Samsung 500 Race Review

Texas Motor Speedway -- 04/5/2009

Author: Becca Gladden

Published: Monday Apr 6 2009 12:05am

This week’s NASCAR cliché: Races are won and lost on pit road.

No one knows that better than Carl Edwards, who joined many of the lead laps cars on pit road for the race’s final stop at lap 304 of 334. Just 10 laps earlier, Edwards had passed Jeff Gordon for the lead and was still leading entering the pits. But the No. 99 team struggled on their pit stop, while the 24 team executed flawlessly.

The result? Gordon came out of the pits with the lead and held it to win the race. Edwards dropped all the way back to 11th exiting pit road and finished 10th.

To be fair, Gordon did have a fast car most of the race, except for a few times when he struggled with being tight. He led the most laps with 105, followed by two strong Roush contenders, Greg Biffle with 93 and Matt Kenseth with 55.

Though Biffle and Kenseth both had top-5 finishes, it appears that the same pit road problem that hurt Roush teammate Edwards may have also bitten Greg and Matt. NASCAR beat writer Dustin Long reported tonight that the glue that teams use to attach the lug nuts to the wheels before each race may have become brittle by race’s end, causing all three cars to have problems with lug nuts falling off before they could be tightened on that final stop.

Other drivers had problems on pit road as well, including Dale Earnhardt Jr., who again missed his pit stall and finished 20th, and polesitter David Reutimann, who had to serve a pit road penalty and finished 11th.

The race, in fact, was largely a matter of survival, with just 17 cars finishing on the lead lap, 15 cars finishing more than four laps down, and six with DNFs.

For Gordon, it was an unusual ending to a 47-race winless drought, as Texas was one of just two Cup tracks where he had never won a race. Ironically, he finished last in this race last year.

Though Edwards’ troubles on pit road may have made the difference in the final results, Gordon was quick to point out that he had a fast car and was in a position to win almost all day. “That car was just awesome and Steve (Letarte) made an incredible adjustment. We kind of took out something that we had done earlier that didn't work and he nailed it. From that point on, we were a contender for the win today because we could stay up front. We could run with the leaders and our pit crew was keeping us in the game.”

Gordon was followed across the finish line by teammate Jimmie Johnson, who surprised Gordon by closing on him in the final laps, though he’d only led one lap all day. “While Jimmie was making great gains, and they had an incredible pit stop, as well as good adjustments, obviously, because I didn't see him in the top five all day and he was the fastest car there at the end - at least up in the top three or four - and we were real fast right from the get-go.”

Greg Biffle finished 3rd, Tony Stewart, 4th, Matt Kenseth, 5th, and Mark Martin, 6th – making Earnhardt Jr. the only Hendrick driver not finishing in the top 10.

Rounding out the top 10 were Juan Pablo Montoya, Kurt Busch, Jeff Burton and
Carl Edwards.

Last week at Martinsville, Jamie McMurray was the only Roush-Fenway driver to finish in the top 20. This week, Biffle, Kenseth and Edwards were all in the top 10, despite their pit road woes, but McMurray finished 38th after a transmission issue had him in the garage for at least 70 laps. Roush driver David Ragan DNF’d with an engine.

Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson not only finished 1-2 in the race, but now find themselves 1-2 in the point standings as well. Johnson’s win at Martinsville last week gained him four spots in the points and he moved up another two this week to 2nd, 162 points behind Gordon.

Kurt Busch remains 3rd in points while Clint Bowyer’s 22nd-place finish dropped him two spots to 4th. Hendrick-affiliate driver Tony Stewart is up two spots to 5th.

Overall, COT-style racing on the intermediate tracks continues to leave a lot to be desired in terms of an excitement factor. As Matt Kenseth noted after today’s race, “It was just a different kind of racing today. You can look at the scoreboard and, after everybody’s done pitting, whoever restarts in the lead is probably going to win. You just can’t pass in these cars like you could. It’s all about having perfect pit stops, and qualifying, and doing the right things for track position.”

That was indeed the formula for victory for the 24 team today – starting in P2, maintaining decent track position, and coming out with the lead on the final pit stop.

The Sprint Cup Series will be off for Easter Weekend but you can catch the Nationwide boys in action Saturday in Nashville. Then it’s on to Phoenix for the Cup Series’ first Saturday night race of the season.

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