Notebook: Late caution, wild restart spoil Hendrick's 200th victory party

Notebook: Late caution, wild restart spoil Hendrick's 200th victory party

April 1, 2012

By Reid Spencer

NASCAR Wire Service

MARTINSVILLE, Va. -- For 497 laps on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon, a 200th NASCAR Sprint Cup victory for Hendrick Motorsports seemed a foregone conclusion.

The only real question was whether Jeff Gordon or Jimmie Johnson would deliver the win in the Goody's Fast Relief 500 at Martinsville Speedway.

Between them, Gordon and Johnson led 440 laps. The teammates -- with 13 Martinsville victories and nine championships between them -- were fighting for the lead late in the race when a yellow flag turned the proceedings inside-out.

Moments after Gordon wrested the top spot from Johnson out of Turn 4 on Lap 497, NASCAR threw a caution because David Reutimann's No. 10 Chevrolet lost power and stopped at the end of the frontstretch.

That set up a restart on Lap 504 and the wild wreck that followed. Gordon and Johnson, the only two drivers who had stayed out on old tires, left the field to the green. Race winner Ryan Newman gave Clint Bowyer's Toyota a shove on the frontstretch, and Bowyer took Gordon and Johnson three-wide into the first turn.

Simply put, Bowyer ran out of room, slid into Gordon and spun himself and the Chevys of Gordon and Johnson.

"You've got tires, they don't, and they spin the tires (on the restart)," Bowyer said. "The 39 (Newman) hits you in the rear. I mean, if I didn't go down there, the 39 (would have), and we all just run out of real estate, and that's the nature of the beast at this place."

Johnson said he has learned that three-wide doesn't work when you get to the corners at Martinsville.

"It's really inviting to try to make it three-wide on the inside going into the turn, and you do have the room on the straightaway, but when you get to the corner -- the way the curb shoots out -- there is no inside lane there," Johnson said.

"Clint put us all in a bad situation and made the dive-bomb in there, and I'm sure once he got inside, he saw what he had in front of him and was trying to wedge a hole, and it just turned us all around. Unfortunate deal, and I just wish he had been a little more patient there and didn't create that wreck."

Dale Earnhardt Jr., who finished third, didn't fault Bowyer for trying to win the race.

"The No. 15 (Bowyer) dove to the bottom, and it's his right," Earnhardt said. "He was doing what he wanted to do to try and win the race . . . So I think Clint did what he had to do."

KESELOWSKI FRUSTRATED AND CONFUSED

Brad Keselowski was upset with David Reutimann and mystified by NASCAR. The driver of the No. 2 Penske Dodge couldn't understand why Reutimann stayed on track with a wounded car and ultimately changed the course of the race when his car lost power and stopped on the frontstretch.

Nor could Keselowski understand why NASCAR scored him eighth for the final restart when he had taken the previous green flag in the fourth position and appeared to clear the wreck in Turn 1 in second place behind Newman.

"First off, go back to the yellow with the 10 car (Reutimann) stopped on the track," Keselowski said. "That was really, really uncalled for and ruined the day for a lot of people, Jeff (Gordon), Jimmie (Johnson) and myself, from having a lot better finishes. I think we're all really, really frustrated with that guy. We came in and got tires and definitely had a shot at the race (win), at least a top-four or -five finish for sure. 

"Then the question comes, what's the lineup for that last restart? That's hard to tell. I don't have all the info, whether they went by (reverting to the last scoring) loop, where the yellow came out or whether it was video review. My gut says we should have been a lot further ahead of where we were allowed to restart. I don't have all the info, so it was one of those deals."

MORE PAIN FOR KAHNE

The frustrations of Hendrick newbie Kasey Kahne compounded Sunday when an engine failure eliminated the pole-winning No. 5 Chevy from the race after 256 laps.

Kahne finished 38th and dropped to 31st in the Cup standings.

"We had a great (car)," a frustrated Kahne said. "Really fast -- and the best I've ever been here. The engine was running great, and we were just battling a little loose (handling condition).

"It was fun driving, and we had a small engine problem that turned into a big one on the backstretch and just shut off. I had oil on my tires when I hit pit road. I didn't want to oil the surface for all the guys out there, so I just shot to the pits and went spinning. It wasn't a big deal, because I didn't hit anything -- luckily.

That was about the only lucky thing that happened to the star-crossed driver, who has but one top-15 finish in his first six starts in a Hendrick car.

"I'm upset that we haven't run great this year," Kahne said, "but we are great on Friday and Saturday, we were fast again today, and we have the speed -- so when it's our time, we'll be ready to take advantage of it."