Rating the 2012 Sprint Cup Series season: 2 Stars **

The 2012 Sprint Cup Series struggled to keep the momentum created by the closest championship battle in series history in 2011 when Tony Stewart beat Carl Edwards by a tiebreaker. The 2012 version was defined by lots of green-flag racing, which isn’t a bad thing, but the excitement level was noticeably down this year. The 2012 season gets a 2 Star Rating.

Brad Keselowski helped add some spark (and suds) to the finish of the season as he beat five-time champion Jimmie Johnson to win the title. However, the number of memorable races can probably be counted on one hand.

Here’s the breakdown of this year’s ratings, which includes the Budweiser Shootout and Sprint All-Star Race. It does not include the annual “You Rate the Race” event, which this season was at Kentucky Speedway.

5 Stars: 5 races

4 Stars: 10 races

3 Stars: 8 races

2 Stars: 10 races

1 Star: 4 races

This year had the most 1 Star races in the history of Monday Morning Crew Chief, and the number of 5 Star races dropped from eight to five.

Let’s revisit some of the most memorable races of the season. Click on the links to see the rating for each race mentioned.

We’ll start with Daytona Speedweeks, which included a very exciting Budweiser Shootout and bizarre Daytona 500. Kyle Busch drove through turns 3 and 4 sideways early in the shootout, sending sparks flying from his car. The damage wasn’t enough to slow him down, though, and he came back to win the race by a few feet ahead of Tony Stewart at the finish line in a race that started the season with a 5 Star Rating.

The Daytona 500 was definitely the strangest of the season, and perhaps one of the strangest in the history of the sport. Rain postponed the race until not only Monday, but Monday night in primetime. Busch sent sparks flying in the shootout, but Juan Pablo Montoya did him one better by crashing into a jet dryer under caution. The impact created an explosion and fire in Turn 3 that put the race under a red flag. Matt Kenseth ended up winning the race that got a 3 Star Rating because of the day-and-a-half rain delay.

Once the series left Daytona, the long green-flag runs set in. The racing was remarkably clean, which is good, but the drivers stayed spread out enough on tracks such as Phoenix, Fontana, Texas and even Richmond that any excitement from Speedweeks or the previous season had disappeared. Just six races following Speedweeks received a rating higher than 3 Stars until the series went back to Daytona in July for a 5 Star race.

The second half of the season started to gain momentum as drivers such as Kasey Kahne and Jeff Gordon battled back from early season troubles to make the race. Kahne grabbed a wild-card spot, and Gordon snuck by Busch by one point to claim the 10^th and final Chase spot based on points. That final regular-season race at Richmond received a 4 Star Rating, and Clint Bowyer took home the trophy.

Johnson won another Brickyard 400 this year, his fourth, but the race was less than thrilling in part because of his dominance. It received a 2 Star Rating.

However, things got interesting two weeks later at Watkins Glen as Keselowski and Marcos Ambrose slide through oil as Busch wrecked on the final lap. Keselowski and Ambrose had the best final-lap battle of the season, and Ambrose came out on top to win for the second year in a row on the road course. That final lap bumped the race to a 4 Star Rating.

The late-season fireworks first showed up at the, once again, newly reconfigured Bristol Motor Speedway during the August night race. The shaved top groove brought back the old-style beating and banging, although this time at the top of the racetrack. Stewart and Kenseth crashed while battling for the lead, and Stewart threw his helmet at Kenseth’s car, bouncing it off the hood of Kenseth’s #17. Danica Patrick also wrecked and angrily shook her finger at Regan Smith. Denny Hamlin ended up winning the 5 Star Race. He won again the next week at Atlanta and a month later at New Hampshire, but too many mechanical problems ended his championship run.

Once the Chase began, Keselowski took charge by winning at Chicago and Dover, neither of which were particularly action-packed races. They both got 2 Star Ratings.

The action-packed Chase race this season was at Phoenix. Kevin Harvick rose from the desert dust to win his first race of the season, but he was a mere footnote to the craziness of that 5 Star afternoon. Gordon and Clint Bowyer battled late in the race, and Gordon cut a tire from the battle and crashed. He then waited for Bowyer to come back around the track and intentionally wrecked him. Bowyer’s pit crew was waiting for Gordon when he drove back to the garage, and they immediately jumped him, inciting one of the largest brawls the sport had seen in years. Patrick also played a hand in this crazy race. She wrecked as the field came to the white flag, put down oil in Turn 4 coming to the finish line, and a half-dozen cars piled up as they crossed the line.

That all set the stage for the championship race at Homestead. Keselowski came into the race with a 20-point lead of Johnson and qualified third to Johnson’s 10^th. Johnson made a run to the front that night and might have won the title until a loose lug nut penalty cost him time on the track and a problem in the drivetrain sent him to the garage early, effectively handing Keselowski the championship.

This year marked the end of the Car of Tomorrow body style NASCAR introduced in 2007. A new model will be used next year. As is the case with every new model, NASCAR officials say it will race better than the previous version. That wasn’t the case the last time around, but at least the new cars look better.

Next year will also have its fair share of new drivers with new teams. Most notably, Kenseth will move to the #20 car, while Joey Logano takes over the #22 ride. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. will fill the #17 car, and Kurt Busch will continue to try and revive his career in the #78 car, formerly driven by Smith.

The 2012 season had its exciting and interesting moments. Let’s just hope there are more in 2013.

Rating the Ford EcoBoost 400: 3 Stars ***

For the first time in eight years, the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series has a first-time champion. Brad Keselowski won the championship, and Jeff Gordon won a race that had a lot of storylines, although few that made for a really exciting race. The final race of the 2012 season gets a 3 Star Rating.

Gordon won the race after Kyle Busch and Martin Truex Jr. had to pit for fuel late in the race, and he beat his nemesis from Phoenix, Clint Bowyer. My how a week changes things. Last week those two were involved in garage fights and had torn up race cars; this week they had the two top finishes.

The best racing of the day came from Busch and Truex Jr. As he did in both the truck and Nationwide races this weekend, Busch led nearly all of the first 100 laps, but then a debris caution came out and bunched up the field.

At that point, Truex Jr. challenged for the lead and the two drivers ran next to each other the remainder of the race. They traded the lead a few times, and Truex Jr. hounded Busch’s bumper for much of the night.

It’s too bad the race couldn’t have come down to a battle between those two drivers. The finish likely wouldn’t have ended as close as Friday’s truck race between Busch and Cale Gale, but it would’ve been better than Gordon beating Bowyer by more than one second.

But the championship was the focus of the day anyway. Johnson put up a good fight throughout much of the race and had a shot to win the championship after pit strategies worked in his favor with a little more than 50 laps remaining.

Then his night quickly took a turn for the worse. His pit crew missed a lugnut on the left-rear tire on lap 213 and by lap 227 he was in the pits with a blown drivetrain that would end his night and hopes of a championship.

Johnson did make the title fight dramatic for a bit, though. After Keselowski chose to stay on track under caution after Ricky Stenhouse Jr. wrecked on lap 154, Johnson took the opportunity to get tires and set up his fuel strategy for the rest of the race.

Had Johnson been able to avoid his late-race problems, he just might have squeaked out his sixth championship.

It wasn’t meant to be, however, and Keselowski is the Sprint Cup Series champion in just his third full season in the series. And what a ride he has had to the top.

Keselowski won his first race at Talladega Superspeedway in April 2009 in the famous finish that sent Carl Edwards flying into the fence. That race he drove the James Finch-owned #09 car to its first victory.

Since then he’s won eight more races, made the Chase in two of his three years with Penske Racing and now has the championship. Oh yeah, he also won the Nationwide Series championship for owner Roger Penske in 2010. Both of his championships are Penske’s first championships in each series.

That is a remarkable run of success, and he has earned it. It has been fun to watch Keselowski enter the sport and go from a part-timer looking for a full ride to a brash kid who upset veteran drivers to a champion.

Whether or not he wins more championships in the future, Keselowski's career will be a success. Congratulations to him and the entire #2 team on winning the 2012 Sprint Cup Series championship.

Unfortunately, the end of the championship race also means the end of the season and no more Sunday afternoons filled by a NASCAR race. That is always a sad time and takes somewhat of an adjustment for many fans after they’ve had the same routine for eight months.

But as always, Daytona Speedweeks will open a new season in mid-February and NASCAR life will begin anew. Hopefully the days between now and then are filled with happiness and holiday celebrations with friends and family.

Thank you for following the Monday Morning Crew Chief ratings again this season. It’s been a fun year and expect more in 2013. Also, look for the rating of the 2012 Sprint Cup Series season, which will be posted following the champion’s celebration Nov. 30 in Las Vegas.

Have a great offseason, everybody.

If NASCAR doesn’t suspend Jeff Gordon, it should have only one explanation

NASCAR officials had a difficult decision on their hands as they went to bed Sunday night following a wild race at Phoenix International Raceway.

Jeff Gordon incited a massive brawl that involved him, his #24 team and several members of Clint Bowyer’s #15 team Sunday after he intentionally turned Bowyer into the wall Sunday as the field came to the white flag.

While the fight was the most eye-catching part of the incident, the part of the situation that will likely receive the most scrutiny is Gordon’s punting of Bowyer into the wall on purpose, even though Bowyer still had a mathematical chance to win the Sprint Cup Series championship.

Bowyer had gotten underneath Gordon and made contact a few laps before the wreck that started the fight. The fender rub caused Gordon’s tire to blow and he crashed in Turn 4. The part of the wreck that should be the focus of NASCAR’s decision is what happened next.

Gordon waited for Bowyer to come back around the track and then turned him straight into the wall while also wrecking Joey Logano and Aric Almirola. He also nearly ruined another championship contender’s day because Brad Keselowski was right behind Logano when the wreck happened.

Anyway, Gordon’s actions looked a lot like what Kyle Busch did to Ron Hornaday Jr. last year at Texas Motor Speedway in a Camping World Truck Series race.

Hornaday Jr. was in championship contention heading into the race, but he and Busch traded paint early in the event. The caution came out shortly thereafter, and Busch drove Hornaday Jr. up into the Turn 2 wall, effectively ending Hornaday Jr.’s shot at winning the title.

The only difference between Busch’s actions and Gordon’s actions was the presence of the yellow flag. Busch wrecked Hornaday Jr. under caution while Gordon wrecked Bowyer under green-flag conditions.

That should also be the only reason NASCAR doesn’t suspend Gordon for next week’s season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Everything else about the wrecks is essentially the same.

If NASCAR doesn’t suspend Gordon and says they made the decision based on something other than whether the wreck happened under caution, the sport will be thrown into a mess that would once again tarnish the integrity of the sport.

NASCAR dropped a major punishment on Busch last year by parking him for both the Nationwide and Cup races at Texas following his intentional wreck. Sure, Busch is considered a brash, pain-in-the-butt by many in the sport and Gordon has the reputation of a four-time champion that time has helped mold. But none of that should factor into whether NASCAR allows Gordon to race next Sunday.

Some people might say a punishment by NASCAR would prevent rough racing in the future and continue to make a sport that has dwindling excitement even more mellow. I doubt it. NASCAR has delivered punishments for all kinds of actions on the track and in the garage area through the years, and we still end up with arguments and even fights from time to time.

It would be better for the integrity of the sport to suspend Gordon, if for nothing else than to establish a little bit of consistency in the sport’s rulings.

Others might say the Busch incident was different because he wasn't a full-time competitor in the truck series, but that shouldn't make a difference. He was on the track that night trying to win the race just as much as the other 35 drivers in that truck race, just as Gordon did Sunday against a full Cup series field.

Whether Gordon’s actions Sunday deserve a suspension will be debated for a long time, but NASCAR set a precedent last year by suspending Busch for his wreck at Texas.

That is, unless officials say they won’t suspend Gordon because he intentionally wrecked a championship contender under green-flag conditions.

Anything else would further diminish the integrity of a sport that already has enough of those problems.

Rating the AdvoCare 500: 5 Stars *****

The Sprint Cup Series’ final trip out West turned into an old-fashioned bar fight, a down-and-out team won for the first time in more than a year situation the championship situation changed dramatically amid all the noise. The wild day at Phoenix International Raceway gets a 5 Star Rating.

Like it or not, Sunday’s race had everything, and all of it was unexpected.

First, five-time champion Jimmie Johnson hit the wall coming out of Turn 4 on lap 235 after his right-front tire went flat. That incident relegated him to a 32-place finish and put him 20 points behind Brad Keselowski, who finished sixth.

But that was only the beginning of the mayhem that took place Sunday in the desert.

Danica Patrick and Sam Hornish Jr. had their weekly spat as Hornish Jr. tapped the side of Danica’s car on lap 299 coming out of Turn 4. The contact cut down Hornish Jr.’s left-front tire and eventually sent him into the wall.

Then the big one happened. Clint Bowyer and Jeff Gordon made contact in turns 3 and 4 on the restart, and Gordon ended up slapping the wall. He then waited for Bowyer to come back around the track and turned him sideways, wrecking Bowyer, Joey Logano and Aric Almirola in the process.

Once Gordon got to the garage area, Bowyer’s team was waiting and ready to pounce. They did, and a huge brawl broke out behind the #24 team’s hauler as members of both teams started throwing punches. Bowyer sprinted to the garage area to get in on the action, but he and Gordon never met until after the race inside the NASCAR hauler with officials.

After that excitement settles down, NASCAR restarts the race with a green-white-checkered finish. Patrick wrecks in Turn 4 as the field comes to the white flag, but NASCAR doesn’t throw a caution. The entire field then slides through the oil from Patrick’s car as they come to the finish line and a major wreck ensues.

Ryan Newman, Mark Martin, Kurt Busch and Paul Menard all sustain major hits as they plowed through the oil and into Patrick’s car. Keselowski got hit coming to the line, but he didn’t get turned.

To put the finishing touches on a crazy day, Kevin Harvick won the race. It was the first time he and the #29 team had gone to Victory Lane since September of last year at Richmond.

The win was surprising because Harvick and the entire Richard Childress Racing organization had shown no signs of contending for a win for nearly the entire season. Harvick finished second at Phoenix in the spring race, but he hadn’t even had a top-10 finish in the Chase up until Sunday.

Maybe the win will boost the Childress teams, but they still have a lot of work to do to be competitive on a weekly basis, especially at larger tracks.

People will likely debate for days about what NASCAR should do about the Gordon-Bowyer incident and what penalties it should or should not hand out. The one issue from Sunday’s race that shouldn’t be disputed is NASCAR’s incorrect call to throw the caution flag for Patrick’s wreck.

Week after week NASCAR officials call for a caution flag for water bottles and sandwiches or whatever incidental piece of debris is on the race track, yet they didn’t call a caution when Patrick’s #10 car slid sideways through Turn 4 after hitting the wall.

That’s what caused the big wreck on the final lap. Officials always talk about the importance of safety in the sport, but they put drivers in harm’s way on the final lap when they allowed the race to finish under green.

Robin Pemberton’s excuse that officials couldn’t see fluid on the track shouldn’t justify NASCAR’s actions, or lack of action. The caution comes out for small incidents all the time when the leader has put together a big enough lead to keep the race from being exciting.

NASCAR should’ve thrown the caution flag for Patrick’s wreck. Period.

Anyway, Johnson will take a 20-point lead into Homestead to try to win … Wait, not Johnson. Keselowski will take that lead to Homestead to try to win his first championship. He needs to finish 15^th or better to win the trophy. If he does, he will become the first driver to go head-to-head with Johnson in the Chase and beat him since Tony Stewart did it in 2005. That’s a pretty impressive feat, and Keselowski and the #2 team have had a very impressive season.

Have a great final week of the 2012 season, everybody.

Rating the GEICO 400: 2 Stars **

Brad Keselowski stole the Jimmie Johnson show Sunday at Chicagoland Speedway to win the first race in the 2012 Chase and take the lead in the points standings. Keselowski and Johnson both had impressive performances, but the race still gets a 2 Star Rating.

Johnson made Chicagoland Speedway his playground for the first half of the race and left the entire rest of the field in his dust. If races didn’t have cautions or pit stops, Johnson would’ve lapped the field. Unfortunately for him, races do require pits stops, and that’s when Keselowski and the #2 team pounced.

Johnson made his final pit stop on lap 229, and Keselowski, who was more than one second behind, followed a lap later. Incredibly, the #2 team pulled off a feat similar to the June race at Michigan and Keselowski passed Johnson for the lead after the round of stops.

Johnson could never catch Keselowski, and the Blue Deuce sailed to victory in the Windy City.

This win will instantly make people talk about him being a favorite to win the championship even though he was considered a darkhorse pick at best up until Sunday afternoon.

Either way, it’s too early to know with any certainty what’s going to happen in the next nine races. Clint Bowyer has performed well at the beginning of the Chase in past years but never made it to Homestead with a real chance at the trophy, and Johnson has finished as bad as 39^th in the first race and still come back to win.

That’s the route Jeff Gordon will have to take to win this year’s championship. Just a week after he shockingly snuck his way into the Chase through the second wild-card spot, his throttle stuck going into Turn 1 on lap 188 and destroyed his car. He got back out to make laps but finished 35^th and is already 47 points, basically a full race, out of the lead.

The non-Johnson favorite heading into Sunday was Denny Hamlin. He was running inside the top 10 but ran out of fuel on the final lap and finished 16^th. That drops him to fourth in the points standings, but he is only 15 points out of the lead. He just can’t have another similar mistake. Chicago turned into his mulligan race.

Other than Chase implications, Sunday’s race didn’t offer much. We had a couple of always-dramatic debris cautions and Casey Mears blew a tire. Otherwise, Keselowski and Johnson dominated the day, combining to lead 248 of the 267 laps.

So, next week the Sprint Cup Series takes the Chase to New Hampshire Motor Speedway for 300 miles of “rolling the center.” This race, and Dover and Talladega to follow, will be a chance for the drivers who don’t dominate on 1.5-mile tracks to try and stash enough points to remain in the hunt down the stretch.

Tony Stewart ran well at Chicago, and he has been really good of late at New Hampshire, with three top-fives in his last five races at the track.

New Hampshire is also provides a chance for closer racing than we saw at Chicago. It is incredibly difficult to pass, which opens the opportunity for good battles for position.

In any case, have a great week, everybody.

Rating the Federated Auto Parts 400: 4 Stars ****

The Sprint Cup Series regular season came to a close in dramatic fashion Saturday night and early Sunday morning at Richmond International Raceway. Jeff Gordon snuck through the raindrops to grab the final spot in the Chase in a race that constantly changed complexion. Overall, this race gets a 4 Star Rating.

To accentuate the changing nature of the race, Clint Bowyer won his second race of the season even though he spun down the frontstretch in the second half of the event. He and Juan Pablo Montoya made contact on lap 235. That cut down Bowyer’s left-rear tire and caused his spin.

But that turned out to be a big-time blessing in disguise. The resulting pit stop strategies put Bowyer back near the front of the field for the final 117 laps and he passed Ryan Newman for the lead with 88 laps to go. He didn’t look back, although he did have to manage his fuel mileage to reach the finish line.

While Bowyer led the final run, Gordon made a comeback that deserved to be rewarded with a Chase spot. Gordon’s #24 car was junk in the first half of the race even though he started in second. By the time the red flag came out for rain on lap 152, Gordon was a lap down to then-leader Denny Hamlin and looked to be out of contention for anything. It turns out he was in contention for both a Chase spot and the race win.

Gordon charged through the field in the second half of the race and reached second when the checkered flag flew. Kyle Busch faded to 16^th, which meant Gordon had snagged the second wild-card spot by a mere three points.

No matter what type of points system NASCAR uses, the fall race at Richmond almost always produces a wild night of racing both on the track and in the points standings. Those type of races don’t come around very often, but they are sure fun when they do.

Also, pretty much any important race in the last year has had to deal with rain delays. Both Homestead last year and this season’s Daytona 500 were affected by rain, but the racing was great when the weather let them get out on the track. Hopefully that’s just a coincidence and this year’s Homestead race will be fun but without rain.

But before the series gets to Homestead, the 12 Chase drivers will start their battle next week at Chicagoland Speedway. Expectations for a fun and exciting Chase are always extremely high the week leading up to the first race, but this year there are a myriad of contenders.

All of the top drivers have won multiple races. Jimmie Johnson, Denny Hamlin, Brad Keselowski and Tony Stewart are going to be primed for a good next 10 races. Even drivers such as Martin Truex Jr. and Kevin Harvick, who are winless this season, are running well right now and it wouldn’t be shocking to see them bust through with victories in the Chase.

In any case, this should be the best part of what has been a mediocre season in terms of action. There won’t be time for Chase drivers to ride around because they could quickly lose touch with the leaders in the points standings. Hopefully, this is the beginning of the memorable part of the 2012 season.

Have a great week, everybody.

Rating the Pure Michigan 400: 4 Stars ****

For the second week in a row, the dominant Sprint Cup Series car at the end of the race had a problem that prevented it from driving into Victory Lane. But bad luck for one driver usually means a more exciting finish. The final race of the season at Michigan International Speedway gets a 4 Star Rating.

This week Kyle Busch gave Jimmie Johnson his bad luck as Johnson's engine blew up while leading with only five laps from the checkered flag. That left Greg Biffle and Brad Keselowski to battle for the win. Keselowski made the final couple of laps interesting, but he couldn’t catch Biffle, who got his second win of the season.

That finish comes after Keselowski spun Busch on the final lap last week at Watkins Glen.

Biffle is now back on top of the points standings and could be much more of a factor in the Chase than many people think. Unfortunately for him, Roush-Fenway Racing cars still haven’t shown enough consistency to challenge for a title.

Regardless, Biffle threw down a challenge in his Victory Lane interview.

“We’re going to make a run at the title,” he said. “I know they don’t talk about us a lot, but they will when we get to (Las) Vegas.”

Of course, the championship celebration is held in Las Vegas at the end of the season.

Along from Johnson’s problem, Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon also had engine problems. All three of those teams run Hendrick Motorsports engines.  

But besides those issues and Biffle’s win, the race had a lot of action on the track compared to a lot of Michigan races and a lot of races in 2012.

Mark Martin, Kurt Busch, Regan Smith and Joey Logano all spent time up against the wall. The pit road wall speared Martin’s car as he slid down pit road following a spin caused by Bobby Labonte and Juan Pablo Montoya in Turn 4. It was an ugly looking wreck, but Martin and everyone on pit road was OK.

Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon also had engine problems that ended their day early.

Sunday’s race also had a lot of good racing that didn’t involve wrecks or mechanical problems. The cars can’t yet go four- and five-wide throughout the race the way they did before the track was repaved for this season, but the tighter groove made for tighter racing.

The middle of the field went three-wide on almost every single restart and barely made it through turns 1 and 2.

The cars looked like they were almost on railroad tracks during the first race in June at Michigan, but that was much less of the case this time around. The cars were more unstable and drivers could race much closer to each other than in June.

Hopefully that continues in future years and Michigan could crank out more entertaining races than boring races. At this point it has potential, and that’s more than could be said for several big, wide tracks with relatively new pavement.

Next week the Sprint Cup Series visits the revamped Bristol Motor Speedway for what could be a return of the bullring that made the track so popular in the 1980s and 1990s. Track owner Bruton Smith ordered the top groove of the track to be shaved down after the spring race to create a tighter racing groove. Either way, it is going to be an intriguing weekend.

The potential for explosive tempers at short tracks usually receives a lot of hype that rarely plays out, but this could be a weekend where the postrace show is nearly as interesting as the race.

We’ll see. Have a great week, everybody.

Rating the Pennsylvania 400: 1 Stars *

A Sunday afternoon destined to be cut short by rain ended in tragedy with a big thunderstorm at Pocono Raceway. Jeff Gordon happened to sit in first place as the rains came, but the final race of the year at Pocono gets a 1 Star Rating.

The race really doesn’t matter following the death of a fan and injuries to nine others who were struck by lightning at the racetrack after officials ended the race on lap 98, and there is no way it could get a higher rating amid such a devastating event.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at what happened before the storm Sunday at Pocono.

After a season filled with about every different type of disappointment imaginable, Gordon made a withdrawal from the luck bank when Jimmie Johnson, Matt Kenseth and the rest of the frontrunners tried to make it through Turn 1 sideways on the final restart.

Sure, Gordon and his team worked hard to get him in position to sneak through for a win, but he still caught one heck of a lucky break.

The same thing happened for Ryan Newman at Martinsville when Clint Bowyer took out Johnson and Gordon in Turn 1 on the final restart. Now Newman and Gordon are tied for the final wild-card spot, with Gordon winning the tiebreaker because he has more top-five finishes.

Maybe the final wild-card spot should be renamed the lucky card if one of those two drivers makes the Chase based on their lone win.

Sunday’s race actually had a fair amount of action for a rain-shortened event at Pocono. Yes, Johnson jumped out and paced the field by four seconds or so for a while, but the leaders stayed close during several runs, especially compared to most races at Pocono or most of the races this season.

Perhaps it’s fitting a Hendrick Motorsports car won the race because that organization again dominated the day. Dale Earnhardt Jr. charged to the front early in the race and would’ve been in strong contention for the win if his transmission hadn’t broke. Kasey Kahne had the second-best car at the start of the race and then Johnson made his usual run to the front.

Hendrick Motorsports could have placed four cars in the top five if not for bad Johnson and Earnhardt Jr.’s problems.

With all of the crazy issues throughout the day, Kyle Busch came out as the biggest loser. A problem with the back of his car sent him into the Turn 1 wall on lap 19 and he finished 33^rd. More importantly, he scored just 11 points and now sits 15^th in the points standings with one win. He came into the race 11^th in the points and in position for the second wild card. He is now 12 points behind Gordan and Newman for that spot.

Either way, a big-name driver is going to miss the Chase this year.

Next up for the Sprint Cup Series is the road course of Watkins Glen. Marcos Ambrose and Juan Pablo Montoya will likely receive all sorts of attention and people will say they have a chance to make the Chase if they can win that race.

Well, technically they would have a chance, but neither car is running well enough these days to pose a real threat to the drivers currently in the wild-card positions. It would be great for Ambrose or Montoya to get a win, but let’s not push the issue too far.

Kahne, Gordon, Newman or Busch will be the wild-card drivers this year. Even Carl Edwards would have to mount a charge in an incredibly short amount of time to make the Chase.

He likely won’t win next week at Watkins Glen, so that means he has just Bristol, Atlanta and Richmond to make the Chase. He could catch fire and win two of those three races, but there is little reason to think that will happen based on his performance so far this season.

Anyway, have a great week and pray for those who were affected by the lightning strike at Pocono.

Rating the Brickyard 400: 2 Stars **

The Jimmie Johnson domination tour stopped in one of his favorite field-stomping grounds Sunday as he drove away from everybody to win his fourth Brickyard 400. Unfortunately, dominating performances rarely make for an exciting race, and that was the case again this week. This year’s Brickyard 400 gets a 2 Star Rating.

Look out, folks. Johnson and the #48 team are back on top of the NASCAR world. The numbers about Brickyard winners becoming Sprint Cup Series champions have been well-documented. The Brickyard winner has gone on to win the championship eight times in the first 18 years of the race. Johnson went on to win the championship each of his previous three victories at Indy.

Johnson will surely face strong competition from a number of drivers, but all of the signs are there for the #48 team to make another successful championship run this year.

Aside from marveling at Johnson’s greatness, there wasn’t a whole heck of a lot to get excited about Sunday afternoon. The only stretch of the race that had tense racing quickly ended once Joey Logano spun out and hit Matt Kenseth, causing the #17 car to burst into flames.

More than anything, the race at Indy looked like an extended, faster version of the race at New Hampshire. If there wasn’t any interesting strategy developing in the pits, there just wasn’t much to talk about.

This shouldn’t be surprising, however. The Brickyard is typically a race of prestige more than a race of excitement. That’s what makes Daytona so great. It hosts the most important race of the year and often the most exciting.

In any case, big congratulations are in order for Johnson. He is reaching the point in his career where he is approaching, or in this case reaching important milestones.

His four Brickyard wins tie him with Jeff Gordon for the most by a NASCAR driver at that track. This was also win #58 of his career, his third of the season and he is charging toward his sixth Cup championship.

It stinks for many fans of other drivers to see Johnson win seemingly every week and win the championship every season, but trust me, what Johnson is doing is special. Today’s fans will tell their children about Johnson’s accomplishments, even if it’s by saying, “I hated his guts because he won every week for almost an entire decade.”

The one other note that we can’t forget is that Dale Earnhardt Jr. took over the lead in the points standings. Kenseth finished 35^th after his wreck, and Earnhardt Jr. finished fourth to take a 14-point lead over Kenseth.

While it’s nice for Junior Nation to see their driver on top of the standings, the Chase has made this point somewhat meaningless. When Kenseth was told he lost the points lead, he just shrugged because he knows the Chase is the only time it matters where a driver sits in the standings. As long as a driver is currently in the top 10 in points, he doesn’t have to worry about whether he is first or 10^th because they get reshuffled for the Chase anyway.

Just imagine what today would’ve been like if the Chase didn’t exist. People would be falling over themselves with excitement that Earnhardt Jr. leads the points. At this time in the season, Earnhardt Jr. would be considered the championship favorite under the old format. Now he is still considered a darkhorse because he has just one win while Johnson, Tony Stewart and Brad Keselowski each have three wins.

Oh well. The Chase has its good points and bad points, and both have been discussed more than enough in the last seven years. But wait and listen to the reaction if it turns out Earnhardt Jr. would’ve won the championship under the old points system this year but loses the Chase.

Next up is Pocono Raceway, another 2.5-mile track that generally lacks exciting racing. Maybe we’ll be surprised and something interesting happens, but we probably shouldn’t cross our fingers.

Have a great week, everybody.

Rating the Quaker State 400: You Rate the Race!!

Brad Keselowski picked up his third win of the season as the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series heads for the traditional midseason spectacular at Daytona International Speedway. But, before we head to Florida, let’s hear what you thought of the Quaker State 400. This week it's your turn to Rate the Race.

Keselowksi has been steadily charging his way to the top of the sport for some time now, and Saturday night’s win confirmed that he is a strong contender for the championship. He now has the most wins of anyone in the sport and can get up on the wheel as much as any of the other Chase contenders.

As for the rest of the race, there was about as much action as we’ve seen on all of the intermediate tracks this season. The restarts produced close racing for a few laps and then everyone settled down. Ryan Newman’s engine blew up late in the race and sent him into the wall, but otherwise fuel mileage discussion dominated most of the night.

This was also a race that really favored the big teams. Each of the top 12 finishers drives for the six biggest teams in the sport. And even though a Hendrick Motorsports car didn’t win the race, that organization still had quite a night as all four of its teams finished in the top six in the points.

Although many of the races this season have lacked much excitement, business should pick up in the second half of the season. The good teams are really good and could put together quite a battle for the championship. Keselowski will be in the mix to represent Penske Racing, and both Roush-Fenway Racing and Hendrick Motorsports should have multiple cars with a shot at the title. That’s not to mention Joe Gibbs Racing, which could have any of its drivers catch fire for several races late in the season.

We are also at a point in the season where we will likely see more and more repeat winners. The season has had 12 different winners to this point, but those 12 represent 12 of the 15 best drivers in the sport. Jeff Gordon, Carl Edwards and Kevin Harvick might win a race sometime soon, but it would be a surprise if somebody outside of that 15-driver group won a race this season.

So, the statement that there are 25 to 30 different drivers who could win a race on any given weekend might not be so true. Anybody truly could win next week at Daytona, but beyond that there really are just about 15 drivers who have a legitimate shot at the win.

Anyway, let Monday Morning Crew Chief know what you thought of the Kentucky race on a one- through five-star scale. Treat it as a restaurant or hotel review. Would you recommend this race to somebody else?

Regardless of how terrific or horrible the race at Kentucky went, NASCAR returns to the greatest speedway in the world next week to celebrate one of America’s best holidays: the 4^th of July.

Have a great week and enjoy the holiday, everybody.

Rating the FedEx 400: 2 Stars **

The Dominator dominated Dover on Sunday to simply reinforce the fact that Jimmie Johnson and the #48 team are hands down the best there is in this era of NASCAR racing. However, dominating performances rarely make for exciting races, and Sunday was no different. The first Dover race of the season gets a 2 Star Rating.

Johnson did have one challenger at Dover: his teammate in the #24 car. Jeff Gordon led 60 laps throughout the first half of the race, but then his team remembered this is 2012 and didn’t get all of the lugnuts tight on the left rear tire during a pit stop on lap 251.

That forced Gordon to try and play a different strategy to recover and still challenge for the win, but he was only able to get back to 13^th by the time the checkered flag flew.

Gordon did move up one spot to 21^st in the points standings and is one point behind Juan Pablo Montoya for a spot in the top 20. But, that is certainly not where the driver with the most laps led should be in the points standings after 13 races.

This could have been a race that jumpstarted Gordon’s climb back into Chase contention, but now the pressure to be perfect the rest of the regular season continues to mount. It’s going to take quite an effort from Gordon and the #24 team to make the Chase this year.

As for Johnson, Sunday’s win added another stat to prove he is one of the all-time great NASCAR drivers. He has now won at Dover, which many drivers consider one of the toughest on the schedule, seven times. That ties him with Richard Petty and Bobby Allison for the most wins at the Monster Mile.

This was Johnson’s 57^th career win and his second of the season (third if you include the All-Star Race). Maybe it’s coincidence, but ever since Johnson won the Southern 500 at Darlington to get the 200^th victory for Hendrick Motorsports, the entire organization has taken its performance to another level.

Perhaps there was pressure to win #200. That type of pressure obviously affects athletes in other sports when they approach a major milestone, but it is a little more surprising for it to affect an entire racing organization.

Either way, Hendrick Motorsports is once again on quite a roll. That could make for a long summer for the rest of the garage. Right now Roush-Fenway Racing has the top two spots in the points standings and is most likely the biggest threat to stop another Hendrick championship this season, but they have a lot of work ahead of them.

Oh, by the way, there was a wreck in Sunday’s race and it still didn’t get more than a 2 Star Rating. Sure, it was the biggest wreck of the season, but most of the cars involved were start-and-parkers. The wreck just parked them all at the same time.

Besides that wreck on lap 9, the remainder of the race was as clean as the rest of the season. The racing will get better at some point, but it is unlikely to get significantly better anytime soon. The upcoming tracks don’t usually produce thrilling racing, and there is little reason to think it will be any different this summer.

That said, these races are still a vital part of the schedule. June has always been a crucial month in the NASCAR season. The tracks, including Dover, challenge equipment more than most, and it is a time for teams to sharpen their setups as the Race to the Chase approaches.

Now it’s on to the first 400-mile race in the history of Pocono Raceway. I don’t see how shortening this race by 100 miles will make it any more exciting, but we’ll see. The only difference might be that fewer cars drop out because of mechanical issues.

Have a great week, everybody, and brace yourselves for what might be another summer dominated by Hendrick Motorsports. It sure is shaping up that way.

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.

NASCAR, Talladega skirt major disaster with Eric McClure wreck

NASCAR Nationwide Series driver Eric McClure pounded an inside wall equipped with a SAFER barrier on the backstretch of Talladega Superspeedway on Saturday in a vicious crash. Although the crash sent him to the hospital, he was only a few hundred feet away from crashing into a wall that could've done much more serious damage.

The SAFER barrier is a combination of steel and foam that absorbs energy during a hard crash. However, Talladega does not have SAFER barriers on all of its walls. In fact, an exposed concrete wall sits along the backstretch towards Turn 3 not far from where McClure hit.

McClure had to be airlifted out of the track and taken to the hospital for further evaluation after his #14 car collided with the SAFER barrier. Had he hit the nearby concrete wall, well, Talladega Superspeedway might have had a much worse situation on its hands.

That is why it is mind-boggling that race tracks still don’t cover every wall with a SAFER barrier. One of the common phrases about wrecks in auto racing is that if there is an unsafe spot at a race track, a car is sure to eventually find it.

Jeff Gordon found exposed concrete walls at both Las Vegas and Richmond in recent years, Elliott Sadler found an unsafe wall at Pocono two years ago, and several drivers found the walls surrounding the final turn at Watkins Glen to be very dangerous in the past few years.

Each of those tracks have since fixed its problems and retroactively installed SAFER barriers to cover the previously exposed walls, but why does it take a hard wreck to identify problem spots at a track?

Sure, SAFER barriers are expensive to install, but if tracks are going to fork out the money to install the barriers on some parts of their walls, why not cover every wall? Driver safety has to be a higher priority than money.

It is extremely unfortunate, and considering the technology NASCAR and its tracks have in 2012, slightly barbaric to not have SAFER barriers on any wall both on the outside and inside parts of the track, excluding pit wall because that would be a safety hazard for crew members going over the wall on a pit stop.

Most tracks, including Talladega, still don’t have SAFER barriers on their straightaways. Yes, a crash is more likely to occur in a corner, but a car running 200 mph on the bottom lane is going to hit the outside wall with quite an impact if it gets turned sideways.

McClure’s wreck showed that drivers can still be injured even with a SAFER barrier, but the severity of his injuries might have been much worse had he hit an unprotected wall.

Somebody is going to take a hard lick in Sunday’s race, but hopefully nobody finds a wall that doesn’t have a SAFER barrier.

Sadly, NASCAR officials, drivers, teams and fans still have to hold their breath and hope that doesn’t happen because hitting an unprotected wall is still a possibility.

Don't blame David Reutimann or Danica Patrick, blame the system

David Reutimann single-handedly changed the finish of the Sprint Cup Series race Sunday at Martinsville Speedway, albeit accidently.

Reutimann caught some serious heat from fans and people in the sport after stopping on the frontstretch with four laps to go. His car was obviously down on power several laps beforehand, but Reutimann and his team decided to stick it out and hope they could limp to the finish.

Unfortunately, the car didn’t make it and NASCAR officials had to throw a caution. That caution set up a green-white-checkered restart that ended up with the top three drivers all day, Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson and Clint Bowyer, wrecked in Turn 1 while Ryan Newman went on to win the race on the following restart.

Obviously, everybody was upset that Reutimann’s caution caused a mess that ruined the days for the top three cars and gave the win to what was a 10th to 15th-place car that day.

However, Reutimann was a man caught between a rock and a hard place. NASCAR only guarantees starting positions for the cars in the top 35 of the owner points standings. Reutimann’s #10 car was right on the edge and would’ve made the top 35 had he completed one more lap. Instead, he sits one point out in 36th and will have to qualify in on time in two weeks at Texas Motor Speedway.

Many people looked at the #10 car as the car Danica Patrick will race in five weeks in the Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway. That’s true, and her big-money sponsor Go Daddy certainly doesn’t want to risk her missing the race because she didn’t qualify fast enough.

But, five weeks is a long time to make up one point.

Make no mistake, that #10 team wanted to be in the top 35 in points heading to Texas for their own sake. Sure, there might be some sour consequences for the entire Tommy Baldwin Racing organization if Danica Patrick doesn’t make the Southern 500 field, but they also have to take care of their own business. Missing a race does nobody any good.

Let’s move the situation forward and say a driver on the cusp of a Chase spot needed one more point to make the playoffs in the final race at Richmond but had a motor coming apart. Would people crucify that driver if he didn’t make it around and brought out a late caution that changed the end of the race? Or, would they praise that driver and say he pushed it to the limit and tried as hard as possible to make the Chase?

Either way, the situation Sunday was not a good one, but NASCAR’s current system creates desperation for teams on the top-35 bubble. More than any previous situation, Sunday’s events should have given proper fuel for the top-35 rule haters to scream from the mountaintop.

NASCAR doesn’t have a perfect system right now, and it may even be part of the reason those teams on the bubble can’t find any sponsorship. Who would want to sponsor a car that might not even race on Sundays?

It would be nice to have teams race straight up each week to make a race, but there is too much money involved. Imagine if Dale Earnhardt Jr. crashed in qualifying and missed a race. That wouldn’t be good for business.

If there is anything positive to take out of the situation late in the race at Martinsville, it was proof that NASCAR teams and drivers put their full effort into what they do. Sure, the start and parkers don’t race to win, but they park early in a race so that some day in the future they will be able to race for the win.

Tommy Baldwin Racing is a perfect example of a team that had to build through start and parking. Right now the organization still isn’t strong, but it is moving in the right direction.

People will say what they want about points racing and drivers taking it easy, but that might be a little bit more of a myth than some people would like to believe. If they have a chance to race for the win, no driver is going to sit back and let someone else win.

Wins in the Sprint Cup Series are extremely difficult to come by, and the absolute joy of winning a race should be plenty of motivation for drivers to give it everything they have.

Reutimann didn’t have a good day Sunday, but he did give it everything he had. Keep that in mind if something similar happens late in the season to a Chase contender.

Rating the Goody's Fast Pain Relief 500: 4 Stars ****

Several drivers walked out of Martinsville Speedway in need of some Goody’s pain relief Sunday in a finish that was as wild as a finish at a restrictor-plate race. However, much of the rest of the race was dominated by a few usual suspects. The second short track race of the season gets a 4 Star Rating.

Martinsville produces racing that Bristol Motor Speedway would love to have back. The only way to make a pass is on the low side and usually that requires bumping the car in front out of the way. Sunday’s race had a lot of green-flag racing, but it also had upset drivers at the end.

The point is that short tracks can have it both ways. Bristol doesn’t have to immediately turn into a wreckfest if track owner Bruton Smith makes some changes to the track, but it could turn the track back to a fast-paced version of Martinsville.

Interestingly, the race at Martinsville would’ve had just five cautions and no major wrecks if David Reutimann hadn’t stopped to bring out a caution with four laps to go. That’s the same as the race at Bristol two weeks ago. That’s not to say one style of racing is better than another, but it does show that a one-groove track can have long stretches of green-flag racing.

Anyway, on to Sunday’s race where Ryan Newman shockingly found himself in Victory Lane. Hendrick Motorsports drivers Jeff Gordon Jimmie Johnson dominated nearly the entire race. Gordon led 328 laps, Johnson led 112 and both were involved in a great battle for the lead at the end before the green-white-checkered restarts.

So, Newman got a pretty large gift Sunday, along with drivers such as A.J. Allmendinger and Martin Truex Jr. All of those drivers ran most of the day between 10th and 15th, but they avoided the big pileup on the first green-white-checkered and came home with top-five finishes.

Many of the Hendrick haters will be thrilled with Sunday’s finish because Gordon and Johnson wrecked at the end and gave the win to somebody different. But, in fairness, this race did not end the way it was supposed to. Thankfully, it was due to a problem with another car and not because NASCAR wanted to spice up the finish of the race.

Up next is the first off week of the season for the Sprint Cup Series. A change in the schedule this year eliminated the early off week. Overall, the break comes at a good time. It actually feels like we have a significant portion of the season behind us, and now everybody can gear up for the next long stretch of races that will take us into July if the All-Star weekend in May at Charlotte Motor Speedway is considered a race weekend.

After the break the series will visit a couple of mile-and-a-half tracks with Texas Motor Speedway and Kansas Speedway. If we don’t have a good idea of who the real contenders will be this season, those two weeks will go a long way toward helping answer those questions.

Have a blessed Easter, everybody.

NASCAR buries crew chief Chad Knaus and #48 team with major penalties

Jimmie Johnson, his crew chief Chad Knaus and the #48 team could not have started off the 2012 Sprint Cup Series season much worse.

Johnson wrecked in the Budweiser Shootout, wrecked on lap 2 of the Daytona 500 and now Knaus is staring down the barrel of a six-race suspension.

NASCAR announced penalties Wednesday for the #48 team that stemmed from a technical violation on the first day of Speedweeks Feb. 17 with the “C-posts” that run down the sides of the rear window. NASCAR officials determined the sheetmetal on those posts to be too rounded and had the team replace them, with the threat of additional penalties once Speedweeks finished.

NASCAR lived up to that threat and delivered penalties that include a six-race suspension for Knaus and the #48 team car chief Ron Malec, as well as probation until the May 9. The sanctioning body also fined Knaus $100,000 and docked the team 25 owner and driver points.

That means Johnson will head to the race at Phoenix International Raceway with -23 points after he finished 42nd in the Daytona 500, a full 70 points behind points leader Matt Kenseth. That’s no small hill to climb, even for the #48 team.

Johnson is now nearly two full races out of the points lead and he has only run two laps in the entire season. The #48 team is going to have to be patient and methodically work its way back to the front. This is not the type of hole a team can dig out of quickly.

However, Knaus and Malec will likely still be with the team this week in Phoenix. Hendrick Motorsports is going to appeal the ruling, and it could take weeks before their appeal is heard. In the meantime, Knaus and Malec will continue to lead the #48 team at the racetrack.

Don’t overlook the penalties to Malec. He is a very intelligent crew member and an integral part of that team. That penalty might be where NASCAR really stuck it to the #48 team.

Overall, the severity of these penalties were suprising. NASCAR found the violation before the cars ever hit the racetrack, so Johnson never had an unfair advantage in racing conditions. Still, NASCAR has precedent for this type of reaction.

Officials found problems with the front bumpers of Johnson’s and teammate Jeff Gordon’s cars during initial inspection for the 2007 race at the road course in Sonoma. Both Knaus and Gordon’s crew chief at the time, Steve Letarte, were suspended for the next six races, fined $100,000 and the teams were docked 100 points, although the points system was different in 2007 than it is now.

People will debate long and hard about whether the penalties for the #48 team were too harsh, too lenient or just right, and often that simply depends on how much people root for a particular driver.

It will be interesting to see the decision on the appeal. Knaus did win an appeal in 2005 to dodge a two-race suspension for the roof being too low on the #48 car. That said, appeals are rarely overturned and Hendrick Motorsports will likely have to dig deeper in its drawer of talented crew members to fill the void.

Although this is a horrible start to the season, do not dismiss Johnson from the championship picture. He has come back from some major points deficits before to win the championship, and sometimes setbacks push a great team to perform even better.

For example, Johnson won the 2006 Daytona 500 after Knaus was kicked out of Speedweeks and won the championship after overcoming a 165-point deficit with just seven races remaining.

These penalties won’t destroy the #48 team, but it does need something positive to happen this week at Phoenix. At this point keeping the car in one piece might be good enough.

Rating the Budweiser Shootout: 5 Stars *****

The 2012 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season opened in grand fashion with a 200 mph high-flying act that included bumps, flips and a photo finish. The 2012 Budweiser Shootout gets a no-brainer of a 5 Star Rating.

What a race, folks. NASCAR officials, drivers and fans have been wringing their hands all offseason about what type of racing would be on display once Speedweeks began at Daytona International Speedway.

Well, I think all of that worry can now be channeled into great excitement and anticipation of what lies ahead for the rest of the week.

This race had just about everything that makes race fans sit on the edge of their seat for an entire race. It even had a pretty exciting photo finish to cap off the night.

Race fans wanted the large restrictor-plate racing packs to return to Daytona and Talladega superspeedway racing. The Bud Shootout sure provided that. Nobody could hook up in a two-car draft and pull away from the crowd. The three-wide swarm of cars that is one of the most adrenaline-spiking sights in all of sports was back.

When drivers put on a show like they did Saturday night, the number of laps remaining hardly seems to matter. There’s almost no time to look to the top of the television screen to see how much of the race is left because the action is so intense on the track.

For those who like big wrecks, those are back too. Some people will say all wrecks are a bad thing. That’s fair. No reasonable person wants to see even their most hated driver get hurt. But, those wrecks make highlight shows for a reason, and boy did we have some big ones Saturday night.

Jeff Gordon had the most spectacular crash of the evening as his car slid out of Turn 4 on on the driver’s side window and then flipped three times before settling completely upside down.

Kevin Harvick and Michael Waltrip also had scary adventures when their cars caught on fire during one of the big wrecks. Thankfully, everybody came out of the race unhurt.

Even with all that went on in those wild 82 laps, Kyle Busch stole the show.

Busch’s #18 car was completely sideways on two separate occasions and yet he never spun out. Both times he made ridiculous saves to keep from crashing. Sparks showered the track and the front of the car crinkled, but Busch miraculously held on to the car to stay in contention.

Not only did he stay in contention, but he went on to win the race.

Not only did he win the race, but he did so in spectacular fashion by inching out Tony Stewart at the finish line by .013 seconds, the closest finish in Budweiser Shootout history.

A photo finish is like a walk-off homerun in baseball. It is simply the most exciting thing that can happen at the end of an event.

The best part of all of this is that the shootout is only the first Cup race of Speedweeks. There are still three other Cup races, a Nationwide race and a truck race that could very well be just as exciting.

Oh boy, strap in for one heck of a week. The Budweiser Shootout was great, and if NASCAR doesn’t change any rules the rest of Speedweeks is shaping up to be just as good.

#48 team’s rule infraction par for the course at Speedweeks

The 2012 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season was less than 24 hours old and NASCAR officials already had a controversy on their hands.

Jimmie Johnson and his #48 Hendrick Motorsports team showed up at Daytona International Speedway with pieces of the car that didn’t quite fit with NASCAR regulations.

The Lowe’s Chevrolet had a “C post” on the car that NASCAR deemed to be outside of the rules, and it would’ve given the car an aerodynamic advantage.

The C post is the piece of metal that runs across the top of the passenger window down to the trunk lid. NASCAR said the C post on Johnson’s car was rounded too much.

The team had to change the C posts on the car and NASCAR will likely announce any penalties in the days following the Daytona 500.

However, this type of issue should not be a shocking development during Speedweeks.

Sure, this gives fans who don’t like Johnson, Knaus or the entire #48 team another chance to shout from the mountaintops that the team is full of cheaters. However, plenty of seasons start with some sort of controversy.

The #48 team had a similar situation happen in 2006, and NASCAR sent crew chief Chad Knaus home for the rest of Speedweeks. It didn't matter, though. Johnson still went on to win the Daytona 500.

Michael Waltrip Racing also got busted for having rocket fuel in its cars during the team’s first Speedweeks in 2007.

More often than not, one story quickly dominates headlines during Speedweeks, and Johnson’s issue is just this year’s version.

While it’s nice to say anyone who works on the edges of the rule book should have it thrown at them when they go too far, but pushing the envelope is a crew chief’s job.

Some of the best crew chiefs in the history in the sport occasionally go too far in their innovations.

For example, Ray Evernham built a car for Jeff Gordon in the 1997 Winston all-star race that absolutely dominated the event at Charlotte Motor Speedway. The car didn’t officially break any rules, but NASCAR told Evernham he couldn’t run that car again.

Does that mean Evernham cheated for that race? No, he was just the most innovative, and best, crew chief of his time.

Chad Knaus is the same way. NASCAR and team officials said the #48 car likely would’ve passed inspection and fit the templates. The problem was the areas between the template points that NASCAR said was the problem.

Generally, these types of issues happen during Speedweeks because teams have an entire offseason to optimize their Daytona 500 car.

A new season is also the first time teams work with the current year’s rules and car models. Even though NASCAR mandates nearly every part of a car these days, there is always going to be a breaking in period at the beginning of the season.

If something like the #48 team’s issue comes up in a few weeks there might be a more severe reaction, but Speedweeks is similar to the first round of golf for a year. The teams have to work out some the kinks.

However, these issues give people plenty to talk about during Speedweeks, and they usually set the stage for quite an interesting year.

If the first day was any indication, there will be plenty of topics to debate throughout this season.

Rating the 2011 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series: 3.3 Stars

NASCAR journeys into the offseason this year with tons of momentum following one of the best championship runs in the history of the sport. The storylines from this season were as good as any, as were several of the races were. The 2011 Sprint Cup Series season gets a 3.3 Star Rating.

That rating is an average of the ratings from each race this season, excluding the two non-points events and the reader’s choice edition for the Watkins Glen race.

Here is the breakdown of ratings throughout the season:

5 Stars: 8 races

4 Stars: 5 races

3 Stars: 11 races

2 Stars: 10 races

1 Star: 1 race

The 2011 season had more 5 Star races than the past two year’s Monday Morning Crew Chief has rated races, but there were also many more 2 Star races. The good races were really good, while the not-so-great races were worse than normal.

Let’s take a look back at some of the memorable races from this season.

For the first time, the season opened as closed with the best rating possible: 5 Stars. The Daytona 500 started the year off with one of the most incredible races in the history of the sport. Just 20 years old, Trevor Bayne won the race in the Wood Brothers #21 Ford; the first time that organization had been to Victory Lane since 2001. This is a team that no longer shows up to every race, and often it looked like the sport had blown by the Wood Brothers as they struggled to simply remain in the sport. But then, a driver making just the second Cup start of his career, went out and won the first race of his NASCAR career. That wasn’t just his first Cup win; it was his first win in any of NASCAR’s top three divisions.

It’s hard to top one of the greatest Daytona 500 stories ever, but Tony Stewart and Carl Edwards did their best as they fought to the very end of the Ford 400 in the closest championship battle in NASCAR’s 63-year history. There will never be a closer points battle than this year. Stewart and Edwards tied, but Stewart won the title because he won the race, his fifth in the Chase, topping Edwards’ one win early in the year at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Stewart not only won the race and the championship, but he had to come back through the entire field twice and then held off his championship competitor at the end as the top-two drivers in the series this year finished first and second.

Other 5 Star races included Regan Smith’s win in the Southern 500, the Aaron's 499 at Talladega that tied for the closest finish in NASCAR history, as well as a pair of races at NASCAR’s biggest track, Talladega, and its smallest, Martinsville, to finish out October and set the stage for the championship fight.

While there were plenty of terrific races, the season average isn’t all that high because there were more sub-par races than normal. The high number of fuel-mileage races is partially to blame. Those races are often tense as drivers work to conserve fuel, but they usually don’t make for very close finishes and sometimes the winner didn’t have a challenger at the end of the race.

The 2 Star races included the first two Chase races at Chicago and New Hampshire where Stewart won both on fuel-mileage. However, other below-average races came at places such as Dover, Kentucky and Pocono where fuel mileage didn’t come into play.

Those were races, including the two at New Hampshire, where drivers simply couldn’t make much headway on the track. The late summer stretch this year was particularly brutal in some follow-the-leader races. The car designs might be better than when the Car of Tomorrow came out in 2007, but it still needs work. The 2013 car models might help fix some of that, but NASCAR shouldn’t sit back and wait until that change, or next year will again be filled with many 2 Star races.

The lone 1 Star race of the season came in June with the 5-Hour Energy 500 at Pocono Speedway. A morning of rain, and a race filled with debris cautions, mechanical failures and a dominant performance by Jeff Gordon made for one of the longest racedays of the season. The races at Pocono might be only 400 miles next year, but that still wouldn’t have helped this race. It also began a nine-week stretch where only one race received a rating higher than 3 Stars, and that was the Coke Zero 400 at Daytona.

The 2011 season will be remembered as one of the best in many years. All in all, the last two years have been much better than the NEXTEL Cup era and the transition to the new car. This year’s championship run was amazing, but the 2010 battle among Jimmie Johnson, Denny Hamlin and Kevin Harvick was pretty exciting, as well.

Maybe 2012 will be even better. Now that Johnson doesn’t win everything all the time, we could be headed into a stretch where many drivers are regularly in contention for race wins.

Hopefully you enjoyed the ratings throughout the season. Monday Morning Crew Chief will stay active with offseason news and opinion pieces as NASCAR fans struggle through those long three months that make up an offseason that is shorter than other sports, but always feels longer.

Have a wonderful holiday season, everybody.