Hendricks Teammates Pull 1-2 Sweep at LMS
Jimmie Johnson held off teammate Jeff Gordon by 1.7 seconds in a “must win” situation that even he admits may not help his Chase fortunes without outside help. Johnson snatched the lead with 16 laps left in the UAW-GM Quality 500, then held off Gordon to revitalize, at least momentarily, his effort to win his first Nextel Cup championship.
“I think we still have hopes, but I think it is out of our control,” Johnson said. “It is going to require Jeff, (Kurt Busch and Dale Earnhardt Jr.) to have some bad luck to put us back in a window where we can control it.”
The top five in the Chase standings remained the same. Busch has a 24-point lead over Earnhardt [the 25 point penalty still looms large - ed ], followed by Jeff Gordon (74 behind), Elliott Sadler (157) and Mark Martin (186).
The rookie curse still plagues Kasey Kahne as he dominated with 207 laps led of the 267 he completed before a right front tire blew on his No.9 Dodge, and sending it into the Turn 2 wall and out of the race. Mark Martin’s quest for his first Championship may have suffered a fatal blow when he became a victim of a late race collision between Brendan Gaughan and Jimmy Spencer causing major front-end damage to Martin’s No.6 Ford.
“It’s hard for me to believe some of these guys could pass a driver’s test,” Martin said of the accident that ruined his night.When asked if his bid to win his first championship was over, Martin paused before answering.
“We gave it a great run,” he said. “I can’t help it.”
What remains is most probably a two man race to the Championship.
DavidD Poole of the The Charlotte Observer, via That’s Racing, offers a few “what ifs:”
What if Busch hadn’t made it through the first-lap wreck relatively unscathed? Greg Biffle got the worst of that wreck and he wound up 33rd. Had Busch finished 33rd, he’d be third in the points today and Earnhardt Jr. would lead Gordon by 50.What if Gordon’s car had been damaged as badly as Wallace’s was in their Lap 76 wreck? Wallace finished 31st, and if Gordon had finished there he’d have scored 100 fewer points. Today, we’d be looking at Busch vs. Earnhardt Jr. head-to-head with five races left in the Chase.
What if NASCAR hadn’t penalized Earnhardt Jr. for inappropriate language after his Talladega win, or if that penalty were to be overturned
