Weekend That Was: Lowe's

CONCORD, N.C. -- Driver Jimmy Spencer once joked that he would dispatch crew members to an infield concession stand for at least two hot dogs during every Coca-Cola 600.

"It's a really long race. You get hungry out there," he joked.

Then again, maybe he wasn't joking. Asked to clarify whether this tale was fact or fiction years after it was first told, Spencer winked and said, "Well, it depends on how you're running. If you ain't runnin' no good, why not grab something to eat during one of your stops? It is a long race."

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The implication was that the longest race on NASCAR's Cup Series schedule was so long that a couple of meal-times might come and go before it was finished. And every year when it is run, the 600 is the butt of jokes from time to time by everyone from the media to the drivers to the crew chiefs who know their car's equipment will be put to the most severe test of the 36-race Cup season.

But if anyone needed a reminder of why it is such an important stop on the Cup schedule, and why one 600-mile race is necessary on a season crammed with 35 other events that are all 100 miles or more shorter, that reminder came Sunday night.

This 600 had a little of everything. There were spectacular multiple-car wrecks within the first 100 laps that ruined the nights of some top stars early, such as points leader Jeff Gordon (watch video), and simply made the long night even more of a challenge for other stars such as Jimmie Johnson and Tony Stewart. There were tire issues and track-temperature challenges, as the asphalt the racers tore around on was charted at 125 degrees at the start and about 85 degrees by the finish. There were, as there always are in the 600, equipment failures that ended quality runs and pit-crew triumphs that saved the days of others in peril because of the punishing nature of the event.

In the end, it became a fuel-mileage gambit with all the tense decision-making that entails (watch video). Stewart, who was leading the race, was forced into the pits for a splash of fuel as the final laps wound down -- as were Johnson and Dale Earnhardt Jr., who also was among the top late challengers for the lead.

This was a race that had it all: intrigue early and late, with lots of exciting racing in between. And when it was over, it had produced the unlikeliest list of top-five finishers in recent memory.

Yes, it was yet another victory for Hendrick Motorsports -- the ninth in 12 races this season. But because it was Mears' first career victory, because Mears is the anti-Kyle Busch of the Hendrick team and appears to be a well-mannered, polite, nice guy that everyone can root for, it still had the real look and feel of an underdog coming out on top (watch video). (Continued)