Jeff Gordon will be happy that the race at Kansas Motor Speedway last night wasn't a lap longer.
The driver of the #24 car came over the start/finish line to take the checkered flag 0.12 second ahead of Kevin Harvick, driver of the #4 car, after having a one second lead the previous lap.
The inaugural running of the night race at Kansas Motor Speedway was action packed from the drop of the green flag all the way to Gordon getting his first win of the season and effectively booking his place in this years Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup trophy.
With his victory last night Gordon moved onto 89 career wins and only a handful of driver in NASCAR's history have made it to a century of victories. Gordon is already considered a legend of the sport and to get to a century of victories would cement that title.
Mother Nature played her part at the start of the race, as she has done for a number of the races already this season, as the start was delayed by 30 minutes. But that didn't dampen the action and the hunger from the fans and driver alike to see and put on a show.
In every NASCAR race fans want to see passes for the lead, crashes, disagreements and a fight for the lead all the way to the checkered flag.
Last night's race didn't disappoint. Harvick was dominant for the first half of the race as he lead a total of 109 laps. Joey Logano also had a strong car but after a string of caution flags he began to drop off and Gordon was the third driver who had a fast car and made it count.
The teams had no notes in their files on what is what like to race under the lights at Kansas, but that didn't stop the action from happening all of the way through the 267 laps.
Some drivers, Clint Bowyer and Marcos Ambrose and Kurt Busch, pushed their cars too hard coming out of the turns and lost control at different points during the race. Luckily all of them avoided making contact with any other driver or damaging their cars.
As the great Darrell Waltrip always says: "Cautions breed cautions," and that is exactly what happened just before the halfway point in the race. This was the point where drivers were losing control of their cars and spinning out.
Plaudits should go to Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Ryan Blaney, who was making his first ever start in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series,and managed to avoid the cars spinning all over the track.
As a fan the loose cars made for exciting viewing and as the temperature cooled after the sun had set the action became even more intense.
One of the best moments of the race, but not for the drivers involved, was a big accident on the start/finish line when David Ragan got loose, crashed into AJ Allmendinger and collected Justin Allgaier along with David Gilliland.
Gilliland and Allgaier's cars were destroyed with debris all over the race track, but thankfully all of the drivers involved were unhurt.
One driver who proved her critics wrong last night was Danica Patrick after she collected her best ever finish in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series with a seventh place finish. She was upfront for most of the night and for people who said she could only drive on Superspeedways, she showed them that she is starting to settle in and learn different tracks.
Kyle Larson was the highest placing rookie during the race and showed just why a number of people are tipping him to be a big star in the future of this sport.
To say that the teams and the drivers knew little about racing here at night the entire race was action packed and a joy to look from start to finish. Hopefully NASCAR will keep this race on the calendar for years to come.
Drivers always says that the night races are the most exciting to be involved in and as a fan it is great to see amazing racing all through the field of 43 cars and a season where not one person is dominating.
Overall for this writer, personally, the race was one of the best this season so far. It was great to see lower drivers battling for top ten spots and people who you would expect to dominate struggling at certain points during the race. Finally, some parity was seen.
Seeing action from start to finish is what's important and Kansas Motor Speedway, with the very high speeds that the cars run, is right up there with the best.