Photo taken from Motorsports.com: Mark Martin during his victory lap at PIR.

What a great race! I have to say this weekend's race from Phoenix International Raceway was everything you want in a race. There was come controversy, high emotions, and a winner that I think everyone agrees deserved to be in victory lane. So let's jump right on into this and hit some of the highlights from this historic race.

First up a little Sour:

Robbie Gordon vs. Michael Waltrip:

At the beginning of the race Michael Waltrip got into Robbie Gordon sending him into the wall. Now neither of these men are strangers to wrecks or great one liners and Robbie was good for that in his interview. Robbie says "Looking forward to having a new driver in the 55 next year?"

Wait there is going to be someone new in the 55 next year?? Now I watched Michael Waltrip on This Week in NASCAR and he sure didn't confirm or deny really his intentions for next year but he did say that he understood where Robbie was coming from because he had had a similar thing happen to him during the Nationwide race on Friday night. I can't really imagine Michael hanging it up just yet I'm sure it was just Robbie doing what he does best running his mouth.

Casey Mears boots Dale (Dale retaliates...and so does Casey)

12 laps to go Jr. gets spun around by Casey Mears... then during the cool down lap Dale Jr Spins Casey around and then Casey comes back at him and bumps him in the back as they enter pit road. Looks like these too will be on probation for 6 races as a result of their little spat which honestly is a scaled back version of what they normally hit the drivers with. I feel like maybe Nascar is trying to throw us all a bone by giving these guys a more lenient penalty and maybe making an effort to help get some emotion back into this sport. Along the lines of this I read a great article this week written by Larry Mac about what is going wrong in this sport. Here is the link to that you should read it he is spot on about things and it was about time someone said them!

http://msn.foxsports.com/nascar/story/94...

Ok other people who need to be mentioned this week I have to give a shout out to Sam Hornish Jr. He brought home his very first Sprint Cup top ten this weekend. So good for them hope that's a step in the right direction and he can quit wrecking all my guys out every week.

Mark wins leaving Jr. as the only Hendricks driver without a win this year. I have to say that I was overjoyed to see Mark Martin in victory lane on Saturday. He is such a class act and that was proved by the amount of drivers that came to congratulate him after the race. He had the car to beat and the team to back him up and I'm so glad that he finally made it back to victory lane! Made it even more special that I just met him the week before!

Questions of the week:

Is it time for the 88 team to have a complete overhaul? New crew chief? New pit crew?

Links to videos:

Right after Saturday nights race:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwwNmbreE...

Sweet and Sour for Phoenix:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1i8ZqpHGi...