Rain quenches thirst for some, soaks others' hopes (cont'd)

Waltrip took issue with those who questioned his finish being the sole result of the rain shower.

"I will correct anyone, the rain isn't why I'm sitting here," Waltrip said. "The reason why I'm sitting here is because we got an opportune caution late in the race and took advantage of race position, the same thing we were unable to do all day long last Sunday in California.

"So I'm here not [in the media center] because of the thunder you hear outside. I'm here because of strategy and the opportune caution that gave me track position. If the rain doesn't come and we're able to restart, I was faster than Kurt -- I feel like I could have beat him. But [Busch] probably thinks he could have held me off. And J.J. [Yeley] was kind of hoping we'd wreck."

Yeley's result, only his second career top-five in 92 Cup starts and his first since May 2007, was even more critical for the driver and team who are mired in a miserable season that's seen them outside the top 35 in owner points for the better part of the year. But with the third-place run he closed to within 157 points of 35th.

"We had a lot of fun," Yeley said. "I spent pretty much the majority of the race with Mikey [Waltrip] -- I ran into him, he ran into me. I, too, wish we might have been able to go to green just for the fact those guys racing for the lead might have opened the door for me.

"We needed this finish really, really badly. I'm glad it's in the books and we'll look forward to Daytona."

Truex made the most impact of anyone in the points as he moved up three spots, from 17th to 14th, and now is within 71 points of 12th.

"Yeah -- this year we'll take anything we can get," Truex said. "We've been on both sides of this stuff before, but I'm proud to get a good finish for all the guys -- they're working hard.

"We had a good car at the beginning of the race, drove up to the front, was looking really good and the track just completely went away from us -- we got so tight we couldn't do anything to fix it. That's kind of been the way it's been all year. We run really good at times. We can't seem to finish the deal. We're gonna get back to work this week. We've run a lot better than this all year and not finish good, so what comes around goes around, I guess."

Sadler was happy to make up for a seemingly certain top-five at Sonoma last weekend, when a flat tire knocked him back to 19th in the last two laps. He's been mired in the mid-20s in the standings for nine weeks, but Sunday's result was his third top-10 in the last six races.

"To get a top-five, it makes up for what happened to us at Sonoma because my team definitely deserved a top-five there," Sadler said. "We played the pit strategy game [Sunday] and we look like heroes. I'm proud of my guys -- they didn't give up."

Sorenson finished where he started, sixth, and made a critical advance in the points, from 34th to 31st in the driver standings and an even more important 35th to 31st in the owner standings.

"We struggled with rear grip all day in our Target Dodge. Once the clouds came in, the car reacted positive and really started to run good," Sorenson said. "We just didn't have a good car in the sun -- we have to figure out how to make it better. But overall, it was good for us in the point standings and we'll take a top-10 finish."

"We were close [on fuel], so we decided 'what the heck.' The rain was close so we decided to stay out and see what happened," Sorenson's crew chief Donnie Wingo said of their first top-10 together and only the second of Sorenson's season. "We needed a day like this, not just for this team, but the whole organization. Hopefully we've made some gains on it this week."

For Mears, who was announced as being out of his Hendrick ride at the end of the season, it was his second consecutive top-10.

"It was another good run," Mears said. "We had a really good car and it showed when we got the track position. I'm just real proud of everybody. There are a lot of things going on lately and to have as good of a run as we did [Sunday], I'm just real proud of that.

"Unfortunately right there at the end we got out of [pit] sequence. Fortunately it worked for us. But we definitely had a top-five car and we came out seventh, so that's a good day for us."

In the end, Matt Kenseth, who ran on the verge of the top 10 for 40 of the last 50 laps of the race, until it came time for pit decisions that knocked him back to 18th at the finish and one position out of being qualified for the Chase, about summed up the day for all the rain-washed losers.

"We didn't run as good as I hoped. I thought the car was better than that and it really wasn't, plus we could never get track position," Kenseth said. "We couldn't get on pit road and the way the race played out, we just couldn't do anything except for about what we did.

"With the rain and all, some people pitted and some people didn't. I think we did the right thing. We did what all the rest of the guys in front of us did and it just didn't work out."