After the tricky road course at Watkins Glen the Sprint Cup Series heads to Michigan for the second time this season. This track has lots of room to race, capable of accommodating five-wide racing in it's corners. Like earlier this year, fuel strategy will likely play a pivotal role in deciding the winner.


1. Kyle Busch

After a two week "slump" Busch silenced critics as he dominated and won at Watkins Glen for the eighth time this year. Earlier this year at Michigan Busch was only mediocre, as he finished 13th. His career hasn't seen much success here, either, as he's only earned two top-10's in seven races, but don't by any means count him out.

2. Tony Stewart

Stewart is getting things going his way at the right time, with just a few more races until the Chase begins Stewart has helped secure his spot with back-to-back 2nd place finishes. Stewart is very consistent at Michigan as well, with 13 top-10's in 19 races, including a 5th earlier this year.

3. Matt Kenseth

Kenseth has earned two solid finishes just outside the top-10 after his blown tire at Indianapolis, working his way back into the top-12. This weekend at Michigan may be his chance to really get things on track before the Chase starts, earlier this year he finished 3rd at Michigan behind the fuel gamblers.

4. Carl Edwards

Edwards backed up his Pocono win with a solid 9th place finish at the Glen. Edwards will be one of the drivers to contend for the win this weekend at Michigan, where in eight career starts he finished outside the top-10 only once.

5. Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Earnhardt had a car capable of winning at the Glen, but when he fell behind because of an untimely caution, he spent the rest of the day playing catch up, and was able to muster a 21st place finish. Of course Earnhardt will be a favorite this weekend, Michigan is where he earned his only win so far this season.

6. Jimmie Johnson

Johnson has been on a role as of late, and looking like a championship contender again. He's had four straight finishes of 7th or better, including his dominating win at the Brickyard. He should have another solid run at Michigan, where he finished 6th earlier this year.

7. Kevin Harvick

Harvick has rebounded nicely from his wreck at Inianapolis, with a 4th at Pocono and a 6th at Watkins Glen, putting him back in the top-12. He'll need more consistent runs in the upcoming weeks to stay there, starting at Michigan where he finished 12th earlier this year.

8. Greg Biffle

Biffle is fighting for his Chase life after his 21st place finish at the Glen, bumping him down from 8th to 10th in points. If he wants to get things turned around at Michigan he'll have to do better than he did earlier this year, when he finished 20th.

9. Jeff Burton

Burton has somewhat struggled in the past few races, with only one top-10 in eight races. Burton may not be a contender for a top-10 this weekend at Michigan, but he should earn a solid top-15 like he did earlier this year.

10. Jeff Gordon

When a driver known for road course prowess like Gordon runs in the back of the pack all day at Watkins Glen, you know a team is struggling. Gordon will need to start getting things turned around if he wants to keep his spot in the Chase, but Michigan likely isn't the place where it will happen. Earlier this year Gordon ran mid-pack all day before finishing 18th.



Other Notables:

11. Kasey Kahne- Kahne has been fairly consistent lately, and should contend for the win at Michigan, where he finished 2nd earlier this year. He also won there in 2006.

12. Brian Vickers- Poor runs have dropped Vickers from Chase contention, but he is still a threat to win, especially at Michigan, where he finished 4th and led 44 laps earlier this year.

13. Denny Hamlin- Hamlin has an average finish just outside the top-10 at Michigan, and has earned top-10's in two of the past three races this season.

14. Kurt Busch- Busch earned his first top-10 in three races at the Glen, and may carry that over to Michigan, where he won easily last year.

15. Clint Bowyer- He fell out of the top-12 last week, but is just 22 points out. He'll need to step it up at Michigan, where he's never finished better than 16th.

For the first time in his career Kyle Busch finished better than 6th at Watkins Glen, and for the eighth time this year he was standing in victory lane. Busch led 52 of 90 laps from the pole as he ran away from the field for another dominating win.

"I knew (Tony Stewart) was going to be hard to beat racing against the same stuff with Tony Stewart and Joe Gibbs Racing," Busch said from victory lane. "I'm really going to hate to see him leave at the end of the year. I've got to thank him. The more we ran the better our car got with grip."

Busch's win made it mathematically impossible for any other driver to earn more bonus points towards the Chase, as he has four more wins than anyone else with just four races remaining before the Chase begins. He also became the first driver to win both Cup road course races since Robby Gordon in 2003.

Behind Busch was his teammate Stewart, whose second place finish allowed him to gain 60 points on 13th in points, giving him a comforatable 138 point cusion. Following in third was Marcos Ambrose, who followed up his first career Nationwide Series win on Saturday with a strong run from 41st to 3rd on Sunday, giving the Wood Brothers their best finish since 2005.

The first 80 laps of the race were relatively incident-free, but after a late restart David Gilliland and Michael McDowell made contact off turn 11, sending Gilliland spinning in front of several cars. When the smoke settled nine cars had been involved, leaving the exit of turn 11 filled with debris.

That wreck set up the final restart, in which Busch pulled away instantly from Stewart, who was left to battle with Ambrose and Juan Pablo Montoya for the final laps as Busch pulled away by two seconds.

Although Clint Bowyer was able to sneak through that large crash, he wasn't able to keep his spot in the top-12 in the points standings, as Matt Kenseth's 12th place finish put him back in front of Bowyer, who finished 23rd. Bowyer now trails by Kenseth by 22 points, while David Ragan is 92 points outside the Chase.

Every other driver is 209 points or more behind, starting with 15th place Martin Truex Jr., who finished 5th. Truex made headlines earlier in the weekend when he announced his contract extension with DEI through 2009.

"I'm exited to put an end to all of the rumors," Truex said during a press conference. "I'm looking forward to doing great things with the company and moving forward."

Carl Edwards looked to be the driver to beat this season after earning three wins in seven races. However as he went winless through the next thirteen races and other drivers' names started to fill the headlines, Edwards' early dominance was somewhat forgotten.

Until the Sprint Cup Series returned to the Pocono Raceway, a track where victory slipped through Edwards' fingers after a speeding penalty late earlier this year. However no such penalty held back Edwards this time, as he found himself out front after the final round of pit stops. The only thing Edwards had to do was stretch his fuel to make it to the finish, which he did as he earned his fourth win of the season.

However, Edwards thought he had lost the race about 70 laps earlier, when he pitted from the lead while it started raining.

"Bob and I were really arguing," Edwards said. "I was really nervous that we made the wrong call there. But Bob Osborne is just real smart. I'm really proud of him for the strategy. Bob did a really good job, but I wasn't so sure when we were yelling at each other about halfway through."

Behind Edwards was Tony Stewart, who's second place run allowed him earn some breathing room in the race to the Chase, with 68 points separating himself and 13th place Matt Kenseth, who fell out of the Chase field despite finishing a solid 11th.

Kenseth now sits where Kevin Harvick was in points entering the Pocono race, as Harvick had fallen to 13th after an early wreck at Indianapolis. It seemed as though that luck had followed him to Pocono as he spun after contact with Joe Nemechek on lap 1, but Harvick fought back all day to finish a strong fourth, climbing back to 11th in points.

With just five more races remaining until the Chase starts, it appears as though there are now just fourteen drivers fighting for the twelve spots, as Brian Vickers fell 203 points behind 12th place Clint Bowyer to 16th after finishing a disappointing 28th. Ryan Newman was able to take advantage and climb to 15th in points, but he's 173 points behind Bowyer. 14th place David Ragan is still within striking distance though, as he's just 46 points outside of the Chase.

Meanwhile after last weeks' race that was filled with tire issues, Goodyear made plans for a new tire, one that would perform better for Nascar's new, larger car.

"We had some discussion about a larger tire... several years ago with NASCAR when we started this whole discussion about the [new car],'' said Stu Grant, general manager of worldwide racing for Goodyear. "We are working on a larger contain-air volume, a bigger section width, taller tire, larger bead diameter. Right now, it's all modeling. We're trying to figure out what the right size would be."

While Goodyear believes this new tire will help prevent issues like the ones that arose at Indianapolis from occuring, the new tire won't be ready for at least two years.

Alright, in case any of you have wondered why I haven't put together the Power Rankings like I usually do, it's because I'm at my mothers house. This means in order to get on here I have to deal with the blazing fast speeds of a computer that's 7 years old on top of a dial-up connection... not very fun, lol.

So anyways the fact that it takes 20 minutes minimum to load a page makes it impossible for me to access all the data I need to throw together my power rankings, but I will try to get on here after Sunday's race (which I'll probably have to listen to on the radio because they don't have ESPN here, gah!) and write the race review, but I may not be able to get on here immediately, so at any rate you're not going to see me on here much until I get back home on the 10th, so until then ttyl.

If you're trying to find Jon's "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," you probably won't see it in the Nascar section on the blog page because apparently Foxsports doesn't want it there... he's even tried posting it twice, but still not there some 40 minutes later.

So if you wanna see it here's a link, Jon's work deserves to be seen.

http://community.foxsports.com/blogs/jon_464/2008/07/27/The_Good_The_Bad_and_The_UglyIndianapolis