View From The Flagstand: Kahne Rocks The Rock

This week's View comes from the legendary Rockingham Speedway as NASCAR finally came back to The Rock! The Truck Series became the first NASCAR national touring series to visit Rockingham in eight years.

CHECKERED FLAG

Kasey Kahne won the Good Samaritan 200 on Sunday after a top-10 run at Texas the night before in the Cup Series. Kahne has now won four of his five truck starts. The Cup event in Texas kept Kahne away from all practices and qualifying in Rockingham. Brad Sweet qualified the Rockwell Chevy 5th for Kahne, but the Turner Silverado had to start the race at the rear of the field when Kahne started the race. After taking the lead on lap 155, Kahne led until the checkered flag fell on lap 200.

GREEN FLAGS

In addition to winning, the Chevys of Turner Motorsports finished 2nd with James Buescher, 7th with pole winner, Nelson Piquet Jr, and 15th with Miquel Paludo. Points leader, Timothy Peters started 3rd and finished 5th. Jeb Burton was 11th in his second Truck start.

YELLOW FLAG

Texas Motor Speedway put on total snoozers during the Cup and Nationwide races last weekend. By comparison, the 200 laps were action packed for the most part. There were not a lot of caution flags, but plenty of hard racing throughout the field.

RED FLAG

Of the thirty-six trucks that made the race, only one was a Dodge, and just three were Fords. Parker Kligerman's Dodge wound up 9th, while the F-150 of Jason White came home in 24th place with Ford's highest finish. Is the Camping World Truck Series in danger of becoming a Chevy/Toyota only series?

BLACK FLAG

Rockingham Speedway was freshly scrubbed and painted for NASCAR's return. The fans showed up and enjoyed the show. My only quibble was the lack of a plan to get the thousands of fans away from the track in a timely fashion. I know it has been years since The Rock had thousands of fans in the parking lots, but getting a lot of cars away from a venue is not that difficult. Anyone who has ever been to Darlington has witnessed the best traffic exit strategy of all time.... maybe the NC state trooper traffic detail could visit their SC brethren and learn something.