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(A special post-race edition prepared for letsgoracingfans.com. Also known as shameless cross-promotion).

In preparing for the Pep Boys’ 500, I think Jimmie Johnson and Crew Chief Chad Knauss stole a page from General George Sherman. The driver of the #48 Lowe’s Chevrolet showed tactical brilliance down the stretch to collect his eighth victory of the 2007 campaign, narrowing his defecit to Jeff Gordon down to nine points.

Admit, like me, you had your doubts at times. Kurt Busch looked “scary fast” early on, and after he faded, Martin Truex looked like the guy to beat. For quite some time, it just looked like Johnson and his buddy Jeff Gordon had a lackluster day going. Heck, it looked Junior had a good run going. It says a lot for the Budweiser Chevy driver that he overcame a commitment cone penalty and an unscheduled pit stop to fix bum tire to be in top five position at the end. The DEI boys had GREAT engines today. Once again, Roush- Fenway was well-represented with Matt Kenseth and Carl Edwards getting in the mix and playing nice today. But 99% of the race it was the Truex- Busch Show.

You hear a lot from fans about racers getting lucky. Racing is no different than any other sport- if you prepare well, play smart, and put some good weapons in your corner, you’ll get some luck. Plenty of it.

I know a lot fans are bored with HMS dominating the Chase, but what can you do? If you happen to be lucky enough to race against them, learn what they do and imitate it. To me, it’s interesting to see how the top two guys in this year’s chase lay back for about three-quarters of the race, in a middle-of-the-pack but competitive position, and then strike at the end. The only real risk to this strategy is that you might get collected in a slobberknocker with an also-ran. That’s where the luck comes in. Is that what Johnson doing? If he is, he’s not telling. I’ve said it before, I think there’s a little David Pearson influence on HMS.

You need it with all these green-white-checkered finishes. What a mess! I don’t know how you remedy that, but it’s ridiculous how many we’ve had this year.

Call dominance boring if you want. I’m sure said the same thing about the Cowboys, the Celtics, and the Yankees.

Other observations:

Tough Day For The Old School- It was a real bummer to see Mark Martin go down early. He handled his mishap with David Gilliland with his signature class. I was also looking for good things from 6-time AMS winner Bobby Labonte, but he was one of many drivers today with tire troubles.

Juan Pablo Montoya “Bonehead Manuever of The Day” Award- It stinks to run out of gas at the moment Denny Hamlin did. They HAD to be thinking about it. Everybody else was. It’s got to be a bummer when you know your mistake collected a potential winner. This was not a good day for the Gibbs family. Papa Joe’s Redskins got mauled by the Patriots 52-7 (ouch!) and then Smoke has a crap day, to go with this little foible by Hamlin.

The Ryan Newman “Creative Way To Lose” Award- Can somebody explain to me how in the name of Junior Johnson that a wheel comes off a race car in a NASCAR event? What did Junior do in a previous life to end up with this kind of luck? Some of Newmans’ mojo must have rubbed off on him. Poor guy- he had a car quite capable of winning.

Now it’s off to Texas. I don’t know if the Fat Lady has sung yet for the Chasers not named Johnson or Gordon, but I do believe I heard her warming up. Certainly she’s singing a sad swan song over the ruins of Atlanta.

I had this headline picked out two days ago. The boys at NASCAR didn’t disappoint with a track pounding war at Martinsville. A record setting 20 caution flags tell you all you need to know about what happens when you stack up 43 cars on a half-mile track with a championship and pride on the line.

For all intents and purposes, it’s a two horse race to the finish to Nextel glory with teammates and buddies Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon running neck and neck. Gordon led the way early on, but once again, regardless of some good short runs by Kyle Busch, Dale Earnhardt Jr., and even a few moments for Juan Pablo Montoya- one had the feeling that eventually the Lowe’s #48 Chevy would sieze a lead and wouldn’t let go of it. Jimmie and Jeff traded leads and paint, but it was Jimmie Johnson prevailing for win number seven (making J.J. number one in the series for wins in 2007) at Martinsville.

The wrestling match for the 2007 Nextel Cup will continue next week at Atlanta, where Gordon has four wins, Johnson two (including a March 18 this year).

Other observations:

The Pinball Wizards. If this were football, Juan Pablo Montoya and Martin Truex Jr. would be doing serious time in the whirlpool tomorrow. These guys collected more bruises on their cars than a train wreck. If I didn’t know better, I could’ve sworn I heard a collective cheer when Junior gave Montoya a little “love tap” to take the lead. I’d also swear that nearly every wreck in the second half of the race had Truex in the middle of it. If rubbin’s racin’, then Truex and Montoya were racin’ hard.

The Race For Pride. Give credit to Ryan Newman. He’s got nothing to lose, and he’s driving like it. It would be real easy for Rocket to mail it in, but now he has two consecutive top fives to his credit. Junior gave it all he had too. Once again, Lil “E” battled bad equipment, but still put himself in a position to finish well. A tip of the cap also goes to chasers whose title hopes have faded away. I thought Matt Kenseth, Kevin Harvick, Clint Bowyer, among others, raced hard and raced like professionals- though it was less than ideal day. Happy qualified well for this race, and Kenseth had the best finish he’s had in over a month.

Green, white, checkered. Now I am a little tired on this. today was the 6th finish of this type in 2007. I am going wonder out loud if one unintended consequence of the more durable Car of Tomorrow is that perhaps cars that would have been parked in the old days are still out limping along cluttering up the the track at the end. At times- I honestly think there are a few too many guys out there at the end that shouldn’t be. It’s be nice to see a cleaner finish- Pepsi 400 style.

To fans who dislike Jimmie and Jeff, I kinda feel for ya. Yet, let us not forget Clint Bowyer still has a slim shot, and anything can happen.

That’s why we keep watchin’.

OK, OK, I know, I know. It’s not where you start but where you finish that matters. Still, I think Jeff Gordon is on a mission, and his vault to the front portends a Martinsville victory.

Think about it, this guy had one, count ‘em one practice lap! Of course, his 7 wins at Martinsville is only bested by Richard Petty (who won 15 times there), and Darrell Waltrip (he visited Victory Lane 11 times at this venue). For those of you who doubt the greatness of the Rainbow Warrior, consider all the variety of tracks he wins on. Road courses, Super Speedways, short tracks- he wins ‘em all!

Now, I will admit winning the pole doesn’t guarantee the win on Sunday. If that were true, Ryan Newman would have 4 Cups by now. It amazes me how you have guys like Tony Stewart, who regularly start towards the back and contends, and the you have guys like Newman and Kasey Kahne- who have the opposite result.

Here at Martinsville, it will matter. Have you seen this track? I swear it looks like they’re running on my aunt and uncle’s driveway! If I didn’t know better, I’d say they paved over my local dirt track. I don’t know how they fit 43 cars on this track. Not that they’ll all be out there long. We’re being promised full contact racing. It will be interesting to see what effect the safer Car of Tomorrow has on the outcome.

Grabbing the pole will be smart. With this kind of race, running out in front of the carnage will be the smarter course. Being a smart track strategist, I’m sure Gordon and crew chief Steve Letarte have a plan to run smartly and safely.

Somehow you knew this guy would be out front.

It’s been that kind of year for Jeff Gordon.

I won’t say I am a genius or clairvoyant by any measure, but last Saturday’s race sure turned into Seperation Saturday in the Chase for the 2007 Nextel Cup Championship. To hear everyone tell it, barring a last minute “Hail Mary” by Clint Bowyer, this race has come down to two competitors: Defending Champ Jimmie Johnson and 4-time champ Jeff Gordon.

This is the funniest looking rivalry I’ve ever seen! I mean, you used to have polar opposites going toe to toe: Waltrip vs. Earnhardt, Earnhardt vs. Gordon, Yarborough vs. Pearson, Petty vs. the whole Alabama Gang, or Gordon vs. Stewart, but Gordon vs. Johnson? That’s like David vs. Jonathan, Magic vs. Isaiah, or the Labonte brothers vs……each other! These guys are best friends, and in many ways, have the same fan base.

Even when Junior comes over to Hendrick next year, many Junior fans will still despise Gordon and vice versa. Different drivers with different lifestyles and different fan bases. I mean this showdown is like Chevy vs. Pontiac! Gordo and JJ are both Californians, well-spoken, married, they’ve both won titles, so there’s no “underdog” factor here, and both are accused of being corporate robots by their detractors. It just feels weird.

Now I’m not saying we have fans up in arms over who to root for. As a Gordon fan, I’ll tell you I have no feelings for Jimmie, though I find him likable and respect his talents. By the same token, I definitely know Jimmie fans who’ll never root for the Dupont Chevy. It’s kind of odd, but the two really don’t cross over, so the fan rivalry is still there.

Yes, there’s still Clint Bowyer- champion of the underdog class, and new golden boy for the RCR crowd (who generally loathe HMS).

But “De- nile ain’t just a river in Egypt.” I’ll catch Haides for this one!

Oh boy! Good old fashioned racing will be the order of the day when the NASCAR roadshow comes to Martinsville, Virginia this weekend. They’ll be on the short track spinning like a top on one of NASCAR’s great old race sites.

Early word is that Champion-In-Waiting Jeff Gordon is the odds-on-favorite to win here as he has seven times before. As a fan of the #24 Chevy, I think another win or two would be a fitting exclamation point on his quest for a 2007 Cup championship. No sense in making a nail biter out of this. I mean, Jimmie Johnson’s a good guy in my opinion, but he won it last year, and he’ll have several more seasons left to claim more titles. I really think Gordon’s pushing the finish line and may be out by the time he’s 40. things he’s said just gives you the feeling that he has no magic number of championships to win or races, and he’ll hang it up when he’s good and ready. As a fan, it would be cool to see him win seven, so he could have his name up there with Petty and Earnhardt, but there’s too many variables that play a part in getting there. Like he may never get there. It’d also be nice to see him break 100 wins, and he only had 19 more to go. But as good as he is now, he’s won six, so at this rate, it would take a while. Some time soon Gordon’s racing “passion tank” will run out of gas. If you ask me, it won’t be long before Ingrid and Ella win out over his Chevy.

Gordon aside, there’s a number of guys running well right now. It’s been nice to see Bobby Labonte running well with better cars. Kasey Kahne is showing signs of life. I wouldn’t go shoveling dirt on Jimmie Johnson, Clint Bowyer, or Tony Stewart for their title hopes just yet. This kind of track is also one on which you’d expect Junior to run well. Hey- Mark Martin could do well here…if he’s running.

I just hope they don’t get all conservative on us like they did at Talladega. However- it’s a different car on a different track, so I wouldn’t worry too much about that.

Like a snake in the grass, Jeff Gordon snuck up and slithered through the field for the 80th win of his career at Talladega. Knowing how much fans hate him down there, I thought it was fitting he swept the ‘Dega stop in 2007. That man can win anywhere! Super Speedways, road courses, short tracks, you name it. And to think he did it leading only the last 1/3 lap of the 188 lap race. I was sure Kurt Busch, Tony Stewart, Ryan Newman or Jimmie Johnson would take the checkered flag. Heck, I thought Dave Blaney had a chance. Did you see Gordon slip between Johnson and Stewart? Classy move by Smoke not to rub the Rainbow Warrior off the track.

Some observations:

Can we all now say that Jacques Villanueve deserves a little credit? After qualifying 6th, the driver of the #27 Unicef Toyota put himself in the back of the field. He and his crew chief mutually concluded that with the car in qualifying and not racing trim, it would be best to let the first time Cup driver slip to the back. I thought that showed humility for the former open wheel champ will do a lot to earn him respect. Oh- the 21st place finish wasn’t bad either.

Drafting, drafting, and more drafting. Today’s winner admitted to yawning during the race. Junior complained of a boring race, though he did a nice job of leading for several laps. They all looked like a flock of flightless geese! It was nuts. Kind of interesting to see who would partner with who. You can definitely see that there’s more work in store for the Car of Tomorrow.

The not-so “Big One.” That 10 car pile-up triggered by Bobby Labonte fell well short of some of the Talladega wrecks we’ve seen. Not even “43″ himself has any idea what happened. Still, between crashes and engine failure, there was a lot of field missing at the end.

Speaking of engine failure…… Teresa haters are in full force tonight. As we know, DEI and RCR share an engine program, and one by one, we lost Martin Truex, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Burton, and on and on…….

The Chase Has A New Leader. He’s baaaack. Jeffrey Michael Gordon is now your new Nextel Cup standings leader. He leads HMS teammate Jimmie Johnson by four, with Tony Stewart and Clint Bowyer not that far behind. Kyle Busch sure has a hang dog look and seems to be ready to mail it in, Burton and Kenseth’s chase chances have been greatly injured. Besides the top four mentioned, I still think Carl Edwards, Kurt Busch, and Martin Truex will make noise. Poor Kevin Harvick may be stuck in the lower division with RCR teammate Burton.

All in all, it was a good race. There were some long, boring stretches, but we had a little bit of everything- including a final lap steal by the guy I think is the best racer in the business today.

Now it’s off to NASCAR’s home turf.

I’m not all that inspired tonight, but I was reminded of the guts NASCAR drivers have when a guy on Yahoo Answers! invited us to take a look at some crash footage he found on YouTube.

Naturally, I took the bait and looked, and once again (as I have done more than once), I looked at some other famous NASCAR crashes. There was Elliott Sadler doing the “Talladega Flip” on the final lap of the 2003 race, and lo and behold, the former driver of what is now David Gilliland’s car did it again in 2004, only this time “Rabbit Release” landed on his wheels after flipping and finished!

Have you ever seen the crash of Richard Petty where all the parts came flying off his car? What about the big wreck Dale Earnhardt got in back in his days behind the wheel of the #15 Wranglers Chevy? Then there’s the grandaddy of them all- a 37 car pile-up at Daytona back in 1960. Can you imagine running 61 cars at once? What were these guys thinking?

What amazes me is to think these drivers will get back in a car and race again. I am also reminded of safety innovations that have made racing safer. Earnhardt was the last guy we lost, over six years ago. I remember hearing about Kyle Petty breaking his leg, Earnhardt’s separated shoulder, Rudd doing the same thing this year. You no longer have a guy like Bobby Allison getting all messed up physically anymore.

I know there are fans out there that bemoan the Car of Tomorrow, restrictor plates, HANS devices and caution flags for what amounts to hankies flying across the track. But at least now, we have the nervous thrill of a crash, and the guy can still walk away from it.

Some notable 2007 crashes:

Bowyer at Daytona. I’ll never forget the #07 crossing the finish line on his roof. I know Clint had ol’ DW worried.

Mikey’s Fireworks Show. Ol’ Mike had a good scare there, and that HANS device sure makes it hard for a big guy to get out his car.

Jimmie’s Eye Brow Job. Jimmie Johnson put on quite a fireworks show himself. It was the 2nd Pocono race wasn’t it? JJ if you’re concerned about your eyebrows, may I suggest a waxing next time.

Robby Gordon’s plow job in the Busch Series. Looking back, Marcos Ambrose probably deserved a good tap, but “Trash” Gordon sure looked like a 4 year old on that brain fart.

Gordon crashing his pretty car in Charlotte. You remember the Coca-Cola 600? Gordon gets this special paint job with the Department of Defense on the hood, and he gets it mangled about 1/3 of the way through the race. He really hit that wall too.

Check out YouTube. There’s a ton of footage there. There are also some other good NASCAR clips.

Good night, everybody.

Now that was a race! I’m not sure I’d grade it as the best of 2007, but it was certainly a change of pace from the dominating performances we’ve recently seen.

Jimmie faded fast. To make matters worse, he came up lame with a flat tire. Then it looked like Denny Hamlin might break out the broom for a Dover sweep. He fell back and then he and Kype Petty offered up our daily dose of fireworks. A little more intense than the near mishap between Carl Edwards and Jeff Gordon in the pits. It sure looked like Matt Kenseth was going to pull away with the win, then he ran into uncharacteristic engine trouble. Rusty Wallace of ABC/ESPN pointed out this was the first DNF due to engine failure that M.K. had in over 2 years. Then the King of Concrete- Carl Edwards overtook the lead and mastered the Monster Mile for the win.

He had plenty of familiar company near the top. One gets the feeling that Roush/Fenway Racing has a handle on the Car of Tomorrow. we expect Carl to be good. It was nice to see teammates Kenseth and Greg Biffle running up front with him.

We had a little something for everybody- not only did Roush fans have something to cheer about- there was good news for HMS fans too. In spite of finishing outside the Top 10, Jeff Gordon is now the leader in the Chase standings, followed by teammate and defending champ Jimmie Johnson.

Old schoolers had to love that Mark Martin ran well today. He had the staying power to run up front, just not enough juice to overtake the Office Depot 99. It sounds like the furthering progression of the merge between DEI and Ginn Racing is enabling Mark to get better information.

Junior fans had a top 5 finish to cheer about. He couldn’t quite reach the very front, but seemed to run a very smart efficient race.

Fight fans had to get a kick out of the Denny Hamlin- Kyle Petty confrontation. Kyle said something about Denny hallucinating on whatever he was taking for his “flu.” If you ask me, when referencing my post from yesterday- Denny won the batte and lost the war.

Wreck fans weren’t cheated either. We got a mini-version of “The Big One” at Dover. Seems Kurt Busch blew a tire and collected about 11 other cars with him.

Looking back, it’s still early yet, but it looks like a pecking order is coming into view. It is my opinion that Hamlin and Harvick will finish outside the top 10, with Gordon, Johnson, Edwards, Stewart and I’m gonna say…….Matt Kenseth making the top 5.

Shout Out For The Boards- Kodiak 621 at “NASCAR for Dummies” has a great set of files on NASCAR families, and “Women of NASCAR” (I suspect his wife Amanda is carrying some ‘o’ the water on that one). You can see a great love of auto racing history and stats there. The kind of stuff I like.

I get a lot of good laughs out of ‘NASCAR Drivers Rule”. lots of good humor here. Somebody decided yesterday to re-cast “Star Wars” with NASCAR celebs. Imagine Junior as “Luke Skywalker” or Kenny Wallace as “C3PO”? I loved it!

See ya later,

Jimmy Mac

Congratulations go out to Clint “Little Jack” Bowyer on his first ever Nextel Cup win, a pretty darn commanding performance at New Hampshire. As my son would say, the Jack Daniels’ #07 Chevy was “crazy fast.” Bowyer let Tony Stewart and Kyle Busch “borrow” the lead for a while, but I’ll be darned if the 07 didn’t have an answer every time. My 9 year old daughter has a theory that starting from pole position is a guaranteed jinx, and most days there is sufficient evidence to back her hypothesis (and you thought NASCAR fans couldn’t use big words). What we saw today bears out that Richard Childress Racing got Bowyer’s car figured out from the get-go. That’s just awesome teamwork. You could tell Clint was freaking out a little bit and hearing footsteps towards the end (I thought the poor guy was losing his marbles), you rarely heard a complaint about the condition of his car.

So much for my idea that the Chase might be a little boring. Bowyer’s first Cup victory proves that just one race can shake the whole picture. If ya didn’t think the 28 year old Emporia, Kansas native was the real deal before, you get it now. The deal is this guy is a pure racer. It’s like the Pettys said back in the day, “Racin’ is all we know.” Like the King, you won’t likely hear Bowyer talking up boating, fishing, golf, scuba diving, or any of the other pastimes of the Cup drivers, Bowyer lists racing (of course) as a hobby as well as……working on classic cars. This dude’s got NASCAR real bad.

Before going further, I want to gloat for a minute. In last night’s post, I predicted at least one victory for the 07 before the year was out. I’m feeling mighty vindicated right now, because I’m guessing I’ll blow a few of my prognostications before the season is out.

Bowyer’s a good guy, driving a good car for a good team. Get used to the camera Clint, and switch to decaff before your next win. There’ll be many more.

Other observations from New Hampshire:

1) The Chase guys represented pretty well. My boy Gordon took 2nd, Smoke pushed for and took the lead at times, Rowdy Busch overcame a ratty car to place top 5, and Jimmie wasn’t too bad either. This group is legit.

2) Carl Edwards showed some skill today. It might not be evident by his finish, but remember, he ran today in a back-up car.

3) Kurt Busch’s standing plummeted today. Word was the #2 Miller Lite Dodge ran on 7 cylinders. He kept it in the race though.

4) A message board buddy astutely pointed out that today was the first time in the Modern Era (1972- ) that all cars that started the race, finished it. I had no idea. There was a lot of swervin’ goin’ on, but David Blaney, Kevin Harvick, and Junior all kept the cars in the race. Is it possible that the spin outs AND the fact the cars avoided debilitating wrecks were in part due to the Car of Tomorrow? I suppose we’ll hear more about that from the Monday morning quarterbacks tomorrow.

5) This was a good chase race. I wasn’t real impressed with the Spring edition of the 2007 race at New Hampshire. There was some pit strategy, a little bit of rubbing, some good, hard driving and a race known more for its actual racing, and not for fist fights, wrecking, and grist for the “mill of bizzare conspiracy theories.” It was kind of refreshing.

That’s all for tonight. This week I’ll be pondering the question of how far is too far when supporting your driver or talking trash about another. Standards seem to be lacking and it sure causes some nasty scuffles.

C U soon.

It all starts tomorrow campers! The Chase is on beginning at Loudon, New Hampshire. All week long there’s been a load of buzz and speculation on what the final 10 races of the 2007 season hold in store.

I’ve got my swami turban on and heck my opinion counts for no less than Rusty Wallace, so here goes:

1) The primary battle for the Nextel Cup will come down to two teammates from HMS- Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon. My heart’s with Gordon, if I had to bet money, I’d go with Jimmie.

2) Tony Stewart, Kyle Busch and Carl Edwards will push these guys real hard and should not be counted out. Oh, count Kurt Busch in this group too.

3) This year’s chase will put Martin Truex and Clint Bowyer on the map- so to speak. I had no idea who Truex was when this season started. I do now.

4) I really like Jeff Burton but I just don’t know if he can be better than top 10.

5) Clint Bowyer will win a race before the year’s over.

6) Due to his success this season, Denny Hamlin may steal some more of the young female vote from Kasey Kahne.

7) The Rushville Rocket in the #20 Home Depot Chevy will win one more race in a Chevy before moveing on to Toyota in 2008.

We may end up forgetting that Kevin Harvick is even in the Chase. Still a good racer though. Same for Matt Kenseth.

9) Dale Earnhardt, Jr. will still keep stealing the spotlight away from the Chase. Not his fault. He will win a race before this year’s over. Could be at Mardi Gras, I mean Talledega.

10) Tony may win tomorrow at New Hampshire. He was crazy fast yesterday. Big Shrub and Jimmie may have something for him.

11) A Toyota will win one race before it’s over in 2007- thanks to either Brian Vickers or David “The Beak” Reutimann.

12) And the winner of the 2007 Nextel Cup is………Jimmie Johnson in a repeat.