NASCAR's longest event on the calendar was an eventful race full of shocking moments. Carl Edwards did a fantastic job at picking up from where he left off after dominating the All-Star race. The fastest cars all day were Edwards, Kyle Busch, Kenseth, Kahne, Ambrose, and Ragan. Jack Roush Racing brought their "A" game to Charlotte Motor Speedway as that organization alone led over 140 laps in the first 200 laps of the event. It would have been outstanding to see David Ragan win his first career Sprint Cup Series race. Many members of the Ragan family over the past several generations has had some success in NASCAR racing, but no Ragan family members has ever won a Cup race. There have been a couple occasions where a Ragan family member has been close to a win, but it just never happened. I know that I am not the only NASCAR fan that has faith in the young man driving that #6 UPS Ford.
The Busch Brothers
The inconsistency of cautions throughout the race kept surprising the fans and experts. There wasn't much action in terms of car accidents or any reasons for caution in the first half of the race, it felt like nobody could avoid trouble in the second half. On lap 160 Kurt Busch complained of a loose tire and after a green flag pit stop which put hima lap down, it was determined the left-rear tire was loose. On lap 233 a caution came out for the 2002 Truck Series Champion Mike Bliss who was sitting at a complete stop near the entrance of pit road. This caution on lap 233 interrupted green flag pit stops, Kurt Busch was the only driver yet to pit when this took place. As a result several drivers chose to take the "wave around" option where they don't make a pit stop in order to get back on the lead lap. Kurt got lucky.
Once Kyle Busch found the front of the competition everyone knew it would take some awfully bad luck to prevent him from earning a good finish or the victory. Marcos Ambrose ran a very impressive race again, but he surrendered the lead to Rowdy Busch on lap 246. After just taking the lead Kyle ran his fastest lap of the race at that point on lap 251. The problem Kyle Busch had was a loose race car during the night time portion of the event. Kyle spun and brought the caution out twice, one of those spins took him right through the front straight-away grass. He is lucky is car wasn't damaged.
Jeff Gordon was running in the 10th position not even 100 laps completed in the event. He lost a tremendous amount of track position when he decided to take 4 tires on a yellow flag pit stop while the majority of the other drivers elected to gamble and take two tires. After that the #24 team struggled all race long with a tight race car around the 18th position. Just when all hope was lost a caution came out with 120 laps to go which once again interrupted the cycle of green flag pit stops. This time Jeff Gordon, Mark Martin, and David Gilliland were the cars that were yet to make a pit stop. This was the point where cautions began to take place quite frequently. Matt Kenseth and Jeff Gordon while under green flag racing conditions had to pit knowing they were both seconds from running on fumes. Congratulations to Ricky Stenhouse Jr. for earning an 11th place finish in his first career Sprint Cup Series race. Despite constant minor contact with the outside wall Ricky managed to be in a good spot near the end of the race to take advantage of drivers being out of fuel for this incredible debut finish. That is two drivers that have done something amazing in that #21 Wood Brothers Ford.
The entire 600 mile event showed us how difficult it really is to determine who is going to win a race or even who will finish well. Drivers like Kyle Busch, Jeff Gordon, Mark Martin, Ryan Newman, and Matt Kenseth all experienced good luck but then horrible luck. Just when certain drivers thought they were getting a break something caused these drivers to not earn a well deserved finish. Kasey Kahne was searching for the correct line to use that would get him around the race track the fastest all race long. On the final restart Kasey Kahne ran out of fuel which stacked up the rest of the cars, and that caused several cars to collide. Tough break for Kasey and that #4 Red Bull team. The Hendrick Motorsports drivers all had competitive, fast race cars but they all experienced a form of bad luck or bad timing which caused them to not finish as well as they could have. Mark Martin was involved in a wreck, Jeff Gordon had to pit due to low fuel, Jimmie Johnson blew up with 5 laps to go, and Dale Earnhardt Jr. ran out of fuel on the final turn of the final lap to once again fail at snapping that long winless streak. I can't help but feel sorry for the fast cars that didn't have a good finish at the end of this race.
Noteable Drivers Results:1. Kevin Harvick
2. David Ragan (Best career Cup finish)
3. Joey Logano
4. Kurt Busch5. A.J. Allmendinger
6. Marcos Ambrose
7. Dale Earnhardt Jr.
8. Regan Smith
9. David Reutimann
10. Denny Hamlin
13. Greg Biffle
14. Matt Kenseth
15. Clint Bowyer
16. Carl Edwards
17. Tony Stewart
20. Jeff Gordon
21. Jeff Burton
22. Kasey Kahne
28. Jimmie Johnson
31. Ryan Newman
32. Kyle Busch
Images from: http://www.nascar.com/news/110529/kharvick-wins-charlotte-dearnhardtjr/index.html
Written by: Tyler McMurter
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