Weekend That Was: Dover

While admitting that the world is still searching for the debris in Turn 2 that caused a caution flag to be thrown on Lap 355 of the Dodge Dealers 400 at Dover International Speedway on Sunday, was it really as bad of a race as many apparently seem to think?

Um, no. Not really.

The critics will say that it was ridiculous to have only six cars finish on the lead lap, and they would be correct. For Chase contestants Jeff Burton and Tony Stewart to finish seventh and ninth, respectively, despite being one lap down admittedly seems a little outlandish.

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The critics will point to the spring race at Dover last year, when 21 cars finished on the lead lap. That day, Martin Truex Jr. was the driver of the first car to complete the race one lap down -- and he had a 22nd-place finish to show for it.

Bash the Car of Tomorrow. Rip the track. Chastise eventual winner Carl Edwards for supposedly bending the rules by having his car fail post-race inspection (read more).

Kick the dog, if you must. (But please take it easy and apologize later, lest the animal activists start an e-mail campaign against this avowed dog lover).

All the while keep in mind that these races are supposed to be entertainment, and Sunday's race at least offered a healthy dose of that while keeping interest in the Chase at an optimum. And for those historians throwing the 2006 spring race in your face, remind them that Matt Kenseth was the first car to finish a lap down in the fall race at Dover a year ago -- and he was rewarded with a top-10 finish as only nine cars in that event finished on the lead lap.

The bottom line is that no race is going to be perfect. And here's a newsflash for you: during the ones that are less so, NASCAR will do everything it can to try to make it more so (especially when it can then offer to viewers the last 40 laps of a televised event commercial-free, which was a feeble attempt to make up for the first 360 that were commercial-saturated).

That means sometimes throwing caution flags to bunch up the field when the layman's naked eye has more than a little difficulty locating the debris for which said caution supposedly is being thrown. It's been going on in this sport to varying degrees for years.

It might be more manipulative than most fans or competitors want -- but like so many things in Nextel Cup racing, that often depends on one's point of view at the moment in question. If you weren't rooting for or driving one of the cars running in the top five late in Sunday's race, you better believe that the mysterious caution thrown on Lap 355 of the 400-lap event was welcome.

The problem was that it and the many other caution flags thrown Sunday directly contributed to much of the mayhem that almost immediately followed. Bad things are going to happen late in races when the field gets bunched up -- and nothing was worse Sunday than the 12-car pileup that ensued when something on Kurt Busch's No. 2 Dodge apparently broke and sent him slamming into the outside wall as he came out of Turn 2 on Lap 386, just two laps after the latest restart following a yellow (watch video).

Busch came down the track and hit Reed Sorenson's No. 41 Dodge, and then was rear-ended by teammate Ryan Newman in his No. 12 Dodge. Hey, it was the Dodge Dealers 400 and you have to admit: these Dodges were dishing out some heavy damage to each other.

Eventually a total of 12 cars were damaged in the wreck -- a Big One if there ever was One.

It left everyone scrambling to see how it all affected the Chase for the Nextel Cup, which is totally up for grabs. After just two of the 10 Chase races, the top eight contenders are within 75 points of one another. Despite his obvious displeasure with the Car of Tomorrow and how difficult he and many others believe it is to drive, Jeff Gordon coaxed an 11-place finish out of his No. 24 Chevrolet and grabbed the lead in the Chase. But Tony Stewart lurks just two points behind, Edwards is only three off the pace (but likely will be at least 25 more behind when the penalty for failing post-race inspection is handed down), and Jimmie Johnson is just four behind.

Throw in the highly entertaining Denny Hamlin-Kyle Petty brouhaha after their earlier crash, some decent side-by-side racing throughout the day (yes, I saw it), the fact that guys like Clint Bowyer charged from the very rear of the field to near the front, and Sunday was far from the disaster that some depicted it to be.

In this corner ...

Mark Aumann says the Dover race had more qualities of a Sunday-night prize fight than Round 2 of the Chase.

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Old vs. new
Was there ever a more apt example of old school meeting new school than when Petty reached inside Hamlin's car and flipped the No. 11 Chevy driver's visor shut after admonishing him following their mishap on Lap 203 Sunday (watch video)?

Petty was right, by the way. If Hamlin had simply been patient, Petty was trying to let him go by.

What infuriated Petty so much was that, while Hamlin admittedly is racing for the more lucrative Chase loot, Petty was battling to keep his No. 45 Dodge in the top 35 in owner points. For Petty Enterprises at this stage of the game, that's very important.

When it Raines ...
What did anybody ever do to Tony Raines, one of the nicest drivers on the Nextel Cup circuit if, admittedly, not the most talented?

First Robby Gordon wrecks him in the Busch race Saturday at Dover, and then John Andretti wrecks him on Sunday (watch video). All this comes as Raines attempts to finish the season strong, knowing that he becomes a free agent at its end. It already has been announced that J.J. Yeley will be replacing him as driver of the No. 96 Chevy for Hall of Fame Racing, beginning in 2008.

You got a sense that it all boiled to a head for the usually mild-mannered Raines on Saturday, when he fired his helmet at Gordon's car following that incident (watch video). When it Raines these days, obviously it pours.

Quotable, Part I
"Unfortunately, they can't keep idiots like Robby Gordon from driving racecars."
-- Raines, following the Busch Series incident.

Quotable, Part II
"People don't realize. That's who we are. That's one of the things I wish our sport was better at -- where you took a number and kept it. Because Richard Petty is No. 43. He'll always be 43. David Pearson will always be No. 21. I wish it was that way for everybody, where you took a number and kept it forever."
-- Darrell Waltrip, talking about the importance of a car's number and the switch from No. 8 to 88 for Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Pit Stops
• While we're throwing out bad attempts at puns, did you hear the new nickname public relations standout David Ferroni has given to driver Joe Nemechek? Formerly known as Front Row Joe, now Nemechek is Furniture Row Joe -- in honor of the sponsor of the No. 78 car Nemechek is now driving. Nemechek started 18th and finished 22nd in Sunday's race.

• You've got to hand it to former open-wheel stars Jacques Villeneuve and Buddy Lazier. They knew the best place on the NASCAR circuit to plan their first race -- as each made his Craftsman Truck Series debut on Saturday at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Villeneuve placed 21st and Lazier 24th. No word yet on how they did at the city's famed gaming tables.

• Travis Kvapil won the Truck race in Vegas, by the way (watch video). It was his fourth win of the season as he continues to show signs that he might just be ready this time for his jump to Cup. He will drive next season for Robert Yates Racing, which will be entering its first season in a working agreement with Roush Fenway Racing.

• This just in, but Earnhardt is only 2,101 points out of 12th place and the Chase after his impressive third-place finish at Dover. With eight races left in the season, you get the idea some of Junior's hard-core fans still think he has a shot to get there. He doesn't.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.