What started out as a pretty boring race ended up in a blaze of rubbin', bumpin' and racin' hard at Chicagoland Speedway on Saturday, July 11th. When there were only two cautions thrown after the first 200+ laps of a 267 lap race (and those were for debris only), it appeared that no one was even close competition for Mark Martin. He kept passing car after car, narrowing the number of cars on the lead lap down to around 14 or 15 by the end. Jimmie Johnson ran out front for a little bit. But, it was definitely Mark's race to lose. The last 40 or so laps gave us five cautions from a variety of cars spinning round. For the second week in a row, Shrub (Kyle Busch) managed to have a poor finish (finishing 33rd in the field) when he first kissed the wall, then smacked the wall and then dropped a cylinder. When Steve LaTarte called for his driver, Jeff Gordon, to come in for 4 new tires with less than 20 laps to go and his driver sitting in 8th place at a track where position means everything, even I questioned the sanity of such a call. However, when the final caution was called at seven laps to go, Jeff was in 2nd place thanks to his fresh tires. Also, Jimmie Johnson got loose and floated up into Kurt Busch's #2 to push them back in the field. When the final restart came back, Jeff and Mark were right out front, vying for the cup. But, when Martin started for the start/finish line a little early and Jeff spun his tires trying to get going, it was clear that Mark was going to take the checkered flag. And he did, giving Rick Hendricks a great birthday present of a 1-2 finish. Lifelock.com donated $1 million dollars to a Colorado family that correctly predicted Mark Martin and Jeff Gordon 
finishing in the 1-2 position. How wonderful was that?!
This was the last race that will be aired on TNT for the 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup season. There will be no race next week, but will be back on Sunday, July 26th at 1pm EST on ESPN. Hope to see you there!
Top 5 Finish at the LifeLock.com 400 at Chicagoland Speedway on July 11th, 2009:
1. Mark Martin #5
2. Jeff Gordon #24
3. Kasey Kahne #9
4. Tony Stewart #14
5. Denny Hamlin #11
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