Trevor Bayne vs. Jeff Gordon Fans

(NOTE: This is an opinion article)

Coming to the last restart, the plan was for Trevor Bayne and Jeff Gordon to draft together to the finish. However, when the restart happened and into Turn 1, Matt Kenseth abandoned his drafting partner, David Ragan, and went behind Bayne. So Bayne had a decision to make while in the backstretch: Stay with his plan and continue drafting his childhood hero, or help his teammate gain some points in the Championship. His decision, however, didn't make many Jeff Gordon fans happy. Bayne and Kenseth ducked low and passed Gordon, making him a sitting duck. What could possibly been a Top 10 finish for Gordon came out to be a 27th place finish.

Bayne went on his Twitter account and tweeted that he was not happy with his decision he made. He felt sick about it, this alone didn't help the Jeff Gordon fans on their views on him now.

My view, I'm a fan of both drivers. And after what I heard what Ford's orders were before this race, I don't blame Bayne making his decision. Before this race, Ford gave the order to all Ford drivers that they have to pretty much draft only Ford drivers. This order is the reason why David Gilliland and Tony Stewart drafting together (which was planned during Friday practice). In this race, Trevor Bayne was driving a Ford and Jeff Gordon was in a Chevy. Matt Kenseth was driving a Ford, so Bayne pretty much came down with Kenseth to make Ford 'happy'.

If Ford never gave that order (which was not a smart order to begin with), I'm sure Bayne would've continued drafting with Gordon. Or if Kenseth didn't bail out Ragan, I'm pretty sure Bayne would continue drafting Gordon.

Another thing, what if Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jimmie Johnson caught up to them? What will Jeff Gordon do? For all we know, Jeff could've done the same thing that Bayne did.

Remember folks, this is Talladega, drivers have to take risks during the last laps. What Bayne took was a huge risk to take. Is it something to be disappointed by if you are a Gordon fan? Yes. But is it something that fans should bash him for? No. Its just part of plate racing.

Save Big Fuel For Menard

We had Trevor Bayne winning the Daytona 500, we had Regan Smith winning the Showtime Southern 500, we had David Ragan winning the Coke Zero 400. All those have two things in common, all were first-time winners and all were huge upsets.

Today, we can add Paul Menard winning the Brickyard 400 to that list.

Paul Menard was on a fuel strategy pitting on Lap 125. Some drivers that didn't pit came down pit road to top off some fuel and take some fresh tires. One driver that had to take that route was Jeff Gordon, and he was the fastest driver on the track coming down to the closing laps. Menard had to save some fuel with a charging Jeff Gordon coming his way. Surprisingly enough, Menard save enough fuel to go on to win his first NASCAR Sprint Cup race.

The Cup guys head on off to Pocono next week.

David Ragan Captures First Win at Daytona

The "NASCAR 2011 Season of First Time Winners" continues with another driver people predicted will get a win, David Ragan.

On February 20, 2011, David Ragan made a costly mistake by switching lanes before the line for at a restart at the Daytona 500 that probably costed him the race. Today, he pulled off the win with the help with his teammate Matt Kenseth. And this was a race where it was anyone's race. We even saw drivers like Joe Nemechek, Travis Kvapil, Andy Lally, Terry Labonte, Landon Cassill, and Casey Mears that we saw up in front at some point of the race, but green flag pit stops hurt them to get a much needed finish.

They're were some incidents in this race, but much less cautions than the Daytona 500. First caution was for the Daytona 500 winner, Trevor Bayne, who was spun out by Brad Keselowski really early in the race. Second caution was points leader, Carl Edwards, who got spun out by his teammate, Greg Biffle. Third caution, was caused by Dave Blaney, which by the looks of it was bumped by his teammate, Geoffrey Bodine. Fourth caution happened in the closing laps where Jeff Gordon started to spin out and NASCAR quickly threw the caution for safety since a bigger pack of cars was coming.

That incident then caused a green-white-checkered. The first restart caused a multi-car crash when Joey Logano got into Mark Martin. As Martin spun, a handful of drivers had no where to go. The next restart will be the final restart of the night. Kasey Kahne was pushing Logano to the lead, while Matt Kenseth was pushing David Ragan. Another pairing of this race, Ryan Newman and Denny Hamlin, lost the draft and fell back quickly. On Turn 3 of the last lap, the next multi-car happened when Marcos Ambrose spun out, and once Ragan came closer to the finish line, and bigger wreck happened leaving several cars damaged, which caused some scary moments when some drivers barely missed Ryan Newman. All the drivers from those incidents were okay.

After all that, David Ragan came out with the win, his first in his career in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series

Next week, we head to a new track for the Sprint Cup Series, Kentucky Speedway for the Quaker State 400.

Jeff Gordon Wins at Pocono

Jeff Gordon dominated the final portion of the 5-Hour Energy 500 at Pocono Raceway, getting his 2nd win this year, 84th in his Cup career, and his 5th career at Pocono Raceway (which ties Bill Elliott for wins at this track).

This was a VERY quiet race, as expected at Pocono. There were only 4 cautions, all for debris. Greg Biffle spun exiting Turn 3 and into pit road, but no caution was thrown. Denny Hamlin, who dominated the first half, had brake issues in the second half of the race. Points leader, Carl Edwards, had issues early, but made it back out of the track in the final laps, finishing 37th.

There's really nothing much to say about the rest of the race. Pocono, not being one of my favorite tracks, has been known for its quiet races.

The Cup guys head for Michigan for the Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips 400.

(Not counting the Gatorade Duels, this is the first time Jeff Gordon brought the DuPont car to Victory Lane since the 2007 Charlotte race in October)