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HAPPY EASTER! Welcome to the Cup Scene Daily for
Vol. III,No.VIXII FINAL EDITION
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G.B.U. Scott 7 DAY ARCHIVE SundayMonday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday INSIDE TODAY'S ISSUE: Robby Gordon may shoot for Busch crown Jamie McMurray to present music award Bring on more races, but leave off-dates alone Crowd estimate at Texas reduced Petty to talk to teens about safety News, Views, Reviews Feese first at Nashville No home-track advantage for Atwood Officials worried about rising expenses Longer schedule could be on tap Once kingly, now petty Dancers, start your engines' in this here ballet Racing Blind Spots Aren’t Just in the Mirrors Cup Scene readers speak out about the new point system
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Happy Birthday: Karsyn Jarrett Michael Waltrip didn't have the fastest car in Saturday's Pepsi 300 at Nashville Superspeedway. He didn't have the second-fastest, the third-fastest or even the fourth-fastest car.
But what he had at the finish was what counted — the winning car — thanks to four front-runners wiping themselves out in a Turn 2 pileup with two laps to go and dropping victory in Waltrip's lap. The wipeout that opened the door for Waltrip came as Kyle Busch and Clint Bowyer were locked in a side-by-side battle for first. There was contact and they went spinning, collecting third- and fourth-place Robby Gordon and Johnny Benson. ''I don't know what happened in front of me,'' Gordon said, ''but suddenly we had a synchronized spin with four cars.'' ''I've never believed in luck, but I might have to rethink that,'' said Waltrip, who darted through the wreckage without a scratch. ''I suspected two or three of them were going to crash, but not all four of them. I watched those guys spin out and I thought the Red Sea hard parted. I had my eyes closed and was gritting my teeth as I drove through the smoke and into Victory Lane.'' Rookie Clint Bowyer was racing rookie Kyle Busch for the lead coming out of Turn 2 on lap 224 when he tapped Busch's Chevrolet. Busch started to spin, and Johnny Benson ran into the back of Bowyer, sending the trio and Robby Gordon into the infield. Waltrip drove past the crash by hugging the wall. NASCAR ruled that Waltrip had already passed Johnny Sauter when the caution came out and the field was frozen, giving Waltrip his 11th Busch Series victory and first since August at Bristol. "We were lucky for sure," Waltrip said. "The first thing I thought when I drove out of the smoke on the back straightaway was the Red Sea had just parted. I drove out of the smoke and into Victory Lane."
It took NASCAR time to figure out the finishing order because Gordon came across the line third followed by Bowyer, Busch, Kasey Kahne and Benson. The unofficial list had Sauter second followed by Kahne, Bowyer and Gordon. Sauter wasn't happy with NASCAR's decision, thinking he was ahead of Waltrip when the field was frozen and that he should have won the race. Talking to reporters, he said he would bite his tongue because he doesn't need to get into more trouble. Then he let loose on television. "I think NASCAR is doing everything they can to keep me from winning races and accumulating points," he said. Waltrip countered that drivers must maintain a reasonable speed back to the line. "He got involved in the crash and did not maintain a reasonable speed," Waltrip said. "So I'm sure it's easy for Johnny to complain he should've won. But he just doesn't know the rules." Bowyer, filling in for Kevin Harvick on the car owned by Richard Childress Racing, tried to make it very simple as he led 104 laps. He looked ready to become the fastest driver ever to win a Busch race in just his second event on the series. But debris on the frontstretch forced the fifth caution and led to a restart with five laps remaining. "I wish it'd never come out," Bowyer said. "I definitely had the car to beat on a long run. I just didn't need that last caution." Busch passed Bowyer in Turn 3 on lap 223, then Bowyer tapped him and ran by him coming out of Turn 4. They kept fighting until the crash happened. Busch said he was trying to get to the bottom of the track when Bowyer hit him for the second time. Waltrip said his crew came into this race with a car setup it had used last year, and he liked how he was running. But he was caught up with Ron Hornaday on lap 155, tearing up his Chevrolet. He was able to stay with the lead lap. "It's no secret that it's OK to spin people out nowadays. We saw it this season a lot lately. Only problem with that tactic is it generally doesn't work at a place like Nashville or a big track," Waltrip said. "Those cats were racing hard to get their first win obviously. They piled up the first five guys trying to do it." Defending champion David Green finished 10th. Pole winner Martin Truex, who started 39th after being forced to his backup car because of a practice crash, was 23rd. Bobby Hamilton Jr. started on the pole and led 78 laps, but he had tire trouble and finished 27th. Waltrip, a regular on the Nextel Cup series, has an eight-point lead over Green in the Busch standings, and is considering running the rest of the season in a bid for the title. "You know it's certainly intriguing to see if the logistics would work and we could figure out a way to do it," Waltrip said. "It's not totally out of the question."
Rookies’ eagerness leads to costly lesson
Yet as the laps wound down he was strolling away from the field and believed he was closing in on his first trophy in the series. ''Sure, I did,'' Bowyer said. ''I thought it might be our day. We had an awesome run, an awesome car … I think we had the thing won hands down. I hate to lose it.'' But lose it he did in a finish-juggling crash that involved the four leaders with just two laps to go. Bowyer, Kyle Busch, Robby Gordon and Johnny Benson were in a two-by-two sprint for the finish that negated much of what went on in the two hours before the foursome dashed down into Turn 2. ''We all went down in there, all four of us,'' Gordon said. ''And we all came out in a wreck.'' Busch and Bowyer, both Busch rookies, were jockeying for the lead just minutes after a caution had bunched the field. The two had already nudged each other heading into the corner and as they began to exit the turn, Busch's car became unsettled after all of the contact. As he and Bowyer slowed a bit to keep themselves pointed in the right direction, Benson entered what soon became a smoke-filled picture. ''Everybody got on the brakes and I just didn't get to it fast enough,'' Benson said. ''It looked like it was all going to happen anyways, but I was part of it. I turned (Bowyer) around. ''I hate it for him; he had a great run going. I hate for it for us; we had a great run going.'' By the time the air cleared there was plenty of warped sheet metal to load onto waiting haulers, and Michael Waltrip had been awarded the victory. Johnny Sauter was second and Kasey Kahne third. The crash pushed Bowyer back to fourth, Gordon to fifth, Busch to sixth and Benson to seventh. ''I thought I'd be able to drive down into Turn 3 and then race to the finish,'' Busch said. ''I didn't think I'd have to get wrecked. That's a real shame to tear up so many race cars, especially ours. It didn't have a mark on it all day. ''One of us should be in victory lane. … But until then, I thought, 'Man this is cool.' Maybe I should have thought to hang back until one (lap) to go, then just come up on the checkered.'' Until the crash, Bowyer had the fastest car on the track. He led 104 of the race's 225 laps — the most of any driver by 26 laps — and was cruising until a caution flag was thrown on lap 213 because of debris on the track. That caution erased his lead and pushed the eight cars on the lead lap into a tightly-bunched group. ''It comes down to we didn't need that last caution at the end, that's all there is to it,'' Bowyer said. ''The car really wasn't the best in short runs.'' The 24-year-old Bowyer made his first Busch start last weekend at the Texas Motor Speedway. He was credited with 36th place after a crash forced him from that race early on. ''It was just hard racing. Hard, hard racing,'' Bowyer said of yesterday's finish. ''I have no hard feelings at all. We were all going for the same thing.'' |
