Coca-Cola 600 Race Review

Lowe's Motor Speedway -- 05/25/08

Author: Becca Gladden

Published: Monday May 26 2008 4:27pm

For the most part, Sunday's Coca-Cola 600 lived up to billing - it was long and relatively uneventful with almost all the action happening in the final 50 or so laps, an exciting finish, and a number of contenders succumbing to attrition before the checkers.

The winner was Kasey Kahne, who won on this track in last week's All-Star Race and swept the season here in 2006. The victory boosted Kahne two spots in the points, and back into the top 12.

The race was marked by several long green flag runs, though there were also 11 cautions for 50 laps, most coming in the latter portion of the event and many occurring just after restarts.

Several drivers led enough laps to look like potential winners, including Dale Earnhardt Jr., who led a race-high 76 laps, Kurt Busch with 64, Kyle Busch and Brian Vickers, each with 61, Jimmie Johnson with 35, and Tony Stewart with 23.

But each of those lap leaders eventually experienced problems. Earnhardt Jr. hit the wall after blowing a right front tire, and had several problems on pit road as well. The fact that Earnhardt came back to finish 5th has the conspiracy theorists buzzing. Kurt Busch also hit the wall. Kyle had electrical problems from early in the race, Vickers had a tire fly off, and Johnson's engine blew up.

Tony Stewart was leading with three laps to go when he, too, had a tire go down, forcing him to pit and passing the leader's baton to race winner Kahne, who was running 2nd at the time.

Among those who had problems, Stewart finished 18th, Kurt Busch,16th, Brian Vickers, 42nd, and Jimmie Johnson, 39th. Kyle Busch, despite the electrical problems and an unscheduled green-flag pit stop, came in 3rd.

According to Stewart's crew chief Greg Zipadelli, Stewart looked to be cruising to an easy victory when the tire went down. "We got a flat - another tire that wouldn't hold air. It's hard to believe. We were so loose that entire run because we knew we needed to be there at the end. It's just stupid. We must have run something over or had a small leak or something. I would say we lost a tire with a 5½-second lead."

Pit strategy also figured in to the final results, as teams employed various gas-only and two-tire options on the final few pits stops to get to the front of the field. Kahne's crew chief Kenny Francis opted for two tires on the next to last pit stop, giving Kahne the track position needed to take advantage of Stewart's misfortune.

"The pit stops were great," said Kahne. "The pit calls by Kenny and Chad (race engineer) were awesome. Everything was great all night. We were better on four tires than we were on two or no tires, but we were still pretty good on those. Dale Jr. was strong, Tony was strong, Kyle Busch was strong. There were some good race cars out there. We were back and forth with all of them. (It was) the right call for right sides there. If Kenny wouldn't have made that call, we may have had a problem, too. I was thinking second. I saw Tony slow up. I thought he was out of gas. At that point I couldn't believe it. From there, I just tried to hit my marks and make sure I brought it home.”

Kahne's Gillett-Evernham Motorsports teammate Elliott Sadler also had a good night, particularly on the heels of his All-Star disappointment last weekend. Sadler started 9th and ended 8th, giving both GEM drivers top-10 finishes.

Carl Edwards, who was running 3rd with five laps to go, ran out of gas coming to the checkered flag. He coasted around for a 9th-place finish. Edwards was one of three Roush-Fenway drivers finishing in the top 10. Greg Biffle came in 2nd and Matt Kenseth, 7th.

The strong finish was a big boost points-wise for Kenseth, one of only two drivers to make the Chase each year since its inception (the other is Jimmie Johnson). Sunday's finish moved Matt from 20th to 16th in the points, now 190 out of 12th.

The top-10 finishing order was as follows:

1. Kasey Kahne
2. Greg Biffle
3. Kyle Busch
4. Jeff Gordon
5. Dale Earnhardt Jr.
6. Jeff Burton
7. Matt Kenseth
8. Elliott Sadler
9. Carl Edwards
10. David Reutimann

That 10th-place finish for David Reutimann was his first-ever Cup top 10.

In terms of points, eight of the top 12 drivers maintained their place in the standings, including all of the top 5 teams - Kyle Busch, Jeff Burton, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Denny Hamlin, and Clint Bowyer. Jimmie Johnson saw the biggest drop, falling three spots to 9th. Carl Edwards gained a spot to 6th and Kevin Harvick two spots to 7th. David Ragan, who spent a week at 12th, fell one spot to 13th.

Of note, less than 100 points currently separate 6th from 12th place in the standings

In a bit of post-race drama, Jeff Gordon and Kyle Busch squared off on pit road, with lots of finger pointing and hostile words. Busch apparently felt that Gordon had raced him too hard in the closing laps, while Jeff was angry that Busch flipped him off during the race. "He’s got an issue, because he gave me the finger," Gordon said. "And you know whatΔ That’s not necessary for a guy he just didn’t like racing him the way I did. Kyle and I never had any issues, but I raced him hard tonight just like I did everybody. When track position is as important as it is here, you’ve got to race every single car for every single position. I wasn’t going to give anybody an inch, and I was racing for position.”

This week, the Cup series heads to Dover, where Martin Truex Jr. got his first victory last year. A few weeks ago, I mentioned the possibility of NASCAR limiting the exaggerated right rear yaw that some teams have been utilizing this year, giving their cars what has been described as a crab-like motion heading down the straightaways. NASCAR held off on that crackdown at Charlotte, but the new rules will be implemented at Dover.

More on that in my Dover Preview coming later this week.