Kasey Kahne gave Tony Stewart just enough of a push to slip him by the dynamic duo of Matt Kenseth and Greg Biffle. Seconds later, Kahne was knocked sideways all pandemonium broke out behind him, handing Stewart his third Cup victory of 2012.
If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all. Well, um, the traffic was a whole lot better than last year during a weekend of three tiresome and tepid races.
Michael Waltrip Racing had a coming out party at Sonoma. The organization led 86 of the 112 laps with Clint Bowyer doing the majority of the work with 71 of those 86 laps. The race went two extra circuits thanks to a late-race spin but Bowyer held off charges from Kurt Busch and Tony Stewart over the last two spins around the road course to notch his sixth victory of his career and third in the history of MWR.
Junior wins again and all is sweetness and light around the globe. In fact I predict tomorrow we’ll see Romney and Obama sharing a single root beer float with two straws at the local Rexall and deciding the election by thumb wrestling. I predict the Iranians will give up their nuclear ambitions, North Korea will schedule democratic elections, the stock market will rise 5000 points and the Carpenters “Close To You” will soar back to the top of the Billboard charts. (For you non-88 fans, pssst, I agree, the end of the race was about as boring as it gets.)
With under four laps to go, race leader Mark Martin bobbled just enough that second place Joey Logano was able to execute a perfect bump and run to retake the lead.
Jimmie Johnson aced the final restart, despite a concerted charge by Kevin Harvick to his inside to win a race he dominated for much of the afternoon.
It wasn’t a particularly good race, but what it lacked in drama it made up for in length. Sort of. This year’s edition of the World 600 was actually the shortest ever at just three hours and 51 minutes.
On the final restart, Matt Kenseth started beside Jimmie Johnson but buzzed his tires trying to get up to speed. That allowed Johnson an easy getaway and once the No. 48 car was back in clean air, it was time to put out the fire and call in the dogs.
All the ingredients were there: a green-white-checkered finish at Darlington, questions about who had the gas to go the extra laps, some drivers who had gambled on fresh rubber late in the top 10, and a notoriously slick racetrack, but the finish was a bit of an anticlimax.
Matt Kenseth got such a jump on the final restart he lost his pusher Greg Biffle. Brad Keselowski and Kyle Busch were able to bypass the No. 17 and settle things amongst themselves.
A daily email update (Monday through Friday) providing racing news, commentary, features, and information from Frontstretch.com