The Southern 500: 24 Hours Later

Man that was a race. It had what, 17 cautions?

Mark Martin didn’t out drive his competition; he outlasted them, just like Bill Elliott did in 1985 when he outlasted Dale Earnhardt to win his Million Dollar Bonus from RJR. Cool.

And what about Jimmie Johnson, or more importantly Chad Knaus? That 48 car didn’t have one freakin’ lap on it and they tweaked it to a second place finish.

So let me see, hmm ... Hendrick drivers Martin, Johnson, and Gordon along with Hendrick affiliates Stewart and Newman all finish in the top 10 - oh and don’t forget Keselowski he had a top 10 too - where did Dale Jr finish? Uh, let me see ... umm ... 27th.

Call it what you want, but the results out of the 88 camp aren’t living up to anyone’s expectations including Dale Jr.‘s.

We’ll see.

Now, let me endeavour to talk about Jeremy Mayfield. Whew. I didn’t know about Mayfield’s suspension until a few hours ago. Man.

Mayfield is suspended indefinitely without appeal for failing NASCAR’s random drug test with a non-alcohol type of drug infraction and his official statement is “In my case, I believe that the combination of a prescribed medicine and an over the counter medicine reacted together and resulted in a positive drug test. My doctor and I are working with both Dr. (David) Black and NASCAR to resolve this matter.”

Whoa, it will be interesting to see where this goes but based on NASCAR’s history in this area I don’t expect Jeremy’s road to re-instatement to be an easy one regardless if his positive drug result was from intentional or accidental means.