Observations from Sunday’s 3M Performance 400 at Michigan International Speedway

By Mike Smith (contact)

Sunday, Aug. 17, 2008 | 6:06 p.m.

The driver who does back flips beat the driver who’s flippant at Michigan International Speedway. Carl Edwards held off Kyle Busch to win his second race this weekend at MIS. Carl, who turned 29 on Friday, did a masterful job holding off Kyle on the restarts after some late-race cautions. This is no small accomplishment due to the fact that Kyle is the king of successful restarts. Carl is only the second driver in Michigan history to win both the Saturday and Sunday races.

Edwards, who started 27th, is now 222 points behind the leader Kyle Busch. Kyle’s second-place finish secured his spot in the Chase for the Sprint Cup. Hopefully Carl can keep the pressure on Kyle and in the process ensure that the Chase will be competitive. Besides, I’ve run out of adjectives to describe Kyle’s storybook season.

With seven wins in the last 14 races at Michigan, it’s safe to say that Roush Fenway Racing owns MIS. In addition, Ford drivers have won 29 of the past 49 races at the track.

Competition is what makes America successful and that’s why I have no reservations about Toyota’s involvement in NASCAR. Everyone should have a chance to win or lose. But it was great to see an American auto manufacturer drive to Victory Lane in Detroit’s backyard.

Fortunately, late-race cautions added some drama to what was otherwise a pretty dull race. Michigan is Pocono without the triangle shape.

If NASCAR allowed do-overs, I’m sure Jeff Gordon would choose to run Sunday’s race again. After getting banged up in a three-wide sandwich with Tony Stewart and Jimmie Johnson on lap 90, Gordon suffered a cut right- front tire that sent him into the wall on lap 98. He also had to endure a string of substandard pit stops for most of the race. Gordon finished the race 42nd. I’m sure the memo has already gone out about the mandatory team meeting for Monday morning.

There has been some criticism lately that Dale Earnhardt Jr. has been racing too cautiously and that he needs to be more aggressive about going for wins instead of trying to protect his position in the points standings. Well, Dale Jr. certainly tried to drive to Victory Lane today. He had a great car early in the race that eventually became so loose a Zamboni would have given him more traction. Unfortunately, he finished a lap down in the 23rd position after hitting the wall with less than 20 laps to go. Nevertheless, he’s still having a season that’s a tremendous improvement over last year.

Ryan Newman started the race in the 20th position and finished a lap down in the 21st position. No wonder he’s moving to Stewart-Haas Racing.

Did you see Denny Hamlin’s post-race interview? Talk about candid. He accused his team of making “stupid choices” and basically said his car and engine were junk. He also stated that he and his team didn't deserve to be competing for the championship. We’ll see how well Joe Gibbs Racing appreciates having those politically incorrect comments broadcast to millions of viewers.

Now we’ll see who survives Bristol.

This week's StockcarToon

Mike Smith's latest StockarToons book, "Nuts for Racing"