Driver skill saved Vegas from big embarrassment

LAS VEGAS -- In Las Vegas, appearances can be deceiving. The glittering neon obscures dusty alleyways, boorish drunks and addicts gambling away their savings. False eyelashes and pancake makeup hide the true age of the showgirl. And nine caution flags masked just how perilous Sunday's race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway really was.

"There were like top-10 saves [Sunday]. There were some saves that were miraculous," Dale Earnhardt Jr. said after exiting his No. 8 car. "There were a lot of guys getting out of control."

• Send David your thoughts

Sheer talent prevented the UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 from becoming a debacle on the scale of Saturday's Busch race at the recently altered 1.5-mile track, which included an event-record 12 cautions and took nearly three hours to complete. The Nextel Cup event featured just nine yellow flags, a relatively low amount on any speedway. It wasn't even close to the 22-caution, tire-blowing extravaganza the sport witnessed the last time an intermediate circuit was overhauled in 2005.

And for that we can thank the innate driving ability of the men behind the wheel, who were tested by a combination of tire and racetrack akin to rolling a marble on a granite countertop. On almost every lap there were wiggles and wobbles and cars yawing left and right. And on almost every lap there were drivers sawing wood on the steering wheel, keeping the nose pointed forward, and making the race appear much more benign than it really was.

"I predicted much more gloom and doom than this," said Mark Martin, who finished fifth. "I want to give a shout out to all the drivers [Sunday]. They were extremely cautious. Very smart driving, as smart as I've ever seen these guys drive under all the pressure that they're under. They all did a great job, and it wasn't nearly as much of a disaster as I thought it was going to be."

That's because of the NASCAR-mandated smaller fuel cell, which shortened green-flag runs. That's because the harder left-side tire, implemented by Goodyear because of a spate of testing crashes here in January. But most of all it was because of the drivers, who were sent out onto a slick new track on a tire compound none of them had any previous experience with, and salvaged what could have been a disastrous situation.

Plenty of drivers broke loose and hit the wall. Plenty more broke loose and didn't. The latter group includes race winner Jimmie Johnson, who claimed his third consecutive Las Vegas event despite one harrowing moment when the back of his No. 48 car tried to come around on him, and he somehow straightened it out. (Continued)