Racing at New Hampshire was in the pits, so to speak. The race itself brought a lot of close calls but little contact of consequence. The big picture included pit road and, yet again, some stiff lips from some of the drivers.

As an example, Jimmie Johnson and Kyle Busch take the run out for a pit stop just before David Reutimann blows an engine on the track. The caution throws Johnson and Busch to the back and a lap down but Johnson drew the “lucky dog” to regain the lap. NASCAR hasn’t exactly seemed consistent on the calls on cautions while other cars are handling green flag pit stops. At times it seems almost arbitrary. Perhaps it really is the luck of the split-second time of where, when and what color cap is being worn by the fan in seat 34B.

Johnson was able to pull back to the top 10 and finish where he started in the 7th slot.Kyle Busch, who started on pole but also had earlier pit issues, drove the #18 back to a 16th place finish. Team mate Denny Hamlin might have had the winning car for most of the race but a communications error caused a stalled pit stop and put him a bit back in the field. It seems he placed an order for two tires but crew chief Darian Grubb super-sized the order to four. Hamlin managed a run back towards the front but couldn’t catch the late race leader, Kasey Kahne.

The LENOX Industrial Tools 301 made for some other interesting quirks through the afternoon. Stewart-Haas Racing showed throughout but never came close to the result of their 1-2 finish last time around New Hampshire. At one point Tony Stewart was a lap down but drove the slippery #14 back to 12th place. Team mate Ryan Newman fared slightly better putting the #39 just inside the top ten.

Clint Bowyer finished with a pretty good run for third maintaining what has been a fine year overall for Michael Waltrip Racing.

Sam Hornish, Jr., still filling the seat for A.J. Allmendinger, managed to stay on the lead lap and put the #22 in the same as it’s number.

The race winner may have been Kasey Kahne but the overall winner was likely team owner Rick Hendrick. All four of his teams finished in the top 10. They also all started from the green flag in the top 10. Johnson put the #48 in at 7th, Jeff Gordon ran the #24 to 6th, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. started 9th and drove to a 4th place finish and winner Kasey Kahne ran well all day, starting next to the pole and taking the win.

Kahne, post race, managed to give credit to his own team and not the teams of the #11 and the #18. However, it would not have been too far off for him to give a nod to the Gibbs’ teams as their pit stop errors paved the checkered path for Kahne to be in victory lane.

This victory did push Kahne into the realm of a Chase run, moving him 4 spots up to a 12th in points. Hamlin’s 2nd place moved him into the top 5 in points while the top four held. Matt Kenseth is still leading. Dale, Jr. maintains the 2nd points spot. Greg Biffle and Jimmie Johnson hang on to their third and fourth points positions.

The next stop is the brickyard of Indy. Indianapolis is always a show of history and fanfare. However, it will be of real interest in just over two months when NASCAR returns to New Hampshire. The Chase will be on and time will tell if Kasey Kahne can keep the #5 in the hunt to run this track again.