Thoughts on a Windy City Win

• It will show that Mark Martin dominated the LifeLock.com 400, leading 195 laps and cruising to his series leading fourth win of the year. In reality though it was anything but easy for Martin as he had to withstand a variety of obstacles in the closing laps to pickup his first win at Chicagoland. The main hurdle Martin had to contend with was the flurry of cautions late; there were four of them in the last 50 laps that enabled Jimmie Johnson, who appeared to have the better car on shorter runs, use to his advantage and work by Martin. Martin undeterred, stayed patient and in turn used the other three cautions to not only re-pass Johnson but fend-off spirited charges from Denny Hamlin, Brian Vickers, and Jeff Gordon, who just happened to have four fresher tires than Martin, but didn’t have the time nor the speed to get by his teammate.
  
  
• Martin’s fourth win of the year was good on multiple levels, but the most important is the fact that Martin now moves back into the Chase for the Championship. And if, and at this point it’s still an if, Martin does make the Chase this year and he continues to lead the series in wins, he will be the points leader when the standings are reset entering round one of the Chase at New Hampshire.
  
  
• With his fifth-place run Saturday night, Denny Hamlin has recorded four top-five finishes in the last five races.
  
  
• Juan Pablo Montoya had yet another top-10 finish, in what is quickly becoming the norm for him, and has moved-up to ninth in points and looks more than capable of making the Chase for the Championship for the first time in his career.
  
  
• It’s a good thing I didn’t pick Carl Edwards to win on Saturday, because for the most part he was nonexistent and never once looked anything like a potential victor. On the other hand my pick, Kyle Busch, had about as bad a night as one could imagine. At this point in the year it’s becoming more and more apparent that Busch is as close to winning his first Sprint Cup as say the guy who replaced him at Hendrick Motorsports, Dale Earnhardt Jr.
  
  
• Oh, one more thing about Kyle Busch; his refusal to talk to the media is just further proof that he continues to be the biggest front-runner in all of sports.
  
  
• The double-file restart procedure that was implemented seven races ago has been a godsend for the sport and begs the question why this rule wasn’t made years ago? It’s made races at Pocono, Infineon and Chicago, which typically feature races about as compelling as watching someone mow their lawn, into races that all have featured at good, solid finishes, which really is all you can ask for at the end of the day.
  
  
• Chicagoland is just one of two tracks that Jack Roush has never won at and after this weekend it continues to be a track that eluded Roush. First, all five of his cars struggled in qualifying, with none qualifying better than 17th. Then, on Saturday night Roush saw his fleet never quite come to terms with the mile-and-a-half track and with the best finish coming when Edwards crossed the line in 14th. The bad news for Roush is that the next race on the schedule is at the other track where he has never won a race and that would the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
  
  
• Here’s how bad Kevin Harvick’s year has been: It’s now been 8 races since his last top-15 finish and 16 races since his last top-10.
  
  
• While a Jimmie Johnson-Kurt Busch rivalry doesn’t quite have the same ring to it as Petty-Pearson or Earnhardt-Elliot, it does appear that this could be our next rivalry in the sport as two champions have now tangled on the track in three out of the last four races.