NASCAR Nationwide Series Shifts to Road America and Look Who Won Amidst Chaos
It was a pretty calm race with a rough ending as the second-tier series of NASCAR headed to Road America in Elkhart Lake, WI for 50 laps on the four-mile road course.
This was the second trip for the series at the historic track. Last year, Carl Edwards won the race in his Fastenal No. 60 Ford, but the Cup points leader wisely chose to concentrate on Sonoma.
His replacement driver, Billy Johnson, had several incidents with the Roush Fenway Racing No. 60, but loss of oil pressure ended his day.
Road course specialists, Jacques Villenueve drove the Penske No. 22 Dodge, and Ron Fellows was behind the wheel of the No. 7 JR Motorsports Chevrolet.
It was Elliott Sadler's first trip to the track, and he ran in the top 10 consistently. Road course racing is nothing new to the driver of the KHI No. 2.
Michael McDowell set the pace by qualifying on the pole with the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. He led a good portion of the race and looked to be contending for the win.
The object of the game was to keep the cars on the course, avoid locking up the rear brakes with resulting wheel hop, save the transmission and keep an eye on fuel mileage.
The drivers behaved well with only three cautions until the No. 41 of Doug Harrington ran off course taking out signs and sending debris flying across the track with four laps to go.
The lead of McDowell was gone in a flash with the fourth caution; it looked to be a wild restart, and they didn't disappoint.
Villenueve hit Brian Scott in the No. 11 and Max Papis, with his KHI No. 33, joined Scott in the gravel pit bringing out another caution.
Once again, there was a green-white-checker restart with fuel mileage becoming critical. Suddenly, cars went spinning everywhere at the front of the field when the green flag flew.
McDowell was among several cars in the grass, and Justin Allgaier magically appeared as the leader of the race.
It was the final green-white-checker restart, and the drivers knew a caution would cause the field to be frozen, and the winner declared.
With a car in the gravel and cars running out of fuel, the caution waved on the final lap, and Allgaier, who looked to be the winner, ran out of fuel.
Reed Sorenson slowed for the final caution, but Fellows in the No. 7 made a clean pass though Sorenson protested. Fellows continued running a quick pace despite the yellow flag.
The chaotic, rule-testing end to the race was slow as they made the trek around the long course under caution.
Reed Sorenson in the Turner Motorsports No. 32 was declared the winner, and Fellows was second in the JR Motorsports car. It was Sorenson's first win since 2007.
Villenueve was third; Elliott Sadler finished fourth followed by Mike Wallace. In an act of retribution, Max Papis ran into Villenueve on pit road at the conclusion of the race.
