Getting right to the awards...

Surprisingly Good Finish--This one goes right to the top: Kasey Kahne. This season's first two marquee events has seen some feel-good winners (Ryan Newman in the Daytona 500, being the other). Nice to see Kahne parlay his All-Star race win into his 2nd 600 victory. Honorable mentions: Greg Biffle (2nd), Elliott Sadler (8th), David Reutimann (10th), and Bobby Labonte (11th).

Most Impressive Run--The race-winner Kasey Kahne. He had his car up front for almost the entire race. Honorable mentions to Greg Biffle & David Ragan.

Perserverance--Gotta look in the direction of Jeff Gordon on this one. He found himself off the lead lap a couple of times during the race. He had no better than a top 20 finish facing him. However, they gambled on fuel and ended up with a 4th place finish.

Deserved a Better Finish--This was a tough one to choose because there were some good candidates....but since I only pick one driver, I'm going to say Brian Vickers. Vickers tied for 2nd in the number of laps led in the race, and it looked like he was headed towards at least a top-10 finish, until he had wheel problems about the midway point of the race. It knocked him out of the event, finishing 42nd. Honorable mentions to Jimmie Johnson.

Surprisingly Bad Finisher--The aforementioned Jimmie Johnson. A 3-time winner of this particular race, it appeared Johnson might be headed to another victory. However, his engine had other ideas, as it let go with about 50 laps to in the race. Johnson wound up a disappointing 39th. Honorable mentions: Clint Bowyer (25th) & Denny Hamlin (24th).

Should've Stayed in Bed--I gotta say Clint Bowyer. This team struggled all weekend with this car. He qualified 39th and they had to make an unscheduled pit stop early in the race, and they were playing catch-up for the next 4 hours. Bowyer didn't crack the top 30 until the halfway mark, and only improved another 5 positions after that.

Before I close out this post, I just want to take the time to mention, as Fox approaches their final Cup race of the '08 season next week at Dover, that this has actually been a pretty exciting season of racing in NASCAR. One-third of the season is complete, yet all three national series (Cup, Nationwide & Craftsman Truck) have a point-differential of less than 100 between the point leader & the 2nd place driver. A year ago now, 2 of the 3 series were looking at point leads over 200.