Congratulations to Jimmie Johnson (my pick to win) for adding yet another win to his already impressive resume at Martinsville. I thought the racing was excellent.
Here's a few observations before I get to the caution breakdown:

-- Since when do they show the starting lineup on television backwards? That was quite odd. Did you catch that?

-- The big buzz on twitter yesterday was all about Ingrid cutting all her hair off. How did I miss this? I am going to have to go searching for a picture now...

-- I'm delighted that Clint Bowyer had another solid run yesterday. He ended the day in fifth.

-- Jeff Gordon did not break his losing streak even though at one point I was thinking that maybe he was going to.

-- Joey Logano managed to stay 34th in the point standings. Good job, Joey. He definitely had his ups and downs with blowing a tire and getting penalized for entering the pits too fast during a pit stop.

-- Dale Earnhardt Jr. finally had a solid finish. Plus, he didn't need to utilize a lucky dog to acheive his solid finish of eighth place.

-- Several drivers had tires blow during the race: Eric Almirola (twice), Kyle Busch, Jeremy Mayfield, Carl Edwards, Robby Gordon (twice), and Scott Speed. I'm sure I missed a few. If you'd like to add to the list, please feel free to do so.

-- What a great race for Stewart-Haas Racing. Stewart and Newman both had top-ten finishes, third and sixth respectively.

There were twelve cautions during yesterday's race. Let's take a peek at what happened to bring out each caution:

There should be no surprise that the first caution was brought out by none other than Michael Watrip. He got loose going into a corner, spun and went up and kissed the wall.

Competition yellow came out on lap 40 which was the second caution.

Kyle Busch drove into the corner a bit too hard and got loose driving up into Scott Speed who went spinning for caution number four.

The fourth caution of the race was due to Robby Gordon having a tire go down and spinning on the racetrack. There was no contact with any other car during his spin.

Robby Gordon had another tire go down. This time he went up the track and had contact with David Reutimann which brought out the fifth caution.

Scott Speed and Eric Armirola both blew tires on the same lap and there was debris on the track bringing out the sixth caution of the race.

A beverage can got thrown out on the track bringing out the seventh caution.

Jeremy Mayfield smacked the wall for the eighth caution.

David Stremme sent Eric Almirola spinning for the ninth caution.

Bobby Labonte and Martin Truex got into one another with about 28 laps to go bringing out the tenth caution. Labonte had spun and Truex had no place to go and smacked right into him.

Martin Truex Jr. spun David Reutimann bringing out the eleventh caution of the day.

I missed the twelvth caution. Or at least I think it was the twelvth caution. I have to admit my notes got a bit scrambled between cautions nine and twelve. So if you're sitting there scratching your head thinking, "what the hell is she talking about?" Then it was just my note taking during that time frame. Please do correct me...

What did you think of the race?

Here's the NASCAR Newscast: Goody's Fast Pain Relief 500 Preview:

I'm not so sure about the weather for today and tomorrow. Hopefully they can get qualifying in, which is scheduled for today at 3:30 p.m. on SPEED. At least it looks clear for race day.

I've never missed an episode of The Biggest Loser. In fact, I'm a TBL junkie. Last night's episode was great. Maybe even one of the best one's I've seen yet. Here's a clip of the episode with Clint Bowyer:

Tara, the smallest contestant on the show, won the event. As you saw in the video, the contestants had to pull a two-ton car with extra weight added by the other contestants. Tara had the most extra weight added to her car, 257 pounds. Even with the additional weight, she managed kick everyone's butt in the challenge. It was priceless.

In addition to the ride, the burnout, and let's not forget that hug with Bowyer (by far the best part of the win), Tara will get to watch the Sprint Cup race at Auto Club Speedway on Oct. 11 in style. She'll get to watch the race from a luxury suite and have her picture taken with the winner of the race in victory lane. Very cool.

Maybe I'm a bit biased, because all you regular readers know he's my fave, but I thought Bowyer did a really good job on the show last night. Typically, I think it can be comical when drivers try to do things like this. They tend to look and act like a fish out of water. But he looked really relaxed and acted like he really enjoyed being there the entire time.

Did you watch? What did you think?

Tonight, Clint Bowyer will make an appearance on The Biggest Loser. He'll be giving an inspirational pep talk to the contestants before their challenge of pulling a two-ton car. The show airs on NBC, 9-11 p.m.

As much as I LOVE the fact that I get to watch Bowyer tonight on TBL, I would think the show could have picked a driver with a healthier sponsor or at least no food sponsor at all. Last time I checked, Hamburger Helper wasn't the healthiest meal to be eating while trying to lose weight.

Having said that, I'll leave you with this:

Next up: Casey Mears will get in his Jack Daniels driver's suit and give inspirational talk to folks on Celebrity Rehab.

All right, so I've got a bit of the Twitter bug. On Sunday I tried tweeting a bit while watching the race. I am great at multi-tasking but this was pushing the limits.

Between watching and taking notes on the race for this blog, getting up to get a drink here and there, tweeting and trying to carry on conversations at home, my blood pressure likely wasn't within the normal limits.

Normally during commercial breaks is my time to do various things like change over laundry, talk with family and friends ... etc., etc. But I found that during commercial breaks (especially at Bristol) was the BEST time to sit there and watch all the tweets, so I stayed glued to the chair. The first three cautions happened during commercial breaks on Sunday and I knew about all three almost instantly from people tweeting from the racetrack.

As much as I felt a bit overwhelmed, I am a glutton for punishment and will do it all over again during Sunday's race at Martinsville. You should check it out and let me know what you think.

Congratulations to Kyle Busch for his second victory at Bristol. This marked the first time he's won twice at any given track. It's also his third top-three finish this year.
The last three races have been won by a member of the Busch family. His brother, Kurt, won last week at Vegas and Kyle won the week before that in Atlanta. I'm just glad Shrub didn't take after his brother this week and drive backwards around the track for his victory lap. Seriously, I would be happy if I never saw that again.

There were nine cautions during yesterday's race. Let's take a peek at what happened to bring out each caution:

The first caution was a single-car spin by John Andretti.

The second caution was also brought out by Andretti. He was the first and only car a lap down and during the restart he got a bit loose and went up the track and hit Dave Blaney. Blaney spun and it was crazy that no one hit him. Normally, the first car a lap down would get the lucky dog and get a pass back on the lead lap but because Andretti caused the wreck, he didn't get the lucky dog.

The third caution, thankfully, had nothing to do with Andretti. Michael Waltrip wasn't clear of Todd Bodine and drove up into him. Kevin Harvick's car got quite a bit of damage from that mishap.

I just want to note that those first three cautions happened during commericial breaks. What ever happened to, "If a caution breaks out, we'll break in?"

Juan Pablo Montoya intentionally hit Jamie McMurray sending him spinning which brought out the fourth caution. NASCAR warned Montoya to not be so rough.

If McMurray didn't feel like a ping pong ball after the Montoya scuffle, he surely must have after he got hit again, bringing out the fifth caution of the day. This time it involved Sam Hornish and Casey Mears. I'm not so sure what happened exactly (I was fixing something in the kitchen) but if I was a gambling woman, my guess would be that this is completely Sam Hornish's fault given his track record of wrecking... but please do let me know.

Ok. Where are we...oh yes, caution number six. The yellow flag waved due to debris on the track from Brian Vickers blowing a tire.

Kevin Harvick blew a tire and went up and hit the outside wall bringing out the seventh caution of the race. The lucky dog went to none other than Dale Earnhardt Jr. This was his third lucky dog of the race. Yeah, three. At Atlanta he was the recipient of two of them. This is not a very good trend, Junior.

David Stremme got loose and spun out which brought out the eighth caution.

And finally, the ninth caution was brought out because rookie Joey Logano's engine quit on him with about 7 laps remaining. Logano ended the day in 38th position. Luckily, he remains within the top-35 in the point standings unlike rookie, Scott Speed who is now on the outside looking in. Speed ended the day in 28th spot and is now 36th in the point standings. I think it was a fairly quiet day for Speed though. I didn't see much of him anyway.

The weather doesn't look too bad for this weekend's race in Bristol, TN. So we should have no issues there...thank goodness.

I'll be watching two drivers this weekend. Neither driver is one who I will pick to win the race though. They are Clint Bowyer and Tony Stewart. Bower's sitting second in the Sprint Cup point standings. In the four races thus far, he has posted three top ten's including two top fives.

Stewart is sixth in the point standings and has had three top tens, all of which are eighth-place finishes. Not too shabby for a new team. I hope his luck continues.

My pick, however, is going to be Happy Harvick for the win this weekend. He posted a second and a fourth-place finish here last year. I actually think that any RCR car is a pretty good pick for this weekend. Who do you think will take the checkers?

Yesterday Jeff Burton made a guest appearance on General Hospital. If you missed it, here's the clip:

I couldn't help but think that if he doesn't start winning, this scene could become more of a reality to him. Just sayin.

I'll be back tomorrow with my Bristol pick and preview.

I'm back, I'm back. I went on vacation and never once looked at the blog. I needed a complete break and it was awesome. Thank you for those who did throw their picks out there on Friday. If I had made my pick last week, it would have been Kurt Busch. Alright, maybe not.

Kurt Busch deserved that win yesterday. He dominated the race all day long. I was getting nervous with that late-race caution that he wasn't going to be the victor but he did. I could have done without him driving around the track backwards with the checkered flag but we got a good laugh out of it. Congratulations Busch!

In the beginning the race was a real sleeper until that crewman ran out to grab the tire that got loose and brought out a caution. It was poor timing though because most of the drivers had been down pit road to make their pit stops just a lap earlier. So after the caution flag flew, it left only six cars on the lead lap.

Just how many times can a driver get the lucky dog? Yesterday it looked as though Dale Earnhardt Jr. was going to get three of them. Yeah, three. Time ran out though and in the end he was the recipient of two. His car was a complete brick all day.

If you're ever online during the race and they throw out questions to ask on Ask.com, you should try it. I did. One of the questions, which I thought was a joke because it was a commercial, was "Why do drivers think peanuts are bad luck?" I had no idea so I went to Ask.com to find out why. Sure enough the answer was there along with some of the other superstitions there are like why some drivers won't carry 50 dollar bills. That's all I'm saying.

I was really pulling for Mark Martin to have a solid finish this week. But as luck would have it, he had a tire go and he went up and hit the wall. That's three weeks in a row for him to not have a good finish.

Clint Bowyer had another solid finish, sixth place.

Rookie Watch: Joey Logano hit the wall. It wasn't his fault though. AJ Allmendinger went up the track, forcing Logano to move up, right in front of Tony Stewart. Stewart hit him and sent him into the wall. He hit it a second time and had to go to the pits for repairs. Logano finished 30th, six laps down.

Scott Speed caused the wreck on lap 267. He went up into David Ragan and then there was a chain reaction. Greg Biffle got the worse end of that deal. He got hit and spun up and hit the outside retaining wall, completely wrecking his car. Speed finished 68 laps down in 35th position.

Sam Hornish Jr. doesn't have any business driving in the Sprint Cup Series. He creates wrecks every week. Just sayin.

What did you think of the race?