MARTINSVILLE,VA.,HISTORY MADE AND TEMPERS FLARE

Kevin Harvick made history in NASCAR truck series racing Saturday. By leading 248 of 250 laps in the Kroger 250, he led the most laps in a series race. And most importantly, he led the final lap which gave him a dominant victory, his first win of the season and his 14th of his career. The only other driver to lead laps was his RCR teammate Ty Dillon who came in a close second less than one second after Harvick. Completing the top five were James Buescher, Justin Lofton and Timothy Peters.
Harvick and Dillon worked together on restarts to retain their first and second positions, my opinion is winning races is great, but making deals with a teammate to hold off opposing drivers is not a race, if two cars are lined up I hope they race each other, not hold a position to have their teams win, granted Harvick had a fast truck, but the restarts were handled to keep a hard charging Buescher in third place.
John King, the winner at Daytona came in ninth and is still the series leader, Peters and Lofton are tied for second, one point behind, Dillon is fourth back by four points.



Ryan Newman needed help to win the Goodys Fast Relief 500, Clint Bowyer gave it to him with an opening with two laps to go, and his first win in 23 races. Bowyer's aggressive move took out race leaders Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon entering the first turn allowing Newman to slide into the lead where he held off A.J. Allmendinger and Dale Earnhardt Jr. who placed second and third.
Teammates Gordon, who led 328 laps, and Johnson, who led 112 laps, appeared set to give Hendrick Motorsports owner Rick Hendrick his 200th win in the Sprint cup series. But fate set in giving Johnson the 12th and Gordon the 14th positions.
Gordon angrily denounced Bowyer's move and sought him out after the race, he was informed that the 15(Bowyer) was rearended by the 39(Newman), he dived into the inside lane which then turned Johnson around and also turned Gordon around. Through the melee Mat Kenseth and Martin Truex Jr. finished out the top five. The race showed why Johnson and Gordon are two of the top drivers ever. Both running a good race and then running neck and neck in the final 30 laps the race appeared to be all but over until a last minute caution was caused by David Reutimann, who had front end problems and then engine problems outside of turn one.
The general consensus was "what the heck was David thinking", but his answer of not wanting to be the cause of the caution, and wanting to keep his 35th position appears to ring true to this writer, I know he is a good driver and would not want to cause a problem like what happened, but sometimes you have to think, "my car is broken, is staying on the track in anyone's best interest, including my own".
Series leader Greg Biffle finished 13th and leads the series by six points over second place, that is Dale Earnhardt Jr. Pole sitter Kasey Kahne had another dismal outing, problems that don't appear to be ending anytime soon.