Road races always seem a little strange to me. The Infineon Raceway at Sonoma reminds me of some European course, and regular readers will know how I feel about all things European. But despite the look, Sonoma is a good old all-American raceway and we saw a good old all-American race.
Australian Marcos Ambrose had a solid lead going into the yellow flag caution with only a few laps to go when he seemed to just… get stuck on a hill. He just stopped (he swears he never stopped, but if he was moving it barely constituted forward progress) on a small incline and allowed six cars to pass him while under a yellow flag.
Maybe the rules are different Down Under, but here in the USA, you’ve got to keep pace with the… wait for it… PACE car. It’s pretty much implied in the name. If you dilly around Waltzing Matilda or playing with your digery doo or whatever it is Australians do while bringing their race cars to a complete stop in the middle of a race, you get penalized. We’re funny like that here.
In the Sponsorship Irony Department – the Toyota Save Mart 350 could have been won by a Toyota if his Toyota engine had refired like it was supposed to on the tiniest of inclines while running under a caution.
Ambrose’s screw up was golden for none other than opportunist Jimmie Johnson, who suddenly found himself in first place while under caution with just five laps to go. Johnson pulled away immediately at the restart and finished strong. In his comments to his team after the race, Johnson was quoted as saying “Woohoo” and “Booyah.” Inspiring.
Johnson jumped four places in the Sprint Cup standings to edge out Kyle Busch by just a single point for second place behind Kevin Harvick. Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished an unimpressive 11th place, but that was enough to push him one spot closer to the Cup Chase. He’s now just one position out of the running. I don’t know what’s going to happen from here on, but there’s a lot of excitement left in the 2010 season for sure.
