Submitted by NASCAR Ranting and Raving Blog

Well, this is the second week in a row that I’m congratulating Jeff Gordon on his win. This win came at the expense of everyone else in The Chase - some more than others.

Jeff Gordon has opened up even more of lead on his competitors. Even though Jimmie Johnson had a terrible day at Charlotte he was still able to bounce back and get a top 15 finish which keeps him in 2nd place in the standings. Clinton Bowyer finished second, but still lost a little bit of ground to Gordon, as did Tony Stewart who also had a good run in yesterday’s race at Charlotte.

In all of the interviews with the Chasers after the race they all stated that Jeff and Jimmie need to have some bad luck for them to get back into the Chase themselves. Well duh! Like we didn’t know that - even Clint Bowyer needs the Hendrick cars to horribly fail. Even when Gordon runs out of gas he still wins the race.

An interesting point was brought up later: after the last red flag they still ran 5 laps of caution before going green. Some might say it was NASCAR ‘fixing’ the outcome of the race because they knew Gordon was running out of gas and the extra caution laps enabled him to finish the race before he ran out of gas. Conspiracy theorists are going to go come out of the woodwork on this one if Gordon wins the Championship.

You know who I feel sorry for after this race? Ryan Newman. Man that cat had the field covered until he hit the wall.

It was also good to see some of the also-rans running in the top 10 for a change (ie. Dave Blaney).

My one criticism comes regarding all the praise that Kyle Busch got after not running over Gordon while his car was starving for fuel on a restart and for his post race interview where he was for once not whining about something. Excuse me, what was he supposed to do on the track or say in the interview? He was just towing company line on both occasions (especially since the bossman himself came on the radio and told him not to wreck Jeff), he hasn’t suddenly gotten himself all grown up, unless you count towing company line as growing up.

Plus, he still has to impress his new boss (Joe Gibbs) and his new sponsor (M&Ms), if he acts like a jerk before he gets racing next season, things could change for him over a JGR. Granted he would really have to do something even more moronic than Robby Gordon’s tirade in Montreal during the Busch race, but anything is possible.

That’s it for now. Come back tomorrow when I really unleash my fury on … OK, maybe “unleash my fury” is a bit overboard, but I’ve got to get you to keep coming back now don’t I?

Take Care.

Photo by Todd Warshaw/Getty Images for NASCAR