"Beast of the Southeast grabs Jr., Cousin Carl and Kenseth; Burton wins, now 2nd in points"

Jeff Burton won the Bank of America 500 over Kasey Kahne, 2nd and Kurt Busch, 3rd. More important--Burton now trails Jimmie Johnson (finished 6th) by 69 points. Johnson led 67 of the 334 laps..but his car seemed to lose the handle and the two time and defending champion literally hung on to finish 6th. Carl Edwards had an electrical problem which dropped him back to a 33rd place finish, and 168 points behind Johnson. Dale Earnhardt Jr was caught up in a crash...and finished 36th. Matt Kenseth crashed out and was credited with a 41st place finish. Jr is 10th in points (-354); Kenseth 11th (-360).

Kahne had the fastest car at the end...and cut a lead by Burton (up to 1.7 seconds at one point) to .946 of a second at the checkers.

We'll button up here...and join you later this morning in Petersburg, VA.

You DID See A Picture Like This in Late July

Jimmie Johnson dominated the Pepsi 500 at Auto Club Speedway, and with served notice that he and Chad Knaus (crew chief) do indeed have something for the Chase. Domination=leading228 of 250 laps. That puts him in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Championship.

Top Finishers:

Johnson--Top Chevy

Greg Biffle, 2nd--Top Ford

Denny Hamlin, 3rd--Top Toyota

Kasey Kahne, 8th--Top Dodge

Other Notables:

Point Leader Kyle Busch--7th

Carl Edwards--6th

Dale Earnhardt, Jr.--11th (clinches a spot in the Chase)

Jeff Burton (500th career start)--17th and joins Busch, Edwards, Johnson and Earnhardt, Jr in the Championship Chase, which begins on September 14, at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

See you later in the week at the Action Track.

"The Carl, Bob and Jack Show"--Roush wins at Pocono

Is it better to be lucky than good? You might properly direct that question at "Cousin Carl" Edwards and long-time crew chief Bob Osborne. Osborne called his driver into the pits for a tire stop which put him out of the lead (at the time). Osborne and Edwards had a disagreement on the strategy (or lack thereof). After a 41 minute rain delay, Mr. Osborne's strategy reminded one of another denizen of "Happy Valley"--JoPa. Edwards was in the right place at the right time afterward, and had enough to win over a charging Tony Stewart, who would have won the race if it were 10 laps longer. Brickyard 400 winner Jimmie Johnson was 3rd. I would not have wanted to be on Kyle Busch's plane this evening--the Sprint Cup point leader lost a lot of his lead because his car ran out of gas two laps from the end...as he was running fourth. So the post race show was entertaining with Jack Roush just sitting back like the "Cat in the Hat".

The points going into Watkins Glen:

Kyle Busch--3059

Dale Earnhardt, Jr.--2883 (-176)

Carl Edwards--2874 (-185)

Jimmie Johnson--2859 (200)

Jeff Burton--2833 (226)

6-12

Jeff Gordon

Kasey Kahne

Greg Biffle

Tony Stewart

Denny Hamlin

Kevin Harvick

Clint Bowyer 2512

Matt Kenseth is 13th at 2501 points.

We'll resume live blogging from the IndyCar event at Infineon Raceway outside Sonoma, California.

JJ "Has Somethin' For 'em at the Tricky Trioval"

This result happened last weekend at Indianapolis...so for the second time in a week...Jimmie Johnson and Mark Martin will start first and second for this weekend's Pennsylvania 500 at Pocono Raceway--a/k/a the "Tricky Trioval". Maybe the race at Chicagoland Speedway (where Johnson was beaten by point leader Kyle Busch) served as a defining moment--where crewchief Chad Knaus and JJ said "enough". The Knaus crew had to replace some balky shifter mechanisms before Johnson went to qualify...Mark Martin was fast at 167.560 miles an hour. Johnson put his Lowe's Chevy Impala SS on the pole with a lap of 168.215 miles an hour. Johnson's key to this race is tire management--during qualifying, drivers want to beat the snot out of the tires, because this 2 1/2 mile trioval is very abrasive. During the race, drivers want to conserve tires, because the track is so abrasive. Kasey Kahne will start the race 7th in his Budmobile (Dodge Charger). The point leader, Kyle Busch, struggled in practice, and didn't find a lot more speed in qualifying, so he'll start 27th out of 43 cars.

ARCA Note: Scott Speed is making the transition to full fendered cars with style...he's on the pole for Saturday's ARCA race. I wonder what might have happened had he been allowed to get a couple of years testing for the main Red Bull team in F1--and then try his hand. Dieter Mateschitz is a good judge of talent, IMO.