This week's awards:

Surprisingly Good Finish: I'm going to give this to Mark Martin. A tremendous 3rd place finish for Martin. Honorable mentions to: Martin Truex Jr. (5th), Ryan Newman (6th), Kasey Kahne (10th), and Reed Sorenson (12th).

Most Impressive Performance: A repeat in this category. Mark Martin. He had that car running in either 2nd or 3rd as much as Denny Hamlin was in the lead.

Perserverance: I'm going to go rather deep in the finishing order on this. I like Scott Riggs, who finished 19th. The first half of the race Riggs was no higher than 32nd after starting 30th. He eventually made it to the top 25 with 100 laps to go and kept improving. Honorable mentions: Travis Kvapil (16th), Regan Smith (21st).

Surprisingly Bad Finish: Here's his name again in one of the negative categories: Kurt Busch. Caught up in the Richmond "big one" and finished 42nd. Honorable mentions: Matt Kenseth (38th), Jimmie Johnson (30th), and Denny Hamlin (24th).

Deserved A Better Finish: This one is quite obvious. Denny Hamlin. After setting a record for laps led in a single race at Richmond, Hamlin had tire problems with about 25 laps remaining. Up until that point he had dominated the race, but finished in 24th.

Should've Stayed in Bed: I feel like the names remain the same. I'm flipping Matt Kenseth & Kurt Busch from their awards after last week's race at Talladega. So, for Should've Stayed in Bed this week, it's Matt Kenseth. They struggled early on, eventually improved to the top 20, but was caught up in the same caution as Busch. From that point on it was simply making laps for points.

The question is becoming: Matt Kenseth is one of the few drivers to be in the Chase every year since it's inception....is that streak coming to an end this year?

Following next week's Darlington race, I'll offer a season to date rundown.