The Other Big Race

I posted yesterday on the Indy 500, and here's the report on the other big race, the Coke 600 from Charlotte. I watched about half of it last night and finally finished the other half this morning. It was much more of a wreck-fest than I'm used to seeing in this race.

The track had been ground down to smooth it out a little bit since the last race, and the result was record speeds, and record cautions. Turn two seemed particularly dicey as many of the cautions were caused by single car spins coming off that turn. It was not a good night for teammates either. Early in the race, right after car owned Chip Ganassi arrived from Indy, Casey Mears wrecked and took out his teammate Sterling Marlin. Later Dale Earnhardt Jr. ran all over his teammate Michael Waltrip and effectively put both of them out of the race. Finally, late in the race, Brian Vickers caused an accident that put teammate Jeff Gordon in the garage.

By the end of the night, the cars looked like they had been running at Bristol instead of Charlotte. Most of the cars were carrying various patches and pieces to smooth out damage from earlier incidents. There was a lot of good racing, and the ending was as suspenseful as the ending of the 500.

With 10 laps to go Joe Nemechek was leading and pulling away by 20 car lengths. He looked like a sure winner, and then lost the right rear tire and spun into the fence. This made for about a 6 lap green flag run to the finish led by Bobby Labonte. Labonte was sporting unfamiliar colors this weekend. Teammate Jason Leffler drives the FedEx sponsored 11 car, but failed to qualify for the race. The Joe Gibbs team, fearing a sponsorship disaster with FedEx out of the race, put the FedEx colors on the 18 car of Bobby Labonte. They were apparently able to work out a deal with Interstate Batteries for the race.

Gibbs Racing insists that Leffler's job is secure in the 11 car, but with veteran driver Ward Burton sitting on the sidelines, I would guess that Leffler better step it up or Burton may find himself back in Nextel Cup and Leffler will be looking for a ride.

Labonte led nearly all of the remaining laps with Jimmie Johnson coming hard. Johnson threw his car hard into turns three and four on the final lap and just squeezed by Labonte by half a car length at the finish line. After 600 miles of racing, the winning margin was about 6 feet. Given that Johnson is sponsored by Lowes, who also sponsors the track, it was a sponsor's dream for the track promoter and the 48 team. Congrats to Jimmy and the Hendrick Racing organization for winning their third 600 in a row.

You can read more about the race at NASCAR.com.