NASCAR Sprint Cup Series 500 Race Review

California Speedway -- 08/31/08

Author: Becca Gladden

Published: Tuesday Sep 2 2008 12:13am

One statistic will tell you everything you need to know about Sunday's Pepsi 500 at the Auto Club Speedway in Fontana: Jimmie Johnson led 228 of 250 laps.

Johnson started on the pole and won the race with a 2.076 second margin of victory. It was the first time in 17 Cup races at Fontana that the winner came from the pole.

The only sort-of challenge there was to Johnson's dominance was from Greg Biffle, who finished second. Biffle came out ahead of Johnson a few times on pit stops, but it took the 48 just two or three laps to retake the lead. Biffle was the only double-digit lap leader, with 12 laps led.

Perhaps one of the stories of interest Sunday was what didn't happen. Points leader Kyle Busch didn't dominate the race (despite having done so in the Nationwide race Saturday) and didn't lead a single lap. Busch finished 11th from a 7th-place start.

It's ironic, of course, that just a year or two ago, people were complaining bitterly about Johnson's domination in the series. Sunday, it was almost a welcome relief from the ongoing Kyle Busch show, though it made for a pretty dull "race."

With a few exceptions, the top 15 in the finishing order coincided with the current top 15 in the standings. For your comparison, I have listed that finishing order with each driver's current position in the standings in parentheses:

Finishing Order:
1. Jimmie Johnson (3)
2. Greg Biffle (6)
3. Denny Hamlin (11)
4. Kevin Harvick (7)
5. Matt Kenseth (9)
6. Carl Edwards (2)
7. Kyle Busch (1)
8. Kasey Kahne (14)
9. David Reutimann (25)
10. Clint Bowyer (12)
11. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (4)
12. Brian Vickers (15)
13. David Ragan (13)
14. AJ Allmendinger (37)
15. Jeff Gordon (10)

The only two drivers currently in the top 15 in points who did not finish the race in the top 15 were Jeff Burton, 5th in points, who finished 17th, and Tony Stewart, 8th in points, who finished 22nd. They were displaced by David Reutimann and AJ Allmendinger. AJ's 2nd-place start was a career best for him, as was Reutimann's 9th-place finish.

As a result of the points leaders also being the race leaders, there was just minor shuffling of names up and down in the point standings, but no major changes regarding who's in or out of the Chase. Denny Hamlin and Clint Bowyer hung on to the 11th and 12th spots, while David Ragan and Kasey Kahne remained on the outside looking in at 13th and 14th. Just 17 points now separate Bowyer and Ragan with Kahne 48 points back.

Three Chase contenders did slip in the standings, however: Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Gordon, and Tony Stewart. Of the three, Stewart was the only one to fall two spots. None of them had a major incident in the race, but simply did not have their cars handling well enough to run up front.

It's on to Richmond this week for some Saturday night short-track racing under the lights. Hopefully those conditions, combined with the battle for the final Chase spots, will produce a more exciting race than either the Nationwide or Cup races in Fontana.