Okay, so after reevaluating the weekend, I've decided that I was just a little hard on Slugger...maybe. I don't think his biggest screw up was taking the 4 tires when everyone else took 2. In theory, it should have worked, because Sterling had better tires than everyone else and then could have worked his way faster through the field. Also the pit stop took longer than it should have, which made them start even further back. But if you've got a good car and everyone else took 2, then in theory you'd still have just as good of a car and he would have restarted higher and been able to still pick off more positions. Slugger was definitely too conservative when he knew the rain was coming, I'll stand by that.
But regardless of strategy, the reason we didn't get to see a halfway almost decent finish was because of the fender being screwed up. Aero is very important at Pocono, so it's really hard to pass people when your fender is crumpled up. Sterling didn't realize his fender was crumpled up, but Sterling did mess up a little bit by not telling Slugger when he hit the curb, but Sterling just thought his tire hit it and nothing else.
Still, I'm putting the majority of blame on Slugger. There was nothing they could have done about the fender, so it's not like the finish would have been spectacular, but it still could have been better if Slugger hadn't been so conservative with the rain approaching.
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