Kurt Busch had to survive two green-white-checkered restarts to win his 2nd consectuive spring Atlanta race.
R.J. Palmer Redeems Himself With A Victory At Atlanta
It's been a rough start to the season for R.J. Palmer. He finished 37th, 36th and 39th in the first three races of the season and came into Atlanta in last place. R.J. isn't in the basement anymore because he surprised everyone by winning the Kobalt Tools 500, his 2nd career victory. The last time that R.J. visited victory lane it was back in October 2008 at Lowe's Motor Speedway. That race was won with Intimidator Racing, Inc. and it was a very special first victory. This win is just as special because it's his first win as a team owner.
R.J.'s team, Outcast Racing probably wasn't given too much credit at the start of the season but they are turning some heads now because they have 2 victories in the first 4 races of the season. Ryan Smith won at Daytona and now R.J. wins at Atlanta. They are the only team to have more than one victory and move up to 6th place in the standings.
R.J. also moves up to 29th place in the standings after jumping up 14 spots. He was tied with Randy Cook for the biggest mover of the week. He scored a total of 285 points with picks of Jimmie Johnson, Kevin Harvick, Brian Vickers, Juan Pablo Montoya and A.J. Allmendinger. He won by a very large margin of 42 points over Randy Cook.
Randy didn't get close to first place, but like R.J. it was a very much needed good finish. The first two starts of the season weren't good, but he came back last week to finish 11th. Now he gets his first top 5 of the season with a nice 2nd place run. As mentioned he moves up 14 spots to 16th place. His team also moves up 7 spots to 15th place in the team standings.
Defending Cup champion Dean Higley keeps his good start to the season going as he finishes in 3rd place. It was his 3rd top 5 of the season and so far the only member to have 3 top 5's this year. He was the only member of Racing Tradtions, Inc. to make the top 10 this week but he gives his team 8 more points added to their total. Dean moves up 2 spots in the standings to 3rd place and is just 33 points out of getting back to the top spot.
Last week his teammate Harry Jeffery won at Vegas, now Ed Blackman adds another top 5 to the SOCAL Sprint Car Association total as he finishes in 4th place. SOCAL holds in 2nd place in the team standings but Ed moves up 5 spots to 8th place in the driver standings.
Rounding out the top 5 is Larry Scroggins who gets his 2nd top 5 of the year. Larry and Intimidator Racing, Inc. finish out the rest of the top 10 bookended by Leon Baker and Joe Hicks all who scored 215 points. Larry moves up into the top 5 of the driver standings while IRI moves into 3rd place in the team standings thanks to 15 bonus points this week.
After the first 4 races of the season, the Cup series takes a one week break before heading back to a very exciting race at Bristol Motor Speedway.
The Power Gauge: Final Standings Jordan Hunt - 2009 Champion
It was many weeks ago that we knew Jordan Hunt would be winning the Heatseek award. With the conclusion of the season, we can now say that Jordan Hunt is the Power Gauge Champion. Throughout the season. Jordan remained the hottest player after amassing the most points on the gauge. Even though he led just one week, you could usually find him somewhere in the top 5 or top 10 each week.
This is the 2nd time in Jordan's career that he won this award. In 2007, Jordan went on to win the heatseeker and Cup Championship in the same year. That year he recorded a total of 5,818 points. He didn't nearly match that amount this year, but the 5,584 points were 121 more points than 2nd place.
Jordan's future teammate, Kevin Sullivan, finished in 2nd place. He spent three weeks on top and was a huge improvement over last year when he finished in 27th place. You can definately say that Kevin is the most improved player in 2009. With a new team on the horizon, Kevin's future looks very bright.
Bob Douce will also be Kevin's teammate next year as well and ends up in third place. Bob led the final three weeks of the season and finished on a very high note. He came within a hair of winning the championship and is going to be a serious threat next year as always.
Although she fell off in the chase, Sue Perna had a very strong regular season. Strong enough that she finished in 4th place. Sue is also much more improved after finishing 20th last year. Sue was tied with Larry Scroggins with leading the most weeks. She and Larry both led 4 straight weeks.
Rounding out the top 5 is Gary Wheat. Gary spent three weeks on top and could usually be found close to one of his teammates. All three of Northeast Ohio Motorsports end up in the top 5 and gave Racing Traditions, Inc. a run for their money.
Two RTI members took the next two spots in the top 10, the 2009 Cup Champion Dean Higley in 6th followed by Nathan Helton in 7th. Lou Demian took 8th, Harry Jeffery 9th and John Sherman rounded out the top 10 in 10th.
So congratulations to Jordan on a great season. He'll now receive another award on his team page.
