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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.

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.

With a certain measure of disappointment, I grapple with the fact that Junior didn’t make the Chase. He fought valiantly and raced pretty darn well until his engine blew at the end. Yet, when it all comes down, Kevin Harvick and Kurt Busch just wouldn’t be denied.
Like him or not, give Dale Earnhardt, Jr. respect. He laid it all out on the track and probably deserved a better fate in 2007. You won’t count me among conspiracy theorists, but DEI had some real crappy engines this year. Just like he said in the post-race interview, the number eight car ran well all year long, but it’s been one problem after another that doesn’t relate to driving. Junior showed heart, respect, and class throughout all this. Junior Nation, you can count on this: Junior will keeping pressing on give you plenty to cheer about as the last 10 races run.

Other Reflections from Richmond
(with a rock ‘n’ roll twist. Hey’s its the Chevy Rock ‘n’ Roll 400)

Top Jimmie.- If you have the album 1984 by Van Halen, you know the song. “Top Jimmy cooks, top Jimmy swings. He’s got the looks, top Jimmy- he’s the king.” Look out world! Jimmie Johnson is on the move! I’m going out on a limb and predicting a repeat for the Lowe’s 48 Chevy. The HMS boys have got it going on.

All The Young Dudes/strong>. A Mott The Hoople classic from the 70s. Some young dudes sure looked good tonight. David Ragan posts his 2nd top five of the yearand the #70 car of Johnny “NASCAR Prime Time” Sauter posted his firt top 5. On top of that, young ‘ens Kyle Busch, Clint Bowyer, Martin Truex and Denny Hamlin are all in the Chase. Ragan was just crazy fast at the end tonight.