Rory Phoulorie
Zorce Jedi Knight
Joined: 26 Jan 2007
Posts: 1698
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 Posted: Mon Mar 26, 2007 4:33 am Post subject: NASCAR: Kyle Busch takes first CoT win at Bristol. |
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Kyle Busch stamped his place in the record books as the first driver to win with NASCAR's �Car of Tomorrow' by claiming victory in the Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway.
As NASCAR took its first, rather tentative steps into its self-made �Brave New World' the jury was still out on the controversial Car of Tomorrow by the end of the race with even the race winner expressing his dismay at the way the new creations drove.
Aesthetic reasons aside, the new cars proved to be difficult to overtake cleanly with while problems that would only have taken a few laps to solve on the old style cars seemed to bring far more serious consequences now. But despite generally insipid racing and several other niggling issues relating to the mechanical designs of the car, the first CoT could have been far worse and the 160,000 strong sun-baked crowd were treated to a fantastic final two laps in what turned into another �green-white-chequered flag' ending.
When the green flag dropped to signal the start of a scheduled 500 laps around the half-mile Bristol oval it took less than ten laps for polesitter Jeff Gordon to fade alarmingly and for Tony Stewart to take up the running at the front of the pack. For the first 250 laps Stewart dominated the field with only Evernham Motorsports teammates Kasey Kahne and Elliott Sadler seemingly capable of mounting a sustained challenge.
However in the space of less than 50 laps the entire complexion of the race changed dramatically as first Sadler had to make two unscheduled green flag pitstops to cure a vibration before Kahne cut a tyre and also lost several laps and then Stewart suffered a fuel pump failure, taking him out of contention.
After leading a whopping 257 laps, Stewart suddenly found himself more than 20 laps off the pace as Denny Hamlin found himself leading from Kyle Busch, Greg Biffle, Kevin Harvick and Matt Kenseth with 200 laps to go.
Hamlin picked up where his Joe Gibbs teammate left off and proceeded to lead the majority of the next 180 laps before Kyle Busch finally found a way through to take the lead just before the 14th of 15 caution flags waved on lap 484. No sooner had Hamlin lost the lead he also lost the engine of his #11 Chevrolet, ending his chances of victory and leaving Kyle Busch with a seemingly easy path to victory.
But that was without taking into account the stealthy progress of polesitter Jeff Gordon and Jeff Burton, who both chose to pit for tyres under the penultimate caution and then picked their way up to second and third places before the final yellow flag waved on lap 497.
The race therefore went into overtime, leaving the leaders with a two laps sprint to the finish. On older tyres Busch appeared to be a sitting duck against Gordon, although it was Burton who pulled off the move of the race on the restart as he drove around the outside of the #24 Chevrolet in turn one and then set about the leader. On several occasions Burton was close enough to move Busch up the track and take the lead but he chose to race Busch cleanly and ended up just half a car length short.
After some pretty spectacular celebrations Busch remained outspoken in his criticisms of the Car of Tomorrow, putting it bluntly when he said that driving the new car �sucked' during his victory lane interview. Even so, Busch's first win of the year was a cause for huge celebrations.
Burton was philosophical about second place after he quietly and unobtrusively played his way into contention as the race wore on while Gordon and his team ran the entire gamut of emotions after struggling mightily in the early stages before gradually getting the #24 Chevrolet to handle properly for the final 100 laps.
Kevin Harvick and Greg Biffle completed the top five with Jeff Green springing the biggest surprise of the day by placing the #66 Haas CNC Racing Chevrolet in sixth place. Dale Earnhardt Jr and Clint Bowyer were next up with Jamie McMurray and Casey Mears rounding out the top ten.
Matt Kenseth finished 11th with Carl Edwards 12th, David Stremme 13th and the luckless Hamlin 14th. Brian Vickers gave Red Bull Racing a solid lead-lap 15th place finish while Jimmie Johnson could do no better than 16th.
Kahne recovered from his puncture to finish 19th, doing just enough to get his #9 team into the top 35 in owner points while Stewart was left to wonder what might have been after crossing the line in 35th position.
Debutant Regan Smith drove a sensible race to 25th position despite losing a lap for a pit road infraction while Juan Montoya endured an eventful afternoon that included a spin, a puncture and contact with several other drivers en-route to 32nd place. AJ Allmendinger's first Cup Series start effectively ended on lap 143 when he smacked the wall although he soldiered on to take 40th place.
http://www.crash.net/news_view~cid~2~id~145160.htm |
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