Big Orange rules the day in Chicagoland
That's Big Orange, as in the Home Depot Chevy, which led the most laps en route to Tony Stewart's first win of the season. It wasn't pretty, but it was hard-fought. I'll get right to the results, and they weren't pretty for Glenn's Ten (4-of-10):
* Kasey Kahne (winner) -- 36th, Ugh! When is this kid gonna catch a break. He got taken out on a controversial restart while leading the race. Not the first time this year he has crashed out in the lead. Replays show that Tony Stewart got into the back of Kahne after trying to pass cars on the high side, but I don't think it was all Tony's fault, other than the fact he took air off the #9, which caused the wreck that took out several cars. Try telling that to Tommy Baldwin and Ray Evernham. Kahne's crew gets an "A" for ruckus raising after the melee in the pits with Stewart's crew.
* Jeff Gordon -- 4th, Jeff gets the comeback of the day award for taking a loose car and getting it strong enough to contend in the final 11 laps. About 20 more laps and he would have been dragging Tony for the win. Gained about 10 spots in the final 20 laps.
* Jimmie Johnson -- 2nd, Only car all day that could challenge Tony. Jimmie admitted the car wasn't as strong on the last run, and it showed. Still, another top 5 helps add to the points lead.
* Ryan Newman -- 34th, *Sniff* Cut tire, hello wall. What more can you say? In serious jeopardy of falling out of the top 10, which is about the only chance anyone has of making the Championship Chase right now.
* Kevin Harvick -- 10th, Just slipped in, thanks to Mark Martin blowing an engine or whatever happened to him with about four to go.
* Tony Stewart -- 1st, Maybe Tony should wreck his primary car in practice every week. I think the switch to NBC from Fox this week probably was extra inspiration -- he's been nothing short of badgered by the Fox crew the past 17 weeks, if not undeservedly. Benny Parsons seems a little more willing to forgive than Darrell Waltrip where it comes to Tony's transgressions. Tony dominated the race and deserved the victory.
* Bobby Labonte -- 18th, What's up with this team? Must be that ugly yellow and purple Wellbutrin paint scheme. Labonte's due for a win soon.
* Casey Mears -- 15th, The kid got robbed. Had a strong car much of the day, but got burned by an off-sequence pit stop for debris on the grill that kept him a lap down until about the final 50 laps. He would have been a top 10 easily otherwise.
* Matt Kenseth -- 12th, Ran quietly all day. Led a lap or two.
* Jamie McMurray -- 13th, Hopes for the Chase remain alive, thanks to Newman's and Kurt Busch's bad luck.
REST OF THE TOP 10:
* Dale Jarrett -- 3rd, DJ's back! A classic Jarrett climb through the field that put him in contention near the end of the day. That win's coming...
* Jeremy Mayfield -- 5th, At least one of the Evernham cars finished well. Jeremy's getting close to a win, too.
* Terry Labonte -- 6th, I blew it. I should have put my trust in the old guys instead of the Young Guns. Terry's son Justin won the Busch race yesterday, so maybe that was extra incentive for a good finish.
* Sterling Marlin -- 7th, Someone tell these guys to stop with the 2-tire strategy. You aren't Ryan Newman.
* Joe Nemechek -- 8th, No one talks about how these guys are running well almost every week. Take away the crashes and equipment failures late in the race and Joe would have a few more top 10's to show for his effort.
* Michael Waltrip -- 9th, Recovered from a 39th place start. Who says Mikey can't run well?
OTHER NOTABLES:
* Rusty Wallace -- 11th, Penske standard bearer on an otherwise abysmal weekend.
* Dale Earnhardt Jr. -- 22nd, Glug, glug, glug... That's the sound of points going down the drain. Got a couple laps down, got caught up in the Kasey Kahne crash, benefited from the Lucky Dog free pass and just never got into the race. Now trails Johnson by more than 100 points. Don't worry, Little E fans, it will all be a wash after Richmond in a few weeks. I knew this was going to be a long day for Driver 8 from his first on-camera interview. About 45 minutes before the race he was still wearing street clothes when everyone else was dressed in their fire suits. What was with that? And after the race he looked really TIRED. Methinks Dale partied too hardy last night.
* Mark Martin -- 24th, That Viagra Ford looked awesome today... until in conked out three laps from the finish line and what would have been a top 5.
* Jeff Burton -- 33rd, Rolled off 6th and looked sharp in those Comcast colors. Too bad he was in the vicinity of Kasey Kahne's calamity.
* Kurt Busch -- 35th, An innocent victim in the Ryan Newman wipeout. But that's the kind of season it's been for the #97.
Next week... We're off! The gNA$hCAR schedule gods are giving Junior a chance to reassess his season next week, or is that the officials a chance to determine how many fines to levy against Kahne's team? We'll be back in two weeks for the New Hampshire race.
