Two Guys Sports
Bruce BostwickNascar Best buy 400 Results
June 2nd 2008 11:02
Kyle busch wins the Best Buy 400 at Dover
Greg Biffle sat on the pole for the Best Buy 400 at The Monster Mile in Dover, Delaware. It is worth noting that no car that has sat on the pole has won a race this year. This happened quickly after the race got under way, on lap 4 Jimmie Johnson took second place from Kurt Busch. By lap eight Biffle had built up a two second lead over Johnson, he kept pulling away and by lap 15 the lead had grown to 3.5 seconds. At this point, with Biffle dominating so much I have to think it is only a matter of time before Biffle either blows up or has a wheel fall of.
Lap eighteen brought out the first caution flag. Elliot Sadler was trying to pass Sam Hornish when David Gilliland’s car came up under his rear quarterpanel, Sadler would spin and hit the wall. This would cause a big wreck, in came car after car around turn two into the pile-up. In the end nine cars were involved; Tony Stewart, Kevin Harvick, Denny Hamlin, Dale Earnhardt, Jr., Kasey Kahne, Bill Elliot, Clint Bowyer, Paul Menard, Bobby Labonte, and Scott Riggs. This would cause the red flag to wave on lap 20. As they headed back to the green flag Biffle was still at the front of the pack. Of the nine cars involved in the wreck, Dale Jr., Kahne, and Labonte were back in the race.
By lap 40 Biffle had built up a lead of two seconds, his lead would remain the same over Kyle Busch until lap 50. Tony Raines had trouble on the track and brought the car to a stop to bring out caution number two, he would be penalized a lap for doing that. The race would restart at lap 73, just two laps later Michael Waltrip would tap Joe Nemechek’s car sending him into the wall to bring out the third caution.
Things would quiet down again, and by lap 115 Rousch-Fenway cars filled all but one spot in the top five; Biffle, Edwards, Kyle Busch the only non R-F car, Matt Kenseth, and Jamie McMurray. On lap 132 Tony Stewart made his way back onto the track. Things remained quiet until lap 149, up until this point Biffle had led all but one lap in the race, he relinquished the lead to teammate Carl Edwards to make a green flag pit stop. Just as green flag pit stops had cycled through out came the 4th caution of the day. When they would restart near lap 160 there were just 16 cars on the lead lap.
On lap 168 Patrick Carpentier was tapped on the driver’s side by Jeremy Mayfield. This would cut one of his tires and he would have to pit. No caution would come out. Three laps later, on lap 171 Carl Edwards pulled up past Biffle for the lead. At this point I was not surprised to hear Biffle complaining about a voltage problem. Like I said it was just a matter of time. Within just a couple of laps Edwards had built up more than a second lead over Biffle, who would soon be passed by Kyle Busch for second.
At the halfway point Edwards had a 1.5 second lead over Busch. With about 190 laps left Clint Bowyer cut down a tire and had to make an unscheduled pit stop, he would go a lap down. Less than 10 laps later Bowyer would return to the pits and he would stay there for quite a few laps due to a shock absorber breaking out of its frame.
With 175 laps to go there were just 13 cars on the lead lap. Green flag stops started right after that. The fifth caution flag came out on lap … for debris on the track, luckily for many the green flag pits stops had just ended. Brian Vickers for the second time, and Jeremy Mayfield both had to go to the end of the longest line for speeding in the pits. As they restarted with a little more than 150 laps to go, Kyle Busch was in the lead, followed by Carl Edwards & Greg Biffle.
With about 100 laps to go someone finally got close to leader Kyle Busch, it was Carl Edwards, but he just couldn’t get close enough to make the pass. The laps wound down and it was time for the last round of green flag pit stops with under 85 laps to go. After the pit stops cycled through Kyle Busch was about three seconds ahead of Carl Edwards. Kyle just kept driving away from the field, and second place Edwards, with 60 laps to go his lead was up to almost five seconds. There were just seven cars on the lead lap with 50 to go, and he was nearly 26 seconds behind. As the laps went down the split between first and second went higher and higher, with 40 laps left Kyle’s lead was 7.5 seconds. Without a caution flag no one had a remote chance to catch Kyle Busch. With 29 laps to go Kyle picked off Jimmie Johnson and put him a lap down, leaving just Martin Truex, Jr. Jeff Gordon, Matt Kenseth, Greg Biffle, and Carl Edwards on the lead lap. He wasn’t able to, or didn’t want to lap anyone else. He had a near six second lead with just three to go and finally dialed the speed back a little to come to the checkered flag safely.
Love him or hate him, he can sure drive a car. If the other teams, and even his own teammates can’t figure something out soon they can pretty much not bother showing up for the Chase at the end of the season. Also Nascar still needs to address the fact that Toyotas are so much better than the other makes. Any other time they would have changed some specs on the cars to even them up. Are they just waiting to give the new kid on the block the press and assure that Toyota continues to pour money into the sport?
| Best Buy 400 Results -- 6/1/2008 | ||||||
| Final Results | ||||||
| Pos | Driver | Car # | Make | Started | Laps | Led |
| 1 | Kyle Busch | 18 | Toyota | 3 | 400 | 158 |
| 2 | Carl Edwards | 99 | Ford | 14 | 400 | 64 |
| 3 | Greg Biffle | 16 | Ford | 1 | 400 | 164 |
| 4 | Matt Kenseth | 17 | Ford | 21 | 400 | 1 |
| 5 | Jeff Gordon | 24 | Chevrolet | 7 | 400 | 3 |
| 6 | Martin Truex Jr. | 1 | Chevrolet | 20 | 400 | 0 |
| 7 | Jimmie Johnson | 48 | Chevrolet | 4 | 399 | 2 |
| 8 | Jeff Burton | 31 | Chevrolet | 38 | 399 | 0 |
| 9 | Dave Blaney | 22 | Toyota | 18 | 399 | 0 |
| 10 | Jamie McMurray | 26 | Ford | 5 | 399 | 1 |
| 11 | Travis Kvapil | 28 | Ford | 12 | 399 | 0 |
| 12 | Juan Pablo Montoy | 42 | Dodge | 35 | 399 | 0 |
| 13 | Brian Vickers | 83 | Toyota | 6 | 398 | 0 |
| 14 | Ryan Newman | 12 | Dodge | 11 | 398 | 6 |
| 15 | David Ragan | 6 | Ford | 23 | 398 | 0 |
| 16 | David Gilliland | 38 | Ford | 17 | 397 | 0 |
| 17 | Casey Mears | 5 | Chevrolet | 39 | 397 | 0 |
| 18 | Sam Hornish Jr. | 77 | Dodge | 16 | 397 | 0 |
| 19 | Robby Gordon | 7 | Dodge | 41 | 397 | 0 |
| 20 | Kurt Busch | 2 | Dodge | 2 | 396 | 0 |
| 21 | Regan Smith | 1 | Chevrolet | 29 | 396 | 0 |
| 22 | Paul Menard | 15 | Chevrolet | 13 | 396 | 0 |
| 23 | Mark Martin | 8 | Chevrolet | 30 | 394 | 0 |
| 24 | J.J. Yeley | 96 | Toyota | 27 | 394 | 0 |
| 25 | Jeremy Mayfield | 40 | Dodge | 10 | 394 | 0 |
| 26 | Reed Sorenson | 41 | Dodge | 42 | 394 | 0 |
| 27 | David Reutimann | 44 | Toyota | 37 | 394 | 0 |
| 28 | Michael Waltrip | 55 | Toyota | 40 | 393 | 0 |
| 29 | Patrick Carpentier | 10 | Dodge | 36 | 393 | 0 |
| 30 | Michael McDowell | 0 | Toyota | 32 | 393 | 1 |
| 31 | Kasey Kahne | 9 | Dodge | 15 | 392 | 0 |
| 32 | Bobby Labonte | 43 | Dodge | 19 | 391 | 0 |
| 33 | Bill Elliott | 21 | Ford | 24 | 389 | 0 |
| 34 | Joe Nemechek | 78 | Chevrolet | 31 | 388 | 0 |
| 35 | Dale Earnhardt Jr. | 88 | Chevrolet | 25 | 387 | 0 |
| 36 | Clint Bowyer | 7 | Chevrolet | 26 | 381 | 0 |
| 37 | AJ Allmendinger | 84 | Toyota | 8 | 365 | 0 |
| 38 | Kevin Harvick | 29 | Chevrolet | 34 | 326 | 0 |
| 39 | Scott Riggs | 66 | Chevrolet | 28 | 308 | 0 |
| 40 | Tony Raines | 34 | Chevrolet | 43 | 296 | 0 |
| 41 | Tony Stewart | 20 | Toyota | 22 | 199 | 0 |
| 42 | Elliott Sadler | 19 | Dodge | 9 | 16 | 0 |
| 43 | Denny Hamlin | 11 | Toyota | 33 | 16 | 0 |
| 58 |
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