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| Denny Hamlin celebrates his fourth win of the season with a burnout. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images) |
Late Race Caution Hurts Truex: Martin Truex Jr. was well on his way to a victory until Jamie McMurray blew a right front tire and tore down the wall by the Start/Finish line. Truex and the rest of the lead lap cars all came down pit road and Truex lost the drag race with eventual winner, Denny Hamlin to the pit road exit line. He finished forth which was good enough to lock him into The Chase for the first time since 2007 but not what he was looking for.
"I should of just ran into the back of him": Jeff Gordon started third on the final green, white, checkered restart and made it clear he was going for the win after pushing Denny Hamlin's car across the stripe has they took the green. It looked like the four time champion was making a run down the backstretch and then pushed his car to hard and fell off of Hamlin's bumper in turn three and four. After the race Jeff Gordon couldn't believe he didn't move Hamlin and questioned weather or not he was getting soft at his old age and even posted on his twitter page this morning "I should of just ran into the back of him going into turn 3 & moved him up the track" Jeff will need that attitude this weekend at Richmond if he wants to make The Chase.
What Could Have Been: When Kevin Harvick looks back on his 2012 Labor Day weekend, he will reflect on the two race that got away. After getting passed on the last lap of Saturday nights Nationwide Series Race, Kevin drove from 24th to 1st and lead over 100 laps. However, the call was made to pit with 55 laps togo from the lead and Harvick never got the track position back. Overall, a fifth place effort wasn't bad and gives the 29 team something to move forward on.
Where did Smoke Go: If you are a Tony Stewart fan, you have to be concerned with the direction of the number 14 team. Last week, he was in the news for showing passion, after throwing his helmet at Matt Kenseth's car after the two wreaked and this weekend, he started on the pole and quickly fell off the pace and finished 1 lap down in the 22nd position. I think the only reason nobody is bringing it up is because Carl Edwards is having a terrible string of luck which continued Sunday night with a blown engine and a 36th place finish.
The Race to The Chase: I'm not going to post the points since they really don't matter for the top 11 drivers. Richmond will come down to do or die for Jeff Gordon, Kyle Busch, Ryan Newman, Joey Lagano, and Marcos Ambrose. To make it simple, if one of those drivers win, they are in The Chase.
Up Next: Saturday night short track racing this weekend when the stars go for it all in the Federated Auto Parts 400 at Richmond International Speedway.
