The race before an off week is always a tense one for me. While racing is by no means the most important thing in life for me (Faith, Family, and Friends beat it by a long shot), I hope Nascar is my future career, and I like to be able to go through an off week with an exciting finish on my mind. Sadly, I wasn’t going to get that out of this past weekend’s Firekeeper’s Casino 400. Weird name.

Joey Logano won the pole for this race, and he was the race’s dominate driver, leading 138 of 200 laps around the 2 mile track. But he had a challenger in rookie Chase Elliot. Elliot led 35 laps, and was without a doubt at least Joey’s equal.

While there wasn’t much passing up front during this race, there was plenty in the middle of the field, and that passing led to some wrecking. The first came on lap 47, when Martin Truex Jr. got loose running under Clint Bowyer, and spun.

As the saying goes: cautions breed cautions. Not long after the restart, Kyle Busch suddenly lost power in his no. 18 car, and blew his engine. This was his 4th DNF this year. But thanks to his 3 wins, he has no problems as far as making the Chase goes.

On a lap 116 restart, Chase Elliot got past Logano for the lead, and led for the next 35 laps. During this time, Logano could’t get around Chase, proving Chase was at least Joey’s equal.

On thing that is worth mentioning is Tony Stewart. Stewart started 3rd, his best starting place of the year, and he ran in the top-five most of the day, and finished 7th. Stewart gained a spot in the point standings (36th to 35th), and he is now just 45 points outside the top-30. I thought I saw speed from Stewart this season, and his run Sunday proved me right, not to brag. I think a victory is coming, and a I think Stewart will make a Chase appearance this year.

Back to business. A caution with about 50 laps remaining put a unique spin on the race. All drivers were on the edge on fuel, and Chase was still ahead of Logano. But on the restart, Elliot wasn’t able to get going, he was passed by Logano, and he lost a lot of ground to him.

For the next 40 laps it seemed Logano was on track for a win, but a caution in the last 10 laps gave drivers one last shot at him. But, sadly, Logano had a good restart, and won the race. Not exactly the finish I hoped for going into the off week. And no, I didn’t stick around for post race interviews. Logaon’s interviews drive me crazy.