Chevy Wins at Dover

            Jimmie Johnson has essentially owned the Dover Motor Speedway in recent years, winning four of the last nine races at the Monster Mile.  It looked like Jimmie was going to have a chance at winning his fifth race in the past four years, but a late race penalty would cost him at his chance to win.

            Jimmie started the race in the 24^th spot.  He was fighting an ill handling race car and would

eventually fall a lap down to Kyle Busch.  Johnson would eventually get his lap back and begin a charge to the front.  He was able to work his way up to 6^th when arguably the strongest car of the day, Matt Kenseth blew his engine and brought out the caution.  Johnson took the lead when the green flag dropped again.  At that point, the five-time champion began to run away from the rest of the pack, and a win seemed inevitable.

            At that point, Denny Hamlin blew a right front tire and brought out the caution.  Juan Pablo-Montoya took two tires on his pit stop, which would put him in the lead at the restart.  Johnson would restart 2^nd.  At the restart, Montoya delayed the start, but Johnson didn’t. Johnson flew by Montoya and broke the rule saying he couldn’t pass the leader on the restart.  Johnson tried to give the position back to Montoya, but after a half a lap, he just kept on racing.  NASCAR black flagged him and made him go through a drive thru penalty.

            This put Montoya in the lead with laps beginning to wind down. However, he was battling a loose race car which slowed him down.  Tony Stewart in the number 14 Chevrolet passed him with less than four laps to go. Stewart would go on to win the 48^th race of his career with Montoya finishing 2^nd.

            This was another good weekend for Chevy.  At Dover the top three drove a Chevy.  Finishing in 4^th was the first Toyota, Kyle Busch.  The first Ford was Brad Keselowski finishing right behind Kyle.

Matthew Colan

Handy Chevrolet