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Friday night NASCAR fans watched Clint Bowyer and AJ Allmendinger race their way into the Sprint All-Star Race. In Victory Lane NASCAR and Sprint announced the winner of the Sprint Fan Vote. The driver that ending up winning the Sprint Fan Vote and securing the final spot in the Sprint All-Star Race was none other than Josh Wise.

Wise winning the Sprint Fan Vote will hopefully go a long way in quieting some of the NASCAR critics and doubters.

NASCAR and Sprint put a lot of marketing and advertisement into the 2014 Sprint Fan Vote. After it was announced which drivers were the finalists (top-10 in votes), each driver then had a superhero-inspired picture of them made to encourage more votes. During this entire process there was a large number of fans who felt that the voting process was a joke and that regardless of the “vote” Danica Patrick was going to be the winner.

Rumblings of NASCAR and Sprint fixing the voting began weeks ago in many online NASCAR communities. Those rumblings grew even louder after the finalists were announced and the superhero photos were released. Many fans openly bashed NASCAR for putting so much effort into promoting the Sprint Fan Vote when they all claimed to have known for sure that the result was already decided. Apparently these fans failed to realize that Patrick has a fairly large fan base, just ask her over 1 million Twitter followers. For those of you wondering, the next driver with the most Twitter followers is Dale Earnhardt Jr. with about 400,000 less than Patrick.

Despite that, had Patrick won Friday night it would have been clear that the fix was in.

Wise winning the Sprint Fan vote should quell all of those fans out there that have spent weeks ranting about how the entire system is fixed. Wise winning the Sprint Fan Vote is a huge moment for him and NASCAR fans alike. Wise winning proves that the fans really do have the power to have their voices heard. Hopefully Wise will give all of his fans even more to cheer about when he takes the green flag Saturday night in the Sprint All-Star Race.

As for all of those doubters out there? It would seem that their tone has shifted from calling for the fix to taunting Patrick for not having enough fans. The world is filled with all sorts I suppose.

Christopher Olmstead is the Editor of BeyondTheFlag.com on the FanSided Network. Follow us on Twitter @Beyond_The_Flag and “Like” us on Facebook.