I Went To a Fight And A NASCAR Race Broke Out at Phoenix!

Last week I said the last 20 laps can determine how the public feels about a race.  With that said, how did you like the Phoenix race?

The last 20 laps had Jimmie Johnson running outside the top 30 finishing spots and then a retribution move by Jeff Gordon on Clint Bowyer.  That move turned into a full-scale melee in the garage between Clint and Jeff's team.

I'm not sure where to begin, except to say that Jimmie Johnson is now 20 points outside of 1st headed into Homestead.  This means that unless something untoward happens to Brad Keselowski, he's put himself in a situation that will allow him to win the 2012 Sprint Cup Series championship.  All he has to do is finish 15th or better next Sunday and it's his.

But that wasn't the exciting part of the race.

During the closing laps, Jeff Gordon took retaliation for something that Clint Bowyer did earlier and that caused a multi-car wreck.  All while Jeff ignored a black flag. 

IF NASCAR STAYS CONSISTENT, I would not be surprised to see Gordon parked for the last week of the season.  (ALA, Kyle Busch in the Truck Series last year.)

Then during the GWC restart, Danica Patrick ended up slamming into the outside wall.

At that point, many feel a caution should have been called, but it wasn't.  Patrick limped her oil dripping car down the front stretch while the rest of the field came around for the final lap to the checkers and a sizable wreck ensued, collecting a few cars.  Patrick should not have driven down the road, but she did, cars went everywhere and even she got clipped pretty good.

NASCAR later said they like to try and let races finish out... but most tracks are big enough to do that and wrecks don't often occur in front of the start/finish line.  That and NASCAR claimed they thought all the smoke coming from her car was from tire spin.  Zoinks.

And the exciting stuff didn't even happen yet.

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As the cars were parking, Jeff Gordon got out of the No. 24 Chevy and team members from Clint Bowyer's team came over and got into it with Jeff and the swarm of a melee broke out.

Then it went from there.

(Oh and a crew chief, on TV, (Brian Pattie) called the situation between the two teams s**!  And I thought that would be the big fine from the weekend!  LOL.)

For now, I'm thinking Clint's sponsor might be able to take advantage of this.  "5 Hour Energy, When I need to get things done."  That's what Clint said in an ad that came on right after everything started breaking out.  Me?  I wouldn't want to get into it with an entire crew jacked up on 5 Hour Energy!!!