Edwards Wins Sharpie 500
Kasey Kahne led the most laps, 305 of 500, at Bristol Motor Speedway on Saturday night, but he got caught up in lapped traffic and lost the lead to Carl Edwards with 166 circuits to go. Edwards held the lead from that point and was never challenged for the Sharpie 500 win. It was the second victory for Edwards this year, he also won at Michigan International Speedway in June. It was the sixth career win for Edwards in 109 races and he is now officially locked into the Chase for the Championship.

Kahne, who was going for his seventh career win and the first of the season, had to settle for second place. Clint Bowyer was third with Tony Stewart in the fourth spot. Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished fifth (he needed to do better) followed by Kurt Busch, Ryan Newman, Bobby Labonte, Kyle Busch and Greg Biffle to round out the top ten. Points leader Jeff Gordon could only manage a 19th place showing but it allowed him to extend his lead in the Nextel Cup standings to 349 over the new second place Tony Stewart. Denny Hamlin finished 43rd after blowing an engine and now trails Gordon by 353 points.

This was the tenth race for the new car, and the first 125 laps ran caution free. When the race was over, there was a total of nine cautions for 61 laps and there were twelve lead changes among eight different drivers. The Nextel Cup Series moves to California Speedway next Sunday, September 2, 2007 -- for the Sharp Aquos 500. The race is scheduled to start at 7:00 p.m. Eastern time.
To read the full article...     (Insider Racing News)
For full final race results...     (Insider Racing News)
For top-40 Nextel Cup drivers points...     (Insider Racing News)

Gene F. Haas To Plead Guilty In Tax Case
The owner of the nation’s largest maker of machine tools agreed yesterday to plead guilty to conspiracy in cheating the government out of $34.3 million in taxes through what the I.R.S. called “deceptive and elaborate tax evasion schemes.” The businessman, Gene F. Haas, 55, of Camarillo, Calif., a coastal town 55 miles northwest of Los Angeles, will be the fourth and last defendant to admit guilt in the case, which involves his company, Haas Automation, as well as several others. He is to change his plea to guilty on Monday. The plea agreement is subject to approval by a Federal District Court judge in Los Angeles.

Back taxes, a $5 million fine, fraud penalties of 40 percent and interest will bring Mr. Haas’s total cost for cheating on his 2000 and 2001 taxes to more than $70 million. He also agreed to serve two years in prison.

“Under the circumstances, it was a good result,” said one of Mr. Haas’s lawyers, Kenneth M. Barish of Kajan Mather & Barish, a Beverly Hills firm that specializes in criminal tax defense.

The criminal charges stemmed from three fake-invoice schemes that involved Mr. Haas’s main company as well as his Nascar racing team and a land title company. The deception included creating a fake company in Nevada called Supermill. Mr. Haas paid three employees or associates, who have already pleaded guilty, 2 percent of what he avoided paying in taxes, according to court papers.

The tax evasion apparently began with a patent infringement lawsuit against Mr. Haas.

According to court papers, the schemes stemmed from Mr. Haas’s “dislike of the federal judicial system” and anger toward Leonie M. Brinkema, a federal judge who presided over the patent infringement suit, which Mr. Haas lost in August 2000. The indictment said that the primary purpose of the tax fraud was “to recoup the patent infringement settlement payment by defrauding” the government.

The scheme surfaced after Mr. Haas had a dispute with one of the participants, John Phillips, the former chief financial officer of Haas Automation. Mr. Haas sued Mr. Phillips, accusing him of cheating the company out of $27.5 million in the same transactions listed in the indictment. Haas Automation won a default judgment against Mr. Phillips, who then went to the F.B.I. and revealed the tax schemes.

Mr. Phillips was named as a co-conspirator in the case but was not charged with any crime.(nytimes.com)..via ().(jayski.com)

ESPN: Sorry For Coverage
ESPN has apologized for losing the video of the last few laps of the Food City 250 Busch Series race Friday night at Bristol Motor Speedway. Viewers at home watching on ESPN2 saw a blank screen for those last laps, which featured a dicey duel between Jason Leffler and Kasey Kahne, with Kahne holding off Leffler to win the race.

"We sincerely apologize for briefly losing transmission due to human error and have taken steps to prevent this from happening again," ESPN spokesman George McNeilly said Saturday. "As soon as transmission was re-established we apologized to viewers and replayed the last two laps of the race."(scenedaily.com)

NASCAR Mistake: No Replay In Time
Some racers say that drivers create their own luck, but Kyle Busch didn't create his bad luck in the Food City 250 Friday night at Bristol Motor Speedway. NASCAR admitted that it made the wrong call when it ruled that Busch's car hit the orange box on the pit-road commitment line before deciding not to pit. The official watching the commitment line twice told NASCAR race control that Busch, who had led 24 laps in the race, hit the box, which is considered part of the commitment line at Bristol.

"We didn't have a replay at the time to make that call, so we stood with the decision that was made from the official," Busch Series Director Joe Balash said late Friday night. "We did get to see the replay after the fact and it looks like, after reviewing the replay, that Kyle did not have a commitment-line violation."

Balash said there was nothing NASCAR could do once it went back to green-flag racing and Busch was sent to the rear of the field.

"Sometimes during the race there are calls that an official has to make, and you have to stick with the calls that the officials make from their perspective as they see it," Balash said.(scenedaily.com)

Earnhardt Jr. Says Lay Off Teresa
Dale Earnhardt Jr. was addressing members of the press on Friday at Bristol Motor Speedway and had a personal request of them.

"I do want to say while I have a couple of media members here that it is about time to give Teresa a break," said Earnhardt. "She makes the decision on the number because she owns it. And as much as I am disappointed and frustrated over the fact that I don't get to keep driving the No. 8, the stuff I read that I read on Internet and the stuff that I am hearing that is going on, the remarks about her, directed toward her, I don't think anybody deserves that. If people just take a step back and look, she hasn't done anything intentionally that is detrimental to me. I have a good future, I have a good opportunity in my hands, she is doing what she needs to do, what she feels like she needs to do. I think everybody needs to lay off a little bit because she was married to my Daddy and I kno w he wouldn't be too happy about it what is going on and what is being said about her. It bothers me a little bit.

"I hate to see somebody be crucified on the Internet and whatnot like Teresa has," Earnhardt continued. "She has a daughter that goes to school, that has friends. She has to put up with that stuff. It is just hard-core man. People have just been really really rude and really over the line, way over the line, on some of the things that have been said. I know Teresa doesn't know half of it because won't read it and she won't put up with it. If anybody in their right mind knew that was going on, they wouldn't be around it and deal with it.

"It still gets back to Taylor, maybe it does, I don't know, but nobody deserves that and it just isn't fair.

"I didn't like how it was understood between me and Teresa. We obviously didn't have a good line of communication. We obviously don't understand each other. We obviously don't know much about each other. You know. She underestimates my determination and my willingness to give it all I have got and obviously I probably know that little about her and her determination.

"But it doesn't matter, I am going to do something different. I want the best for DEI - simply put. If there is opportunities for me to help them, or there are programs that they want to involve me in that are interesting and fun for me, I have interest there. I am wide open to doing those things because they will make sense.

"The relationship that I have with Teresa as an owner I didn't like and I didn't enjoy and didn't want any more. That was the only single thing that has made all of this what it is today and that is one thing that I will avoid in the future when working with DEI."

Kasey Kahne Wins Thriller At Bristol
If you were fortunate enough to live a part of the country where ESPN2 didn't lose coverage with four laps to go in the Food City 250, the you saw one heck of a finish. Not only did ESPN2 miss seven restarts, but with 24 laps to go, they go break. At most tracks this wouldn't be a problem but when the laps are clicking off at 15 seconds, it is a problem. ESPN2 came back with 11 laps remaining but with four to go, the screen went blank and then ESPN2 cut to commercial, only to return to action just as the race was taking the checkered flag. The three wide run for the finish was lost on most of the viewing audience.

And all of this after NASCAR blew a call, big-time. Late in the race NASCAR claimed that Kyle Busch ran over the pit commitment line but several replays clearly show that he did not run over it -- but was five or six feet from it. NASCAR refused to listen to a protesting team and apparently refused to look at the many tapes they have available to them -- until after the race was under green once again. Kyle Busch was penalized and restarted in 26th spot -- because of the penalty -- but NASCAR later admitted that they had blown the call and had made a mistake. It was too late to rectify the mistake by that point. The entire episode could have been avoided with a look at the video tape. Busch managed to drive back to fourth place, a remarkable comeback.

Kasey Kahne drove from 43rd on the field to win the second Busch Series race this season and he now has a total seven career victories in the series. It was the first ever short track win for Kahne. Jason Leffler finished second -- spinning backwards across the start-finish line after David Reutimann, who finished third, punted him after Leffler backed of the gas. Scott Wimmer put his RCR Chevrolet in the fifth spot followed by rookie David Ragan, rookie Brad Keselowski, Clint Bowyer, Jamie McMurray and Aric Almirola to round out the top ten.