Is there a race this weekend?  With all the hype surrounding the induction of the first class into the NASCAR Hall of Fame most people have forgotten that the Chase is still going on and there is a race this Saturday night at Lowes Motor Speedway in Charlotte with Jimmie Johnson taking the P1 position followed by teammate Mark Martin in P2.

My man Dale Earnhardt made it into the Hall of Fame by the way along with NASCAR founder Bill France and his son Bill France Jr., and driver/owners Junior Johnson and Richard Petty.

Speaking of Jimmie Johnson didn’t he have a smooth race in California last weekend?  Not only did he win but he took control of the point lead over Martin.

Johnson’s win however was overshadowed by accusations by fellow competitor Kasey Kahne about NASCAR deliberately throwing a caution flag for ‘debris’ late in the race so they could bunch up the field for a re-start in order to make the race more interesting.  Kahne was spun during the following restart and ended up with a poor finish.

Debris cautions are always controversial, drivers in the lead never see debris on the track while those who are in danger of going down a lap see debris everywhere and have their teams notify NASCAR about it so they can get that caution flag period so they can get caught up to the rest of the field.

To NASCAR’s credit they always investigate and when they can’t identify the exact nature of the debris on the track they throw the caution flag to clean it up.  Sometimes it is legitimate like a beer can that rolled onto the track from the stands or it can just be a piece of hotdog wrapper.

Although it has been documented in the past that some drivers have carried ‘debris’ of their own in their cars and thrown it on to the track when they needed a caution flag to help them out.

Honestly I wouldn’t be surprised to see this story in one of the pre-race shows this weekend with actual camera footage of the questionable debris that was on the track at the time the caution flag flew – just to show the public that NASCAR did not try to manipulate the outcome of the race.

I can’t wait for this Saturday’s race as I always enjoy the action at Lowe’s Motor Speedway.  I think Jimmie Johnson is going to be one tough cookie to beat at this track, but if anyone can beat him here it would be teammates Mark Martin and Jeff Gordon along with Tony Stewart.  Look for Martin to be there at the end if it turns into a fuel mileage race.

In the "Where did he come from?" category of drivers to watch I would keep an eye on Juan Montoya (as I’ve said before he’s due) along with Dale Earnhardt Jr., Ryan Newman and teammates Greg Biffle and Carl Edwards.