Nascar Rules

[the H team]

Lap 3 -- Marcos Ambrose has a few car lengths on second-place Jeff Gordon. They're in the backstretch esses right now.

[the H team]

Lap 4 -- Matt Kenseth has been looking to get around Kurt Busch for eighth place, but he's not pressing the issue yet. He's being very ... well ... Matt Kenseth-like at the moment. Unlike Juan Pablo, whose all over Kenseth's a$$ end.

[the H team]

Lap 5 -- Jeff Gordon's deficit behind leader Marcos Ambrose remains steady at about 7/10ths of a second.

[the H team]

Lap 11 -- Jeff Gordon has closed to within just 3/10ths of a second of leader Marcos Ambrose.
Lap 7 -- Marcos Ambrose has picked up a couple of tenths of a second over Jeff Gordon. His cushion is now about 9/10ths of a second.
Lap 6 -- The top five are Marcos Ambrose, Jeff Gordon, Greg Biffle, Jimmie Johnson and Martin Truex Jr. Hey ... wasn't it just last year that Gordon and Truex had a little tiff here in Sonoma?

[the H team]

Lap 12 -- Clint Bowyer has moved up to fourth place, just in front of his teammate Martin Truex Jr. Marcos Ambrose locks his brakes up going into Turn 7, allowing Jeff Gordon to sneak past for the lead.

[the H team]

Lap 14 -- Jimmie Johnson and Clint Bowyer drop Marcos Ambrose back to fourth place.
Lap 13 -- Marcos Ambrose says that the handling is going away on his car. Jimmie Johnson has closed the gap, and should be challenging Ambrose for second place any time now.

[the H team]

Lap 16 -- Marcos Ambrose continues to slide back through the top five as Martin Truex Jr. goes past for fifth place. Hang on, mate. Hang on.
Lap 15 -- Jeff Gordon has a lead of about 1.3 seconds over Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson.

[the H team]

Lap 20 -- Clint Bowyer drops Jimmie Johnson back to third place.
Lap 19 -- Ryan Newman spins in Turn 11, but there's no caution.
Lap 18 -- Kyle Busch zips past Marcos Ambrose for fifth place on the frontstretch. So far, so good on the engine problems that have plagued Busch the last few races.

[the H team]

Lap 20 -- Brad Keselowski is running well behind the rest of the pack, in 10th place. AJ Allmendinger is pitting in a strategy move.

[the H team]

Lap 22 -- Jeff Gordon's lead over Clint Bowyer stands at about 2.3 seconds. It's 3.7 seconds back to third-place Jimmie Johnson.

[the H team]

Lap 23-Truex making his way to pit road for his stop.

[the H team]

Lap 24 -- Martin Truex Jr.'s team is also working the strategy angle. He's on pit road. Clint Bowyer is on Jeff Gordon's rear bumper, looking for a way to wrestle away the top spot.

[the H team]

Lap 25 -- Juan Montoya has lost his tachometer, which will make it hard to gauge his pit-road speed and shifting points on the track.

[the H team]

Lap 26 -- Clint Bowyer takes over the lead with a move under Jeff Gordon in Turn 11.

[the H team]

Lap 28 -- Jimmie Johnson has passed Jeff Gordon for second place.