He may be leading the point standings, running consistently, and already have a win in his pocket, but for Jeff Gordon, all the talk at Dover International Speedway was about his back issues being back.
With military tributes abounding and NASCAR patriotism at its best, here is what was surprising and not surprising from the 55th annual running of the sport’s longest race, the Coca Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
From lap one to lap 400, Sunday Night at Charlotte belonged solely to Jimmie Johnson. Johnson and his No. 48 team dominated as they perfectly executed a game plan en route to their first victory of the year.
The 2013 season was arguably the best season of Matt Kenseth’s career. Seven wins, 12 top-fives and 20 top-10s, very impressive stats by anyone’s standards. He also came up just short of a championship, finishing second to six-time series champion, Jimmie Johnson.
Kurt Busch attempted to complete “the double” this weekend – the Indianapolis 500 and the Coca-Cola 600. That’s 1100 miles of racing in one day on two tracks that are 575 miles apart, not to mention the fact that it is also in two very different types of race cars.
Come Sunday, Kurt Busch will join John Andretti, Robby Gordon, and his boss Tony Stewart as the only NASCAR drivers to complete the Indianapolis 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 on the same day. Kurt Busch will start the 98th running of the Indianapolis 500 from the 12th position.
Surprising: Weird and freaky things continue to happen at NASCAR races and the Kansas race was no exception. The lights went dark on the back stretch, the speedy dry truck lost a gear, and the car that was ‘Freaky Fast’, starting from the pole with a new track record, just could not pull off the victory, coming in second instead.
Randy Miller and I spoke at length with veteran spotter Tim Fedewa. The conversation ranged from the new Gen 6 car and the struggles of the Ford camp to find speed through out the season to what Tim is looking forward to doing during the off season (hunting for those wondering).
For the fifth year in a row, NASCAR After The Lap™ will be back in Las Vegas during champion’s week and at least one of the co-hosts Monica Palumbo is primed and ready for her ‘favorite’ event.