Dover Downer? The Monster Mile lacked usual drama
Well, I will be the first to admit that Sunday's race at Dover really wasn't what I expected. I think we still had 41 of the 43 cars running at the end of the race. We didn't have anyone crashing into each other on pit road like we normally do. We actually ran the last 139 laps under green-flag conditions, which truly surprised me.
Everyone was racing hard all day. Jeff Gordon got win No. 92 of his one-day NASCAR Hall of Fame career, but he was already all but locked into the next round, so there wasn't a lot of last-minute drama there. I guess the never-ending story for 2014 has to be Kevin Harvick.
There he was once again starting the race from the pole. He dominated the race where literally everyone else was racing for second, and yet another freak thing happens to him again. Yes, another win in 2014 slipped through Kevin's fingers. All you can do it chop that up to rotten luck.
I think the other thing that stuck out to me on Sunday was the recovery by Kasey Kahne and his team. I mean, seriously, that No. 5 car was four laps down at one point. They fought hard. They got three of their laps back but more importantly moved onto the next round by only two points. That says a lot about their character.
Four drivers have now been eliminated -- Kurt Busch, AJ Allmendinger, Aric Almirola and Greg Biffle. Trust me, they will still race hard and try to put wins on the board in these last seven races, but their 2014 championship hopes are over.
I really don't know who came up with this new Chase format for 2014, but whoever it is deserves all the accolades our sport can give them. This really is as good as it gets, plus we still have three rounds to go!
VIDEO: Dover Race Highlights
