Jimmie Johnson Wins the Pepsi 500 - A terse Recap

It was Jimmie Johnson's race to lose. That's all there was to it. He had the pole, he owned the lead, and his team made all the right adjustments through all the changes of the race that turned from day to night.

Impressive or expected? Does it matter? Nope. He pulled it off.

Here's a quick recap of the race:

Jimmie Johnson led them to the green flag, but by the end of the lap, A.J. Almendinger had led himself a lap, but quickly lost it back to Johnson. The first few laps had the usual side-by-side rows of high octane burst of acceleration that slowly whittled down to a single file line of cars that was interrupted by a flat tire on lap 3 for Jamie McMurray.

Lap 8 Restart: 48, 84, 24, 9, 1, 18, 2, 19, 22 & 44 lead the pack across the line! Go 'Dinger!!

Lap 13 we see J Gordon's splitter smokin off the ground. ( We presume it's splitter smoke right now )

Lap 20 Caution for a BIG piece of debris - the caution light got blown off it's post by the wind of the cars flying by at 205+ mph at the end of the front stretch! McMurray gets the lucky dog and now all cars are on the lead lap.
-Lap 25 Restart: 48, 9, 84,83, 88, 16, 18, 44, 24 & 1

Lap 43 Caution for Kurt Busch losing a LR tire.
-Lap 47 Restart: 48, 16, 84, 83, 88, 9, 29, 11, 17 & 99

Lap 69 Caution: Nemechek hard in the wall out of turn 2. Knocked his drive shaft out of the car. He be done!
-lap 73 Restart: 48, 16, 11, 29, 17, 99, 44, 9, 84 & 88

Lap 100 48, 16, 11, 29, 83, 9, 44, 42, 17 & 07

Jimmie Johnson clinches a spot in the chase.

Lap 137: 48, 16, 83, 11, 29, 44, 9, 17, 99 & 42
21 cars on the lead lap

Caution for debris. Ryan Newman is the lucky dog, putting 19 cars on the lead lap.
-Restart with 98 laps to go: 48, 16, 11, 29, 83, 44, 99, 9, 17 & 20

Caution lap 160: Debris. Another piece of track light came down!! Wow!
The track is falling apart!
-Restart with 85 laps to go: 16, 99, 84, 83, 12, 48, 29, 11, 9 & 17
2 tire gambles on some of the cars.

A few laps later, the 48 car was hunting the 16 car down and with 82 to go, took the lead back.

70 Laps to go Robby Gordon Spins... one more caution!
The 48 team had an issue in the pits.
Restart with 65 laps to go: 44, 16, 99, 48, 11, 29, 12, 17, 9 & 18.
(uh ho, here comes the 18 car.)

Is this the final restart of then night?
Restart with 28 to go 16, 48, 11, 99, 29, 17, 18, 9, 07 &, 44
by the end of the lap, the 48 car was leading the way.


We're watching 3 and 4 wide in mid pack. It's pretty exciting.
There's a lot of dancing between the 83, 84, 12 and 88 for 11th spot.
With 20 to go, we have 48, 16, 11, 29 & 17 lead the pack.

15 to go: 48, 16, 11, 29, 17, 99 & 18 !!??!!

10 to go: 48, 16, 11, 29 & 17

The winner of the Pepsi 500 at CA is Jimmie Johnson!
He led oodles of laps and was followed across the line by
16, 11, 29, 17, 99, 18, 9, 44 & 07 cars.

Check out the details over at NASCAR:
Cup Series Results
Cup Series Standings

I'll break things down later!

But I'll tell you what, back in June I said David Ragan is my favorite dark horse driver in this whole bunch because he's quietly there, lurking just outside the top 12. Not screwing around too much. He doesn't have a top performing car, but the No. 6 team is quietly getting it together.

Next year, he is either going to be a contender or will fade to black.