Jimmie Johnson Wins The STP 500 in Martinsville

Congratulations to pole sitter, Jimmie Johnson, picking up the checkered flag for the STP Gas Booster 500.  His 8th win at Martinsville.

Only the King, Richard Petty (15) and Darrell Waltrip (11) have more wins at the shortest track on the NASCAR circuit.

Jimmie dominated the race, leading 346 of the 500 laps. He took over the points lead from Dale Earnhardt Jr.  He leads Brad Keselowski, who finished 6th in the race, by 6 points and Jr by 12. Dale finished 24th, 2 laps down.

Jimmie pulled away on the final restart with 8 laps to go for the victory. Clint Bowyer came in 2nd followed by Jeff Gorden.  Kasey Kahne and Kyle Busch round out the top 5.

The other big story of the race was a chain reaction crash on lap 180.  Following the 3rd caution of the day, a bunch of cars jammed up on the restart.  It created another caution flag involving 10 cars total.  I saw on Facebook that some fans were blaming Jimmie Johnson for one of the wrecks.

The NASCAR boys and girl are now off for a night race next weekend.  It's the NRA 500 at Texas Motor Speedway on Saturday night beginning at 7:30 on Fox 40.  Some are up in "arms"  that the NRA is sponsoring that race.  I'll have more on that story later this week.