October 1, 2007
By Ron Felix

Biffle Celebrates * CIA Stock Photo

For the second consecutive year, Tony Stewart has won a fuel mileage race at Kansas Speedway. Last year Stewart was not in the Chase for the Championship and the team took a gamble that they would make it to the finish on an empty gas tank. Stewart ran out of gas on the final lap but still won the race. This year it was assumed that Stewart wouldn't take that chance again since he would have much more to lose if he ran out of fuel. But the way the race played out and the exact timing of the impending weather moving in on the track, forced Stewart and his team to gamble once again. Stewart was hoping that the rain would move in before his tank was dry, and on lap 145 the track was deluged with a torrent of precipitation. NASCAR made a valiant attempt to dry the track but was thwarted in it's effort by weepers and wet areas that just wouldn't dry.

That first paragraph is fictional....

That's how the story would have ended if the LifeLock 400 had not resumed after a lengthy red flag, called for rain on lap 149. It didn't look like NASCAR was going to get the race restarted following a heavy downpour. But NASCAR was able to get the race underway and Tony Stewart was wishing that they had never been able to dry the track.

It was a strange day at the track. It was a race that was cut from 267 laps to 210 laps and then it was so dark in the Kansas City area that the race ended under a yellow flag, no green-white-checkers.

On a lap 155 restart (the race was shortened to 210 laps from the 267 laps advertised), Ken Schrader slowed up in front of Stewart and Stewart got into the back of Martin Truex Jr. The seven car pile up took out Truex, Bobby Labonte, Schrader, David Gilliland, David Reutimann and Matt Kenseth. Stewart's car had damage on the left front fender, and it was the crew chief's decision to leave Stewart on the track although his tire was smoking badly. Stewart's tire blew out with 50 to go and when he slowed, Kurt Busch ran into Stewart, putting him into the wall. Carl Edwards also was caught up in the wreck and it severely damaged his Ford.

Stewart was fuming, mad at the circumstance that put him back onto the track, mad at Kurt Busch for punting him, mad at everyone and everything. He left the track without commenting on anything.

It was a race that ended in controversy.

Greg Biffle was the leader when the final caution came out with four laps to go, yet he ran out of fuel before he got to the start-finish line. Biffle eventually crossed the line but didn't maintain pace car speed. The live leaderboard on NASCAR.com showed Clint Bowyer as the winner but NASCAR had other ideas. Biffle was awarded the victory in the LifeLock 400 at Kansas Speedway. NASCAR said the field had been frozen at the yellow -- but in the past a driver had to keep up with the pace car and if he ran out of fuel, then the second place runner was declared the winner. Barring any revisions in the outcome it will be the first win this year for Biffle and the 12th victory in his 179 career races.

"It sputtered up in turn three and four because I was up on the banking, and obviously when you’re going that slow on that big of a banking, the fuel will run away from the pick-up. The thing still has enough gas in it – it probably will run three laps – but it sputtered up there, so I shut it off, and just coasted down and then started back up and then got another little spurt of momentum and shut it back off and I was steering with my knee," said Biffle. "I was trying to save enough fuel to do burnouts and drive it to Victory Lane, because you’ve got to drive it over this little thing where they take pictures over here.

"So, I was steering with my knee and undoing my helmet, taking my seatbelts off and all of that and coasting down on the apron, and figured I was far enough along that I didn’t have to – I had to grab ahold of the steering wheel and had all of my stuff unbuttoned, start back up or let the clutch out, drive another 50 feet and then shut it all back of again. So, I didn’t really feel like it was necessary. The race was over, the caution was out, we were declared the winner, all we had to do was come back around and cross the stripe."

Hometown favorite Clint Bowyer finished the race in the runner-up spot and Jimmie Johnson, who drove from the 42nd starting position, was third.

Johnson's teammates Casey Mears and Jeff Gordon were fourth and fifth respectively. Kevin Harvick brought his Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet home in sixth followed by Reed Sorenson, Elliott Sadler, Kasey Kahne and Dale Earnhardt Jr. to round out the top ten. Johnson moved into the NASCAR points lead by six over Jeff Gordon and nine over Clint Bowyer.

Eight of the top 12 Chase drivers were involved in accidents, miscues or suffered mechanical problems. One such incident involved Kyle Busch and Dale Earnhardt Jr. -- Earnhardt drove into the rear of Busch's vehicle and it put Busch in the outside wall. Earnhardt accepted responsibility and apologized but Busch wasn't buying it.

"I just gave him a lane to try to let him go on the outside because I knew he was going to have a run off the corner," Busch said. "I got run into the back of and got spun out down the back straightaway for absolutely no reason. And it was a pretty stupid move on his part. Obviously I'm sure these guys he's going to be working with next year don't really appreciate this because they've got a championship they can win this year and he doesn't. So, I don't know what he was thinking, really, or what the problem was. I thought it was going to be a car that was going to give me a top three, definitely, if not, maybe the winning car. I was just cruising there, riding around, minding my own business on the bottom and just got run over."

David Ragan unofficially finished 16th and took Raybestos Rookie of the Race honors for the 13th time this season. He has claimed top rookie honors in four of the last five races.

"When we got there in the top-10 or 12, I really thought we could finish up there. We were good," said Ragan. "We decided to come down and take four tires and it drove just a little too good there at the end, just a little free. First time we’ve been free I think all weekend here. The track went from soaking wet to no rubber to a lot of rubber to as cool as we’ve seen it. We were off a little bit there at the end but still a decent finish, a top-20, and we gained a few points. Not as good as we wanted but we’ll take it and move on.”

The Nextel Cup Series moves to Talladega Superspeedway next Sunday, October 7, 2007 -- for the UAW-Ford 500. Television coverage is scheduled to begin at 1:30 p.m. Eastern time.

Notebook Items<

The win is Fusion’s sixth of the season and 12th all-time since its debut in 2006. Fusion’s first-ever NNC victory was by Matt Kenseth last February at California Speedway.



For full final race results...     (Insider Racing News)
For top-40 Nextel Cup drivers points...     (Insider Racing News)

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