OPINION

By Reid Spencer

updated 11:43 p.m. ET June 23, 2008

More than anything, Sunday's Toyota/Save Mart 350 NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Infineon Raceway turned the improbable into reality.

Who would have thought, for instance, that the aftermath of the race would look more like a short-track event at Bristol than a road-course race in laid-back Sonoma County, right in the heart of Northern California wine country?

Nonetheless, there was two-time defending Cup champion Jimmie Johnson shouting across the roof of a car at Greg Biffle, who had turned Johnson's No. 48 Chevrolet late in the race.

There was Carl Edwards, yanking his driving gloves off in disgust, despite a ninth-place finish that kept him solidly in fourth place in the series standings. Edwards had the fastest car in Sunday's race, but inopportune cautions kept shuffling him back in the pack, preventing the No. 99 Ford from contending for the win.

There was Tony Stewart, caustic and terse in his postrace interview with TNT pit reporter Marty Snider. For the second time this year, a slip by Kevin Harvick had cost Stewart a chance to win a race. The first incident occurred at Bristol, when Harvick slid into Stewart's car in the closing laps and the two spun in tandem.

In Sunday's wreck at Infineon, Stewart, Jamie McMurray and Harvick were running second, third and fourth when Harvick charged into Turn 7 and knocked McMurray into Stewart as all three cars performed a synchronized spin. Road-course ringer Ron Fellows was another innocent victim of the crash that promoted David Gilliland to second position and Jeff Gordon to third.

"I didn't see," Stewart said, after Snider pressed him to describe what happened. "You can say it a second time, but you weren't in the cars, and you don't know what you're talking about."

(Snider handled the brush-off with consummate professionalism and proceeded to the next question.)

Stewart recovered from the spin to finish 10th, but McMurray dropped to 18th and Harvick to 30th.

Who would have thought Matt Kenseth, who has had an allergic reaction to road courses in the past, would finish ahead of Stewart and all the road-course specialists? Kenseth ran a consistent race and came home eighth.

"I feel like we won," said Kenseth, who cracked the top 12 in the Cup standings for the first time since the Bristol race in March. "This is the only track on the circuit that we never had a top 10 at, and we fixed that today."

Who would have thought that Kenseth's Roush Fenway teammate David Ragan would finish six spots higher than Harvick, one of the drivers he's fighting for a position in the Chase for the Sprint Cup? Simply trying to survive on a road course, Ragan did better than that. He finished 24th despite trying to knock down the tire barrier in Turn 11 on Lap 30.

Though Ragan lost one position to 14th in the Cup standings as Kenseth leap-frogged into 12th, the driver of the No. 6 Ford is 63 points behind 11th-place Stewart and 47 behind Kenseth.

Who would have thought that, with all the talk about road-course ringers, the highest finisher among the road-course specialists would be 29th by Fellows, who subbed for Regan Smith in the No. 01 car? Max Papis was 35th, Scott Pruett 38th, Boris Said 41st and Brian Simo 43rd.

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Marcos Ambrose, a full-time Nationwide Series driver with extensive road-course experience, finished 42nd but was running consistently in the top five until Elliott Sadler locked his brakes and clobbered Ambrose's No. 21 Wood Brothers Ford, just as Ambrose was downshifting into first gear.

Though Ambrose fell out of the race after 83 laps with a broken transmission, it was a distinct pleasure to see the Wood Brothers' car running up front for most of the race.

Most of all, who would have thought that Kyle Busch would have won the race, keeping teammate Stewart and five-time Infineon winner Gordon without a victory between them this year? The road course win was another milestone in the continued development of Busch's formidable talent, and that's something his fellow competitors should find terrifying.

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