Michigan Race Was Exciting ~ For One Lap

With Jimmie Johnson flat out dominating the race this past Sunday at Michigan, it looked liked it was going to be another pretty boring COT race for much of the day. There were very few lead changed and very few leaders other than Johnson. Instead of a day of Roushkateers running for the lead, as was expected, it was a textbook example of another Johnson/Knaus embarrassing the field.

Until the final few laps when all heck broke loose.

With Johnson and Biffle battling each other for the lead, it became apparent that fuel mileage could possibly determine the outcome of the race. Unlike the previous week, where Carl Edwards did not run down Tony Stewart in order to preserve his finish, Johnson and Biffle went at each other hard, consuming precious fuel.

When it appeared that Johnson would have the upper hand, he suddenly slowed, running out of fuel -- giving the race to Biffle. Or at least we all thought that. Instead, Biffle ran out of fuel and handed the race to Mark Martin whose patience paid dividends.

And those last few laps my friends, gave us an exciting finish in a rather lackluster day of racing. We all know the drivers love the wide track and can run dang near anywhere they want at Michigan. But that does not always make for great side-by-side racing.

A lot of teams never found the handle at Michigan this past weekend. Matt Kenseth (remember him?) flirted with the top-ten but never was able to hang in there. Dale Earnhardt Jr. pretty much stayed in the top 15 after starting near the rear of the field. The RCR cars, except for Bowyer, seemed to struggle most of the day.

But kudos out to Montoya, Sadler and Vickers for having a pretty nice weekend. And to Jeff Gordon coming from the rear of the field to finish second.

All of our best to Johnny Benson who was hospitalized with injuries after a fiery crash at a Berlin Raceway in Michigan. Benson crashed early in the race after being jammed into the outside wall causing his car to catch fire. Benson is the reigning Camping World Truck Series champion but lost his ride after the team lost sponsorship.

As was discussed here last year, GM and Chrysler are cutting back on team funding. And while many smaller teams don’t rely on manufacturer funding, larger teams do. But less funding is less funding no matter how you slice it. As larger teams hunt for more sources of funding, smaller teams will start to lose out as funds start to siphon off to the larger teams. There is only so much money to go around so watch for things to get tighter before the end of the year, especially in the Nationwide and Camping World series.

TNT gives us Wally Dallenbach and Kyle Petty and we love it. Although TNT also promotes its animated online show and online ventures with nascar.com, at least we are not beaten over the head with rodentia.