So Close, Mr. Gordon!

First of all, congratulations to Mr. Matt Kenseth for the second win in the first two weeks of NASCAR's 2009 season. This was a much better win than last week's rainedout. Next, my man, Jeff Gordon, was soooo close to his first win since October 2007. I was hoping not only to be able to witness Jeff's first win in 16 months live and in person, but I was ready to be done with all the talk of how Jeff has never gone this long without a win in his career. Both he and Greg Biffle, arguably, had the best cars of the race. The stands weren't as packed as I had seen them in the last few years, but there were plenty of people on hand to watch the race. TV's House doctor Hugh Laurie gave the "Gentlemen, start your engines" speech (after performing with the As Seen on TV band that included James Denton from Desperate Housewives performed with Hugh Laurie in the Band on TV before the race. Former NY Giants player Jason Sehorn and his wife, actress Angie Harmon, were there to wave the checkered flag. We had to sit in the (shudder) sprinkles of what Southern California calls "rain" that drifted through the area (causing four of the five yellow flag delays in the race), but it was a fun day for any NASCAR fan. Really, it was literally a sprinkling of rain. I was beginning to think that what NASCAR laughably determined to be "rain" would cause us to watch 250 laps go by at 55 mph for the first 50 laps of the race.

I am the lone Jeff Gordon fan in my NASCAR family of Jr fans. I get a lot of heat about loving "the enemy". So, I have to say that watching Jeff run a hell of a race on Sunday was right up there with Jr coming on over to the winning Hendricks team last year. I didn't have to say anything about the race. I'm not a gloater. I really don't have to be. However, I can't say that I was happy to see Jr fall prey to a bad break when he dropped a cylinder just over halfway through the race. It's always hard to watch a good driver have a bad race. And, listening to him run after trying over and over to fix the problem during Yellow Flag pit stops was quite excrutiating. It sounded like a wounded animal limping around the track. And I took no pleasure in watching him get lapped (even by my own guy) in a sea of crap-talking Jr fans (not to insinuate that ALL Jr fans talk crap...just my group of friends).

I'm happy at the way Jeff Gordon's year is taking shape so far. I'll be watching FOX on Sunday at 3:30pm ET to see how he does in Las Vegas. Go #24! Let's just hope his pit crew works on their skills that were so seriously lacking on Sunday (every pit lost Jeff 2-3 positions). They need to take notes on Kenseth's pit crew. Now THAT'S a crew that knew what they were doing!

Top 10 Results of Auto Club 500 from February 22, 2009:

1 - Matt Kenseth (#17)

2 - Jeff Gordon (#24)

3 - Kyle Busch (#18)

4 - Greg Biffle (#16)

5 - Kurt Busch (#2)

6 - Denny Hamlin (#11)

7 - Carl Edwards (#99)

8 - Tony Stewart (#14)

9 - Jimmie Johnson (#48)

10 - Brian Vickers (#83)

Heather Chavez, Second Self Virtual Assistance

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