Johnson finished second at Bristol and clinched a spot in the Chase For The Cup. He moved up two places to second in the Sprint Cup point standings, 11 behind Greg Biffle.
In spite of a few drops of rain and much discussion about oil on the track in the waning laps, here is what else was surprising and not surprising for the 27th annual Finger Lakes 355 at The Glen.
Under stormy skies that unfortunately ultimately proved fatal for one race fan, here is what was surprising and not so surprising from the Pennsylvania 400 at Pocono Raceway.
Johnson led heading to a lap 91 restart, but got loose upon accelerating and slid into the path of Matt Kenseth. Denny Hamlin slammed into Kenseth while Jeff Gordon took the lead. Ran ended the race two laps later, and Johnson was left with a disappointing 14th-place finish.
By just 0.003 and 0.004 seconds respectively, Kyle Busch, in the No. 18 Interstate Batteries Toyota, nudged both Kasey Kahne and Denny Hamlin out of the way to score the pole for the Lenox Industrial Tools 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
NASCAR announced 90 minutes before the start of the Coke Zero 400 on Saturday that driver AJ Allmendinger would be temporarily suspended from competition after failing a drug test taken at Kentucky Speedway last weekend.
Clint Bowyer surprised fans when he qualified in sixth position for the Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma. With the overall strength that Michael Waltrip Racing has shown in 2012, it wasn’t much of a surprise to the world when the No. 15 5 Hour Energy Toyota crossed the finish line first on Sunday.
The last few weeks have been tough on Kurt Busch. From struggles with performance, saying the wrong things and getting suspended, he finally had a nice Sunday drive with no controversy.
