May 11, 2008
By Ron Felix
CIA Stock Photo
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A highly motivated Kyle Busch can't be stopped. Loose lugnuts, missing lugnuts, penalties, not to mention that Busch complained about not having much of a brake pedal and at times the car wouldn't turn -- two encounters with the wall, he looked to be indestructible and unstoppable.
Busch was leading the race when he pitted on lap 140 during the third caution and was penalized for a missing lugnut. Busch restarted at the end of the longest line (29th) and charged through the field, putting on a driving clinic in the process. Busch retook the lead on lap 270 and there was no catching him from there. Busch was hardly concerned about driving hard, wearing out his equipment, and running so hard that he wouldn't have anything left for the end
"I was more worried about trying to pass cars, come through there, getting tight, bouncing off the fence more times than I'd make a clean corner," said Busch. "To be honest with you, a year ago or two years ago, I probably would have just thrown my hands up and wrecked the thing. But I'm getting that much smarter -- not much -- but just that much smarter to where I know that we've got still a long race. If it would have happened 30 laps to go, I would have been junk. I would have probably folded in half. Fortunately it was still a long enough ways to go.
"Like two weeks ago at Talladega, we had the same thing. I had a pit stop miscue, I didn't get in my box, had to drive through. We come around, there were still laps to go where we could rebound from it. Knowing there was enough time to rebound from it, I just kind of laid back, stayed cool, tried to maneuver my way through traffic and do the best that I could. You know, fortunately I was able to get through about half the guys. And then coming down pit road, my guys had another awesome stop in order to get me a few more. Then on that last stop, they got me out first. That's all you can ask for from your pit crew."
In his fourth try, Busch became the youngest driver to ever win at Darlington Raceway. Busch led a total of 169 laps on the way to his first victory at the historic track, his third win this year and his seventh win in 125 career races. It was the fourth victory for Toyota in 2008.
Our car was good all night long and we kept making adjustments to it," Busch continued. "It wasn’t great but it was good and at the end we got it pretty darn good compared to everybody else and still we were able to lead the most laps tonight, win the WIX award and get the five extra bonus points for that, which is equal to 10.” That just helps us out in the points race.”
Busch extended his NASCAR Sprint Cup Series points lead by 79 over Jeff Burton and 134 ahead of Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Carl Edwards finished second with Jeff Gordon coming home in the third spot.
"The No.18 was in an unbelievable class of his own," explained Gordon. "Carl (Edwards) and his crew got their stuff better there at the end. We tried and tried and tried a lot of things and every time we got it a little bit better. But every time we tried to get it better than that, we went the wrong way with it. So, we just had to settle for a car that was a third place car and hope we could get track position and we did."
Except for some minor scrapping of the outside wall, Dale Earnhardt Jr. kept his nose clean and finished fourth.
"Track position was everything; you could not pass, period. That was the worst I have ever seen it as far as trying to be able to pass. But, I have to hand it to my team. They worked hard. We worked hard and we finished top-five. I am pretty happy with that," Earnhardt said. Let's line 'em up and go again. But I want to set mine up again. We were a little bit off from where we ran all weekend, it wasn't near the same race car. But, when you are off and you run fourth, I guess you got to be happy."
A great run by David Ragan vaulted him into the fifth position -- he was followed by Matt Kenseth, Denny Hamlin, Travis Kvapil, Dave Blaney and Jeff Burton to round out the top ten.
Michael McDowell posted a 28th-place finish and took top Raybestos Rookie honors for the first time in 2008.
I get down and frustrated," said McDowell. "I don’t want to run 28th and I don’t want to run 26th. We want to run better. The guys gave me a great car today. I had a couple of bad runs there where I just couldn’t get back in my rhythm, you know, running there a lap down and the leaders are trying to get by. And this place is so tough when somebody tries to get by you, if you don’t give way, you end up slowing the whole pack down and getting ran over. That was my biggest thing is just learning how to give a little but not lose a lot and today I gave a lot and lost a lot [smiles] and probably cost myself a lap by doing it.
"But we finished and that’s what we needed to do. I think we’re the highest finishing Raybestos Rookie so that’s good, that’s our first time. We qualified well this weekend and that was a big thing that we wanted to work on. It’s just going to take us a little bit of time to get going but I think we’re heading in the right direction. It wasn’t bad. I feel bad for the guys. They deserve to run better. Obviously our cars are capable of running better because our teammates ran up there."
The race featured 8 cautions for 30 laps. There were 35 lead changes among 15 different drivers. 24 different cars took a total of 40 hits to the outside wall (40 Darlington Stripes).
The Sprint Cup Series is off next week, that is for a points paying race, but next Saturday night the Sprint All-Star race will run under the lights at Lowe's Motor Speedway. The Sprint Cup Series returns to action on Sunday, May 25th at Lowe's Motor Speedway for the Coca-Cola 600. That race is scheduled to start at 5:00 PM / Eastern Time on Fox.
For full final race results...
(Insider Racing News)
For top-40 Nextel Cup drivers points...
(Insider Racing News)
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