One Great Night

Tony Stewart put on a dominating performance in last night's Prelude to the Dream leading just every about every lap and holding off Robby Gordon for the victory at his own track. The night though was filled with carnage, the feature race itself had seven cautions. Most of them caused by J.J. Yeley.

The night itself almost didn't happen with lots of rain occurring over the past few days at Eldora Speedway the track was in a sloppy condition with Stewart almost having to call off the race six hours before showtime, but Mother Nature gave Eldora Speedway a break and the show was on. The night started off with qualifying in which Dave Blaney won the pole set a new track record. The first heat was a replay of last year with Clint Bowyer dominating and winning the heat, the race also featured a major crash as J.J. Yeley, Aric Almriola and Mark Martin piled into one another ending Martin's night. The second heat was won by Stewart and first-time Prelude driver Robby Gordon took heat 3 which featured David Reutimann hood popping off his car while leading.

The carnage of the heats led to the cancellation of the B-main so the drivers could have time to work on their damaged cars. Coca-Cola 600 winner Kasey Kahne had troubles getting his car to run and spent most of the night working on his car rather than racing it. Last week's winner at Dover Kyle Busch found the wall twice tearing his spoiler each time, Jeff Gordon and Ryan Newman also found the wall and to had their cars repaired. But the break period really help the teams in trouble and all but two cars (Mark Martin and Bill Elliott, who had engine woes) missed the main feature. As soon as the race started Stewart quickly took the lead from Kevin Harvick and never looked back and with superb restarts Stewart seemed to be in his own zip code compared to the other cars.

Of course the night was truly for the children and Stewart donated a 1 million dollar check to Kyle Petty in victory lane to go to the Victory Junction Gang Camp. The night was truly a lot of fun, to see the drivers being their true selves and not being all business even though some took the race a little too seriously with all but 2 of the drivers going out and testing their cars, to see such oddities such a 2-time Sprint Cup champion Jimmie Johnson asking Clint Bowyer for advice to get around Eldora for the first time, in most cases that would be the other way around with Bowyer asking for advice. But it is those things that makes this event such a grand spectacle and I can’t wait for next year.