Chevy gets much-needed win on heels of bad news

Thank you, Mark Martin.

Capping a wild weekend that was in some ways unpredictable and in others all too much so, Martin won the LifeLock 400 at Michigan International Speedway in a Chevrolet. The No. 5 Chevy he drove for Hendrick Motorsports inherited the victory when Greg Biffle, who had inherited the lead when Jimmie Johnson ran out of gas, also ran short on fuel on the final lap.

MIS surprise

Who says Chevrolet can't win in Michigan? Thanks to Mark Martin the manufacturer has taken two of the last three.

• Complete story
• Race Rewind: Michigan
• Press Pass: J. Gordon
• Press Pass: M. Martin

No offense to Toyota, the newest manufacturer to grace the Cup Series, but this was a day when the sport really needed Chevy to make a strong showing and win a race.

Even with Johnson fading to 22nd after he ran out of gas while leading on Lap 199 of the 200-lap event, the top-two finishers ended up being behind the wheels of Chevys -- including not only the surprising race winner in Martin, but also the surprised second-place finisher in Jeff Gordon, another of Martin's Hendrick Motorsports teammates.

Only two days prior to the race, General Motors announced it was scaling back big-time on its funding in NASCAR. The parent company of Chevrolet overnight went from dominant player in the sport to a huge question mark, getting out of the Camping World Truck Series and the Nationwide Series altogether while leaving a cloud of suspicion that large cuts on the Sprint Cup side are forthcoming next.

Martin's victory at a track long regarded as the home field for all the Detroit-based American manufacturers helping fund Cup organizations -- currently Ford and Dodge in addition to Chevrolet -- appeared to stop the bleeding, if only for a day. No one is saying Martin's win can or will put off the inevitable, which apparently will be more cuts in NASCAR funding by the new GM, 60 percent of which supposedly is now owned by you and me and the rest of the American taxpayers.

But at least on the mental side of the ledger, it certainly didn't hurt. (Continued)