August 23, 2009
By Ron Felix
Kyle Busch held off a hard charging Mark Martin to win the Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway on Saturday night.
After a final restart with four laps to go, Busch was in first place and Martin was sitting second. The two went side-by-side for the four laps with Busch pulling it out at the finish.
CIA Stock Photos
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Kyle Busch Salutes The Fans
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"Mark Martin, what a class act, he deserved to win this race," said a relieved Busch. "I'm sorry he came home in second, I know how he feels. I drove as hard as I could. He had a chance (to knock me out), he could have done it but he raced me clean."
Martin had intentions of putting the chrome horn to Busch but never got the chance.
"I tried to hit him (Busch) but he gave me too much room," said Martin.
When asked by a reporter why he didn't put the bumper to Busch, since it was Bristol, Martin replied, "I don't think he would have done it to me. He gave me room. I just didn't get it done. He gave me room to pass him and I couldn't do it."
The victory was the fourth this year for Busch. It also was his 16th win in 174 career starts.
Marcos Ambrose, with his best run at Bristol, was third and Greg Biffle was fourth.
Rounding out the top ten were Denny Hamlin, Ryan Newman, Kurt Busch, Jimmie Johnson, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Matt Kenseth.
Martin led the most laps (240).
"It was a good run," Martin said. "I'm really glad that we finished like we ran tonight. There were so many times this year that we haven't done that and I'm proud to drive this guy's car. Alan and all these guys, they are just fantastic. I'm having the time of my life and it's a real special night even though we ran second."
Points leader Tony Stewart had just about everything go wrong. The race started with his radio not working. The team replaced it and the replacement didn't work. Then Stewart had electrical problems and had to be pushed back to the pits. And it went on and on. Stewart finished 33rd, 11 laps down.
"Well, I'm telling you, this was like an episode of the Twilight Zone. How it started was I switched my frequency on my radio over to Ryan's (Newman) channel to wish them luck, which is not uncommon. I didn't go back to my channel. Every channel I went to it was still them. And then I switched to the second radio, which is our backup radio, and I hadn't even touched it, and it was them," said a dumb-founded Stewart. "It was like an episode of the Twilight Zone. So the first 240 laps, well for the first 200 laps, I'm listening to Ryan and his dad, his spotter. That's what I was hearing on the radio. Again, the reason I stayed on that and didn't unplug the radio was because at least if a caution comes out I can hear his spotter calling the caution out.
"We had a short in the wiring harness to the ignition boxes and we thought it was the safety kill switch because the light came on and I guess it just shows if there is a short in the system somewhere. It was real sporadic and then all of a sudden it came on. Whatever it was wiggled itself loose enough that they finally just got one of the junctions in the ignition box back together. Nobody gave up or was yelling and screaming. I mean I thought everybody handled it well. That's the first fire drill we've had to go through during a race and I thought, considering, that everybody did a good job. I couldn’t do anything until I got back to the pit box and they did an awesome job of tearing through it and trying to figure out what it was."
Jimmie Johnson passed Mark Martin for the lead with 183 laps to go but on a late pit stop, he lost the huge lead he had built up and the rear tire changer missed a lug nut or two. Johnson had to pit again to get it fixed and restarted 18th with 20 laps to go. Johnson was so dominate that it was almost a given that he was going to win the race but it never seems to work out at Bristol for the three time Champion.
"Fastest car out there," said Johnson. "We should be in victory lane. It's just a bummer we had something on pit road screw us up. Just really disappointed."
Scott Speed scored a 15th-place finish and claimed Raybestos Rookie of the Race honors for the fifth time this season.
“We had a great weekend. We made good decisions we made good changes on the car and we had a really good car for the whole last 150, 200 laps of the race. I mean, it was great," Speed said. " We had to work to get that lucky dog twice and we raced guys really hard. When you’re out there racing guys like Carl Edwards, I consider myself now you know a lot closer to an equal to these guys now. It’s great to come back to these tracks a second time with that experience and it’s really paying off for all of us. We played this race really well. We all did a great job here this weekend. I’m sure we gained a lot of points here so that’s good. I’ve got to go celebrate with my man KB (Kyle Busch).”
There were eleven cautions and one red flag for a total of 75 laps. There were eleven lead changes among five drivers.
The Sprint Cup Series takes a week off and will return to Atlanta Motor Speedway on September 6th, 2009 for the Pep Boys Auto 500.
The race will also be broadcast live on PRN Radio and SIRIUS Satellite Radio Channel 128.
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