In The Rearview: Pepsi 500

Sometimes everything goes your way, and sometimes you end up looking like a fool. Although I am eager to write these blogs, henceforth they will be written AFTER practice and/or qualifying to keep me from looking foolish. Or maybe I'll continue to do things my way so you have my take before NASCAR.Com gives you theirs.
If you missed the race you didn't miss much, unless you're a Jimmie Johnson fan. Even then, I'd say the most exciting event of the evening was a caution light falling off the catch-fence for one of the sparse cautions, more of that later.
The No. 48 crew was able to flat-out dominate the rest of the field, in the early going and even through the end. Greg Biffle's team was the only team that could have even challenge for the lead, and that didn't pan out so well for The Biff.
With this race being so similar to Michigan it honestly makes me wonder why either of those two tracks have two dates. The fact that there are more deserving tracks out there, (e.g. Kentucky, Nashville, Kansas, Iowa Las Vegas...) that deserve either a chance at a Sprint Cup date or a second date. Pocono, Fontana and Michigan can probably all get by with only one race a year.

Smooth Sailing: This has to be given to the 48 team...no, no it doesn't. Even though I thought Johnson would be a long shot, he dominated the field and had great pit stops, HOWEVER, I was more impressed by Greg Biffle's team. They beat the 2 time series champ on pit road. So I give my 'Smooth Sailing' to the No. 16 pit crew- great job guys!

Uh-Oh: This one goes to NASCAR this year, Tony Stewart was the only title contender to finish in the lower half of the field (22nd). As far as I'm concerned it's time NASCAR realize what's best for it's fans and not just concern itself with markets.

Time to Pack It Up: Autoclub Speedway. I can't criticize any drivers this week, the strong finished well and the week finished towards the back. Everything went pretty much as expected. I hope and somewhat expect this So. Cal. track to lose it's second date within the next two years unless people start buying tickets to an extremely boring track, that has no place to be in the Chase.

What in the world?: It's raining...CAUTION LIGHTS?! The most entertaining part of the night was the caution light causing a caution. One of the track's caution lights fell off the fence to cause a caution, this due to the high amount of turbulence the cars create driving by as fast as they do. Later the same caution light had a piece fall off of it to cause another caution. This is rather pathetic, this being the most memorable part of the race
My Congratulations to the No. 48 team.