we’re in the summer stretch at Michigan and Pocono.

That is a topic that will likely draw increasing scrutiny this week, but it is unlikely to last in the upcoming weeks with Richmond, Talladega and Darlington on the horizon. I those races set records for fewest cautions, then we’ll know that something is up.

Still, other than the one debris caution Sunday, NASCAR has done a very good job of allowing the races to play out naturally and not messing with the finish by throwing a caution late in the race.

As for Sunday, Hamlin obviously deserves congratulations for running a steady race and pouncing when he had the chance to race for the win, but Truex Jr. also deserves a lot of credit for his race.

Truex Jr. led 173 laps and is now second in the points standings, just 15 points behind Biffle for the lead. That’s the highest Truex Jr. has ever been in the points standings and has shown that he can run well on several different types of tracks this year. Even though it’s early, something drastic would have to change for him not to make the Chase this year.

However, for all of the positives Truex Jr. and the #56 team can take from Kansas, the fact that they once again came up short has to be a nagging concern. When drivers such as Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson or Kyle Busch dominate a race the way Truex Jr. did Sunday, they finish the deal and win the race. For whatever reason, Truex Jr. is still not to that level and he won’t be a true championship contender until that happens.

Once it does happen, he will likely go on a tear and win a bunch of races. It happened to Brad Keselowski last year.

Although they both broke into the Cup series full-time in 2006, Hamlin has now won 19 races and has the experience to know how to close out a race and win. Truex Jr. still has just that one win at Dover in 2007 and cannot close the deal no matter how well he runs throughout the day.

That will come as the #56 team continues to run well. Usually drivers have to be in contention several times before breaking through with a win, but once that win happens they find that path to Victory Lane much easier and more often.

Now that we’re done with the intermediate tracks for a while, the short track of Richmond International Raceway comes up next followed by the ever-interesting Talladega Superspeedway.

Next week will be interesting because the teams and drivers have two short track races under their belt and it’s getting to the point in the season where several drivers who are used to winning will look up and realize, “Wow, it’s nearly May and I still don’t have a win this year.”

That, combined with the typically close racing at Richmond should make for a great Saturday night race.

Have a great week, everybody.

MMCC Power Rankings: Week 2

Anybody awake yet? Boy was that a dull race, and not what NASCAR needed after all the Daytona 500 ratings. There were no explosions or fires. Heck, there were only one or two single-car wrecks too.

Let's wake up a bit and take a look at the Week 2 Power Rankings.

1. Greg Biffle (Last Week 2) – Who would have guessed Greg Biffle would be the best of the Roush-Fenway Racing trio two races in?.

2. Denny Hamlin (3) – Denny and Darian sitting in a tree W-I-N-N-I-N-G.

3. Kevin Harvick (7) – That's how you're supposed to race. Put it all on the line ... to hell with what happens. Maybe a championship is in his future yet.

4. Matt Kenseth (1) – Did anyone else see Kenseth on the Jay Leno show? It's sad when the guest is funnier than the host.

5. Mark Martin (9) – Mark may already be thinking about running the full schedule, sabotaging the Elliott Sadler announcement hours after it happened.

6. Kyle Busch (12) – How often is it that Rowdy is the classier of the two drivers in a "rivalry?" The younger Busch brother got booted out of the way by Harvick and didn't do anything about it Yet.

7. Martin Truex Jr. (10) – Ok I was wrong, the Napa Know How commercials are way more annoying than anything Clint Bowyer is in ... though not by much.

8. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (5) – Junior may have a few more Diet Dew offers if he keeps up the top-15 finishes.

9. Brad Keselowski (15) – If I hear one more thing about Keselowski's Twitter antics between now and Vegas, I'm going to put all my hard-earned blogging money on black.

10. Bobby Labonte (20) – I know it may be a bit early, but if the Chase started now Labonte would be in the championship hunt for the first time since guys such as Johnny Benson, Kenny Wallace and Ricky Craven were in the series.

11. Carl Edwards (3) – I hear the Subway driver promised media members Subway sandwiches for the Subway Fresh Fit 500; too bad the Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki Sandwiches never made it to the track. Disclaimer: This ranking brought to you by Subway, eat fresh.

12. Jimmie Johnson (18) – You know it's not a good race when the fastest car can't even make a decent pass.

13. Jeff Gordon (17) – Four-time champion world problems: Running top 10 - "This car is junk."

14. Joey Logano (19) – May be about time to add some jam to Mr. Sliced Bread after two back-to-back top 10s.

15. Tony Stewart (8) – Tony did his best Marcos Ambrose impression, only he did it with more than 50 laps to go and was forced to ride around in 22nd.

16. Jeff Burton (6) – No better way to ruin a strong start to the season than by something out of your control, engines and UNC basketball .

17. Dave Blaney (13) – For the record, Dave Blaney has not joined Twitter, so any attempts to follow him will be futile. Unless you do it in real life, then you're just a creeper.

18. Juan Pablo Montoya (NR) – Track workers everywhere let out a huge sigh of relief when the #42 car finished the race without incident.

19. Regan Smith (NR) – Smith had the shortest drive to the track but one of the longest back to his hauler after a top-15 run was ruined by fuel mileage.

20. Paul Menard (11) – The official Paul Menard wrecks caused tally sits at: 1

DNF: Kasey Kahne – Sounds like someone is a little to antsy about getting to drive such good equipment. So much so, he turned right way before we ever got to Sonoma.

Rating the Subway Fresh Fit 500: 2 Stars **

After the craziness of a wild Speedweeks that saw nearly everything imaginable, the Sprint Cup Series brought a toned down version of NASCAR racing this week in the desert. The second race of the season gets a 2 Star Rating.

This race had moments of tight racing, especially after restarts, but for the most part the field quickly got strung out and nobody could make up much ground.

We saw similar racing in the November race at Phoenix International Raceway, but that also included a great championship battle between Tony Stewart and Carl Edwards, who both finished in the top three in that race.

This time around Denny Hamlin, Kyle Busch, Jimmie Johnson and Kevin Harvick took turns dominating the race. Harvick raced hard to take away the lead from Busch midway through the race, but otherwise the driver out front couldn’t be touched.

The new surface and configuration at Phoenix make for some interesting moves down the backstretch, but there is also room for improvement in the quality of the racing. The groove is still too narrow early in the race, but hopefully that improves as the track ages.

Drivers were able to make moves on the high side late in the race. Johnson and Brad Keselowski had a great battle for the fourth position during the final run. Plus, Harvick had something for Hamlin coming to the white flag, but he ran out of gas before he could try to make a move for the win.

As for Hamlin, this win solidifies a great start to the season with new crew chief Darian Grubb. Hamlin didn’t have the best car throughout the weekend or early in the race, but the team adjusted on the car throughout the race and gave Hamlin the car he needed to run for the win at the end of the race.

This could be the start of something pretty great for the #11 team. This is a team that just 15 months ago led Johnson heading into the final race of 2010 at Homestead. Hamlin had issues early that race and never could find his stride in 2011 with Mike Ford on top of the pit box.

Ford was a good crew chief, but Hamlin needed a change and Grubb might be the perfect fit for Hamlin and the #11 team.

With an early win, Hamlin should regain some confidence that he will have a quality ride most every week and can go back to challenging for the championship rather than just a spot in the Chase. Hamlin likely won’t need a wild card to get in the 2012 Chase.

Now the series heads to the always important first mile-and-a-half racetrack of the season at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Daytona and Phoenix are both tracks where the quality of the car is not nearly as important as it is at a track such as Las Vegas.

Las Vegas is where we’ll start to find out which teams have the best equipment. Also, teams that do well at Las Vegas often do well for the majority of the season. Although Carl Edwards didn’t win another race after he visited Victory Lane at Las Vegas, he did make quite a run at the championship.

So, welcome to the real beginning of the season. All of the excitement and extra festivities from Daytona and the celebrations for Daytona 500 champion Matt Kenseth are over. Now it’s time to dig in and build a solid foundation for the rest of the season.

MMCC Power Rankings: Week 1

Well wasn't that an interesting race. Some people were worried it would be delayed before it ever started. Well it got delayed all right, but not by what everyone expected it to be.

FOX could have done a much better job this week. Way too many commercials during race-time, especially considering they went side-by-side during track repair. With as many cameras that are at a NASCAR race every week, it's also a shame no-one caught Juan Pablo Montoya's accident at a decent angle.

1. Matt Kenseth (Last Week 2) – Kenseth was in the top 5 for the final 62 laps of the race, including first for the final 35.

2. Greg Biffle (6) – Good Guy Greg: Has a shot to win the Daytona 500, makes sure teammate does instead.

3. Carl Edwards (3) – Edward's is a sponsor's dream. Red Flag: Order from Subway even though they don't deliver.

4. Denny Hamlin (9) – NASCAR must have used Denny's connections with FedEx to get that many boxes of Tide to the track so quick. Tide: The official laundry detergent of the Daytona 500.

5. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (10) – He may have been pleased with a second-place finish, but his fans sure weren't. The only way to please Junior Nation is to win, or to have a foot-race to the bathroom.

6. Jeff Burton (NR) – The best part of Jeff Burton leading the race was when Mike Joy mentioned Ward Burton. The Burton brothers are the best brother duo to drive for Catapiller ... Wait, I think they're the only brother duo to drive for CAT. Oh well.

7. Kevin Harvick (12) – The "closer" didn't do as much closing as I figured he would late in the race. I figured the three Richard Childress Racing cars would make a push to the front.

8. Tony Stewart (1) – Every Stewart-Haas Racing car spun around at least once, putting those championship winnings to good use already.

9. Mark Martin (NR) – Is Martin driving the #55 for Aaron's, or because that's his age?

10. Martin Truex Jr. (NR) – When asked what he was going to do with his extra money, Truex responded "New NAPA oil filters for the whole infield!"

11. Paul Menard (NR) – I'll start giving Menard more credit when Menard's stops sponsoring his vehicle.

12. Kyle Busch (4) – Wild Thing never got a real chance to strut his stuff, though he did stay patient and brought it home in one piece. That's more than his brother can say.

13. Dave Blaney (NR) – Who couldn't help but root for the track to be unfixable if only to give Mr. World of Outlaws a win in his 398th try? Welp, maybe start #432 will be the charm.

14.Clint Bowyer (NR) – Was anybody else as annoyed as I was by the shear number of commercials Clint Bowyer was in during the 500?

15. Brad Keselowski (13) – "I followed Brad Keselowski on Twitter before it was cool," said hipster NASCAR fans everywhere.

16. Kasey Kahne (5) – The highest ranking of the remaining Hendrick Motorsports drivers. Why? Because he finished the most laps.

17. Jeff Gordon (8) – One of the strongest cars all day, just a victim of a bad break.

18. Jimmie Johnson (7) – On the plus side, Jimmie got to watch the final laps of the Daytona 500 from the comfort of his own home.

19. Joey Logano (NR) – Finished where he ran for most of the day, at the tail end of the top 10. He will need a few more runs like that to keep the firing rumors on hold for a while.

20. Bobby Labonte (NR) – You know you're not in too bad of company when you are ahead of guys like Tony Stewart, Kyle Busch, Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon in the standings.

DNF: Juan Pablo Montoya – Considering JPM had wrecked just about every other driver in NASCAR, he wanted to make sure he was "perfect." He put a whole new meaning to the phrase "setting the track on fire."

Ironically, knee surgery should make Kasey Kahne a favorite to win Daytona

Kasey Kahne was set to have one of the best years of his career in 2012 as he moved to Hendrick Motorsports to drive the #5 car, but then he underwent outpatient knee surgery last week to repair a torn meniscus.

Now he is almost certain to have the best season ever. He will probably contend for the championship and his odds of winning the Daytona 500 dramatically improved.

Most people might consider it a problem to have knee surgery (no matter how “minor”) just one week before the season starts. But, this is NASCAR we’re talking about.

For whatever reason, NASCAR drivers tend to turn into superstars when they have injuries to their legs.

Denny Hamlin underwent surgery to repair the ACL in his left knee in March 2010. He won at Martinsville with the injury just two days before the surgery and then went on to win seven more races and nearly win the championship.

Brad Keselowski became superhuman in 2011 after he broke his ankle in a testing accident in August. He won the next week at Pocono Raceway and finished the season fifth in the points standings with three wins.

Following those examples, Kahne has to be the favorite to win Saturday’s Budweiser Shootout or the Daytona 500 on Feb. 26.

To fuel the fire even more, this isn’t the first time Kahne has had to race after a knee surgery. Kahne has had four knee surgeries in the last 15 months, including last April before the spring race at Richmond.

He finished third in that race.

Maybe a leg injury for a NASCAR driver is similar to Tommy John surgery for a baseball pitcher. When a pitcher gets his elbow fixed he usually comes back throwing harder than he did before the surgery. It looks like NASCAR drivers drive faster than before their injury.

Obviously, it is likely just coincidence that all of these drivers have great races following leg injuries, or maybe an extra bit of competitive drive comes out in a driver when he is hobbled by a medical problem.

Granted, drivers don’t run up and down a field or court all day, but navigating a race track at 180-plus mph for 500 miles is no picnic.

Combine Kahne’s knee operation with the facts that Hendrick Motorsports is the dominant team in NASCAR and has won 10 Sprint Cup Series championships, and Daytona International Speedway might as well engrave Kahne’s name in the Harley J. Earl Trophy and put it in Victory Lane.

Even if there is some crazy reason NASCAR drivers run well (pardon the pun) after leg injuries, it would be even more remarkable if Kahne won at Daytona because circumstances determine a finishing position at restrictor-plate tracks as much or more so than the quality of car.

Also, regardless of the knee situation Kahne should have a very good season. He is in the prime of his career and in the best equipment he’s ever driven.

But, if Kahne wins during Speedweeks maybe some young drivers will want to spring for a knee surgery to help them race better.

Nah, we kid because we care.

NASCAR starting grid will look much different in 2012

After a year where hardly any sponsors stepped up to fund big-time rides for new drivers, there will still be a bunch of people on new teams come Speedweeks in February at Daytona.

Sure, there may be one decent ride available at this point after Kurt Busch left the #22 Dodge vacant, but whoever fills that spot will be the seventh driver among those who finished in the top 30 in points last season to either strap into a car for a different Sprint Cup Series team in 2012 or still be without a ride for next season.

In addition to the driver changes, at least 12 crew chiefs who worked for teams that finished in the top 30 in points last year will sit atop a different pit box during the Daytona 500 than the one they sat on at the beginning of the 2011 season.

That means nearly one-third of the teams in the field for the Daytona 500 will look different than they did at that race a year ago. That is amazing considering all of the talk of there being no opportunities to move in the sport and everybody better stick at their current job because there likely won’t be another option.

Of course, many of these moves weren’t made by the choice of the driver or the crew chief. The crew chiefs for drivers such as Greg Biffle and Juan Pablo Montoya were replaced mid-season and crew chiefs for Tony Stewart and Denny Hamlin were let go from their respective teams once the season ended.

Team lineups have been relatively stable during the past several years, but 2011 will go down as the year where a bunch of crew chiefs lost their job, or at least changed teams. This sort of shuffle happens every few years, and the stability during Jimmie Johnson’s run of five championships is remarkable considering every other team lost for five years in a row.

Overall, the group of Sprint Cup Series drivers has also remained pretty stable in the last five or six years. Early in the last decade, NASCAR had a large influx of young drivers enter the sport, but once the group of drivers such as Kasey Kahne, Ryan Newman and Jamie McMurray reached the Cup level, the pipeline of young drivers quickly shut off.

Just look at the rookies of the year for the past five seasons. Montoya and Joey Logano both finished 20th in the points in their rookie seasons, but the other three have failed to crack the top 30.

This current group of drivers might not have changed much in the past several years, but this year an entire new group of crew chiefs will take their spots atop the pit box for new teams.

One might think all of the crew chief changes could shuffle the running order at many of the races next season. However, just two of those changes happened to teams that finished in the top 10 in points, and one of them just won the championship. The teams that finished outside the top 10 needed to make changes because the current setup obviously wasn’t working too well.

All of the personnel changes could make for a season similar to 2011 where multiple drivers won their first race and no team really pulled away from the pack. Or, it could make for a season where the same top 10 teams dominate as the other teams work to build their chemistry and performance on the track.

For the sake of many race fans, here’s hoping we get another season where different teams show up at the front of the field each race.

Darian Grubb exactly what Joe Gibbs Racing needed

After winning a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship and losing his job in the same week, Darian Grubb has found a new pit box for 2012.

Grubb will be the crew chief for Denny Hamlin’s #11 team after Stewart-Haas Racing released him following his championship run with Tony Stewart. Joe Gibbs Racing released Hamlin's former crew chief, Mike Ford, on Tuesday.

Grubb's presence could make a huge difference in the performance of not only the #11 team, but also the entire Joe Gibbs Racing organization.

This wasn’t a stellar season for Gibbs by any means. Sure, two of his three cars made the Chase, but neither Hamlin nor Kyle Busch ever posed much of a threat to the final championship contenders.

Joe Gibbs Racing is one of the big-time organizations. There are haves and have-nots in the sport, and Gibbs is certainly one of the haves. But, this year it was on the lower end of the haves, especially after Hamlin narrowly missed winning the championship and beating Jimmie Johnson just one year ago.

Many people in the sport had high expectations coming into the season for Hamlin, as well as the #18 and #20 Gibbs cars driven by Busch and Joey Logano, respectively.

Hamlin was supposed to strongly contend for the title this season after finishing second and having eight wins in 2010.

This was supposed to be the year of the new Kyle Busch, and this was supposed to be the year Logano became a star in the Cup series and contend for a Chase spot after he posted five top-10s in the final six races to close out 2010.

Instead, Hamlin finished ninth in the points standings with only one win. Busch finished 12th, or last in the Chase, and got himself in enough trouble for NASCAR to park him for the Chase race at Texas and his sponsor to pull its logos off the car for the final two weeks of the season.

Logano never even contended. He finished 24th in the points, nearly lost his job to Carl Edwards and his crew chief, Greg Zipadelli, might be looking to leave the #20 team.

So here comes Darian Grubb, the defending championship crew chief who spent several years working on the #48 team and won the 2006 Daytona 500 with Johnson while regular crew chief Chad Knaus was suspended.

Grubb won’t bring the Hendrick Motorspots books with him to Gibbs, but he will bring in some outside knowledge that is bound to help an organization that struggled with bad-handling cars and engine issues for much of the season.

While Grubb is surely relieved to have found a crew chief job with a high-caliber race team, Gibbs should be more relieved to have found a person with Grubb’s knowledge and experience to help right the ship at JGR.

One person doesn’t usually come in a change an entire organization, but Grubb could be a huge step toward getting JGR back to where it was just a year ago. His hire could also be a big help to Toyota teams, in general, and they need help.

Toyota, which fielded nine full-time cars this season, finished third in the manufacturer’s standings and had just one more win than the five victories scored by the three full-time Dodge teams.

Joe Gibbs Racing and Toyota had a lot of work to do this offseason to become competitive again on a regular basis, but signing Grubb will go a long way toward getting Toyota back to the front.

Drivers’ weigh in on new Phoenix track

The Nationwide Series had the honor Saturday of running the first race on the newly repaved and reconfigured Phoenix International Raceway. Overall, the race was not that different than previous races at the track.

Phoenix has always been a track where the bottom lane is the way to go. It generally races similar to a short track but also has a little more room for error than other flat or short tracks.

That margin for error might be a little smaller now with the new pavement, but at least the Nationwide race was pretty similar to previous Phoenix races.

What does that mean for the Sprint Cup Series race on Sunday? Probably more of the same.

Even though there were seven cautions in the Nationwide race, other races at flat tracks such as Richmond and Martinsville had a lot more wrecks than what could reasonably be expected on Sunday.

Carl Edwards said he was nervous about the condition of the track before he got in his car for practice Friday, but he found it to be more forgiving than what he had experienced during the open test session Oct. 4-5.

However, Edwards also said the new surface and configuration leaves little comparison to previous races at Phoenix.

“From the driver’s seat, it feels like a brand new racetrack,” Edwards said.



He also said the new surface will make it difficult to predict who will run well and who will run poorly.

“This is so different. The pavement drives differently, the layout is a little different, the setups are different,” Edwards said. “It’s going to be its own race and that’s why I was a little nervous to come here because you just don’t know how you’re going to stack up.”

Denny Hamlin said he thinks Sunday’s race to be better than many people feared heading into the weekend.

He said the drivers were able to extend the racing groove by about 3 feet Friday, which almost makes a groove wide enough for two cars to race side-by-side. The on-track action Saturday that includes 325 miles of racing for the Nationwide Series and K&N Pro Series West should extend the groove far enough to where it will be plenty wide for the Sprint Cup Series race, Hamlin said.

“We’re going to have a good race, better than what people are expecting,” Hamlin said.

Edwards, on the other hand, still believes it will be difficult to pass on the track, putting a larger premium on strategy and pit stops.

Edwards’ concern about passing showed up in the Nationwide race, which had just two lead changes among three drivers. Once the leader broke free ahead of the field, nobody could catch him, including first-time winner Sam Hornish Jr.



So, the quality of the Cup race is still up to speculation for another evening, and the potential for rain overnight could further complicate the situation. But, the on-track action so far this weekend has shown that at least this race won’t artificially mess with the championship picture.

For more photos from the racetrack, check out the Monday Morning Crew Chief Facebook page.

Rating the Sylvania 300: 2 Stars **

Another Chase race, and another fuel-mileage win for Tony Stewart. The first two Chase tracks might look different, but their races were nearly the same. New Hampshire draws the second consecutive 2 Star Rating to start the Chase.

Stewart and the #14 sure have the fuel-mileage game figured out right now. Both at Chicago and New Hampshire he had not only a good car, but he and his team put themselves in position to take advantage of the situation. Last week he had to hold off the field, this week he had to wait for Clint Bowyer to run out of gas to take the lead.

This race was nearly a mirror image of last week’s race at Chicago, except the sky was finally blue with hardly any clouds.

As for the action on the track, both races were extremely clean. Chicago had twice as many as New Hampshire’s three cautions, but only one actually came from a wreck. Everything else was a myriad of reasons that didn’t involve cars being damaged.

Also, nobody made a pass Sunday. We saw this in the July race at New Hampshire, as well. Once the field settled down after a restart, everybody pretty much remained in their same spot.

That’s not to say the drivers simply took it easy all day. Sure, that may be part of the problem the past two weeks, but right now the setup of the cars does not make for good racing at New Hampshire.

Even last year, the drivers beat and banged their way through the race, and that has been fairly common in the past several years. That’s not the case this year. The New Hampshire races this year weren’t far from the restrictor-plate race at the track in 2000 when Jeff Burton led the entire race.

Along with the cars not matching up with the track very well, the fact that the Chase has started also plays a part in why these races have been so tame.

It’s not that this group of drivers can’t mix it up. They could barely get through 30 laps at Richmond without taking each other out. The Chase drivers have to play it safe right now, especially with the new points system. Denny Hamlin is 66 points out, and out of the championship picture.

Jimmie Johnson finished 18th Sunday and is 29 points out of the lead in 10th. That margin, however, is not insurmountable. Johnson has climbed out of similar holes to go on and win the championship, and he isn’t a full race out of the lead yet. That’s when things start to get scary, and Hamlin is already a race and a half behind points leader Stewart.

Still, these two races cannot be used to truly measure the Chase drivers’ success and predict how the rest of the Chase will play out. Although right now it seems possible, not every race is going to come down to fuel mileage. It would be shocking if it came into play next week at Dover. It could well be the fifth race at Charlotte Motor Speedway before we start to see who is going to be a factor for the championship at Homestead.

So far this year’s Chase has only taught us one thing: Save fuel; it’s a killer to run out.

Rating the GEICO 400: 2 Stars **

Tony Stewart won his first race of the season at Chicago for the third time in his career Monday, but this time it started a possible championship run in the Chase. The first race at Chicago to start the Chase gets a 2 Star Rating.

This race was a combination of the entire season wrapped up in one race. There was another different winner, the 16th different winner of the season, it was a fuel-mileage race, it was run at least a day later than scheduled and Kevin Harvick nearly came out of nowhere for the win.

While nobody dominated the race, it still didn’t feel like a lot of drivers had a chance to win the race. Even when fuel mileage could have caused a surprise winner to roll into Victory Lane, it still felt like only a few drivers had a chance to win.

Maybe that was because nearly the entire top 10 was filled with Chase drivers for much of the race. Eight Chase drivers finished in the top 10, and that was with several drivers coasting to the finish line with empty gas tanks.

That, of course, is why those drivers and teams are in the Chase. They are the best in the sport, and they showed up ready to race at Chicago.

These teams weren’t huge factors in the races leading up to the Chase, particularly teams that had already clinched a Chase berth. But, they waited until the Chase started and put together strong, consistent races where they could challenge for the win.

Kyle Busch, Matt Kenseth, Jeff Gordon and Denny Hamlin all finished outside of the top 20, but the only team that should be really concerned after Monday’s race is the #11 team of Hamlin.

The other three drivers fell victim to fuel mileage, and while those lost points might hurt them later in the Chase, the overall performance of the #11 team was troubling.

Hamlin got into trouble early in the race with a vibration and then hit the wall late in the race to finish off his day. The #11 team simply is not competing at the same level it did not only a year ago, but for the past few years.

Hamlin has finished in the top 10 in points the past three years, and would’ve won the championship last year if he would’ve run a clean final race at Homestead.

Instead, he spun out early in that race and hasn’t recovered since. One would think this team would be capable of turning the switch once the Chase started, but this team has sputtered all season. It has a few good races but then comes back with two terrible races.

Hamlin has some major work to do if he is going to be relevant in this Chase. His chance to contend for the championship could already be over.

So, next week it’s on to New Hampshire Motor Speedway. Hopefully the weather returns to the beautiful racedays we had in the first half of the season.

With as competitive as the Chase teams were Monday in Chicago, racing luck could be what separates the field this year even before Talladega comes along to stir the pot one final time.

Rating the Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips at the Glen: You Rate the Race!!

Light rain and fog covered Watkins Glen on Monday morning, but the Sprint Cup Series cars provided the lightning and thunder in a hard-hitting race that brought yet another first–time winner.

This week Monday Morning Crew Chief lets you decide the Rating of the Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips at the Glen. Check out the Rating System page and put your rating on this one.

Marcos Ambrose deserves a huge congratulations for winning this race. He has been close in almost every road-course race since he entered the sport in 2008. He has scored a top-five finish in every road course race of his career, except 2010 at Sonoma when he infamously shut off the engine going up a hill. However, he still finished sixth that race. That is simply an incredible record he has put together.

While Ambrose broke through and finally got to Victory Lane, a good chunk of the rest of the field ended up back in the garage area with cars that were absolutely destroyed.




Those cars are more torn up than any car from the rest of the season combined, unless you include the car Brad Keselowski wrecked in a test two weeks ago at Road Atlanta, which is also a road course.

The drivers always talk about Watkins Glen being the superspeedway of road courses, and that certainly held true Monday. Ten or 15 years ago, Denny Hamlin, David Ragan and David Reutimann might have been seriously injured or worse from those hits, and it’s unbelievable they all happened in the same race.

Watkins Glen is likely going to receive plenty of criticism for not having safer walls, and the track deserves it. But, this is a problem across the sport. Pocono finally put up a fence and SAFER barriers down the Long Pond straightaway for this season, and Richmond has work to do to cover the inside wall on the backstretch where Jeff Gordon found exposed concrete in the spring race.

Why is it so tough to get these tracks to cover everything with a SAFER barrier? No matter how unlikely it looks that a car could hit a certain part of the wall, it will at some point. In Monday’s case, however, it’s easy to picture a car crashing where Ragan did.

It would be nice if tracks were actually proactive for once. Dale Earnhardt died before real safety improvements were made, Kasey Kahne nearly flipped out of Pocono before they put the fence up. Auto racing is simply too dangerous to take chances.

Finally, we can’t leave out the Boris Said-Greg Biffle scuffle after the race. A fight nearly broke out between the two, and Said certainly made his interview count afterward, calling Biffle an “unprofessional little scaredy-cat” and “a chump.”

Only Said would come up with gems like those. Just imagine Kyle Busch calling Kevin Harvick a chump.

Too bad Said won’t be around for the rest of the year, but he certainly made his final appearance.

Rating the Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips 400: 3 Stars ***

Matt Kenseth gave it everything he had in the final laps Sunday at Michigan, but he couldn’t quite catch Denny Hamlin, who finally won his first race of the season. Overall, the first race of the year at Michigan gets a 3 Star Rating.

Except for a rare spin by Jimmie Johnson early in the race, everything went as planned throughout the first half of the race. Several Roush-Fenway Racing drivers traded the lead, Robby Gordon hit the wall and the race stretched out to make for a couple of green-flag pit stops.

By the halfway point Kyle Busch appeared at the front, and as is typical on days when he has a good car, Busch jumped out to a comfortable lead. Had the race stayed green, Busch and Kenseth would have battled for the win, barring their respective fuel-mileage situations.

However, Juan Pablo Montoya’s spin on lap 158 came right at the beginning of a green-flag pit stop sequence, and Kenseth again became the big winner as he came out of the pits with the lead. Busch dropped several spots and never could make his way all the way back and finished third.

Finally, Dale Earnhardt Jr. hit the wall with eight laps to go and eliminated the fuel-mileage game because everybody hit the pits and Hamlin came out with a lead he would never relinquish, even though it got close at the end.

This race was nothing out of the ordinary for Michigan International Speedway. These races usually go one of three ways: The race comes down to fuel mileage, a late caution makes for a decent battle to the end or neither happens and the margin of victory is more than a few seconds.

Sunday had the second option, as well as the closest finish since Regan Smith edged out Carl Edwards to win the Southern 500.

Also, after four debris cautions last week at Pocono, there were no such cautions this week on a track that generally has a few. The number of debris cautions at Pocono was awful, but it looks like that may be the exception this season rather than the rule, as it has been in past seasons.

As for Hamlin, this win should quiet the critics who say his team is off its game and he barely has a chance at the Chase. The win puts Hamlin up to ninth in the points standings with 11 races left in until the Chase begins. Don’t worry, the #11 team is fine, and it will be a factor come Chase time.

On the other side of the results, several big-name drivers struggled throughout the race, including Jeff Burton, who started outside the top 30 and never could make his way to the front.

Burton currently sits 25th in the points standings and has not proved yet this season the #31 team can consistently contend in a race, much less contend for a Chase spot. Burton could make a comeback late this season like he did two years ago, but this time the Childress organization is succeeding while Burton lags behind, whereas both the #31 team and Richard Childress Racing struggled for most of the 2009 season.

So, next week the Sprint Cup Series takes a break from the ovals and heads out west to Sonoma for the first of two road-course events.

Prepare for the annual “Should NASCAR have more road-course races?” and “Should a road-course race be in the Chase?” debates in the coming week. The two issues will likely never change, but people will still talk about them each time the sport visits a road course.