SM Staff

From daylight to darkness over the Labor Day holiday weekend, here is what was surprising and not surprising in the 53rd annual Advocare 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

t’s finally Silly Season time and moves are happening fast. The season started prematurely with A.J. Allmendinger’s failed drug test and Matt Kenseth’s shocking announcement that he was leaving Roush Fenway, but this is the time of year when Silly Season starts in earnest and started it has.

As Sunday’s Atlanta Insert-Sponsor-Name-Here 500 slowly dragged by, in which forty-three brightly-colored cars repetitively drove around Atlanta Motor Speedway something like 330 times, I found myself, once again, not really interested in watching the race, just like I’ve not been interested in watching every other race over the last two Sprint Cup seasons…although I regret missing Watkins Glen a couple of weeks ago.

While many top-tier NASCAR teams are facing the loss of major sponsorship dollars, Front Row Motorsports has managed to not only weather the storm but to attract even new sponsors to their program.

Michael Waltrip Racing's 2012 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season has been nothing short of a breakout year. At the start of 2012. Michael Waltrip Racing had never had a driver qualify for the chase in its 5 year existence in the NSCS

One year ago today Carl Edwards had firm control of his Sprint Cup Series title hopes. He was the favorite heading into the Chase, having led the point standings for much of the year and performing at a level of consistency that hadn’t been matched.

Should Jeff Gordon fail to make the Chase after next weekend’s race at Richmond he might look back to one lap during the 2012 season. Not the many bad weeks he had to start the year, not the hard fought yet mediocre finishes, but one lap in Atlanta.

Denny Hamlin held off Jeff Gordon on Sunday and won the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series AdvoCare 500 Atlanta Motor Speedway. This was Hamlin’s fourth win of the season, the most of any driver thus far and places himself in position to top the standings when the 12-driver Chase starts after next weekend's race at Richmond.

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and his Roush Fenway Racing team have made their 2012 season all about never giving up. From their first win of the season in Las Vegas to the most recent Saturday night in Atlanta, the No. 6 Cargill team is one that just doesn’t quit.

Well Skagit is in the books. It was exciting. It was thrilling. In the end for one young man it was magical down right fairy tale if you want to be real honest about it. It is a rare thing that a local driver can come to the greatest show on dirt and beat the greatest drivers in the world. Very Very rare.