Best Buy 400 Review
by Virginia Vroom of Predictem.com
What a wild day yesterday was at Dover International Speedway. Within the first twenty laps, we had two of the greatest knocked out of the race and more than a 15 minute red flag on the track. Yesterday was the epitome of racing hard for these guys as there were only six cars left on the lead lap when that 400 mile mark came around. Those drivers were Kyle Busch, Carl Edwards, Greg Biffle, Matt Kenseth, Jeff Gordon, and Martin Truex Jr. If you watched the Nationwide race on Saturday, it was no surprise that Kyle Busch dominated the way that he did and took the win for the fourth time this year, and thats just in the Cup series, not counting his wins in the truck and Nationwide races.
Busch seems unstoppable. He had an eight second lead over his closest competitor, Carl Edwards. Everyone else was left scratching their heads as to what they were missing. Needless to say, it wasnt a bad day for the Roush guys. They held onto the second, third, and fourth positions. Edwards was close all day and Biffle actually led the most laps of the race, but neither had what it took to keep up with Busch. Maybe its that extra horsepower that Toyota has. Who knows really? Maybe Busch is just that good. I mean, Jimmie Johnson owned the series last year. He came away with ten wins. Busch is setting himself up for the same if can maintain his momentum and not allow his ego to get the best of him.
Some other guys egos were bruised yesterday when Elliot Sadler made the mistake of diving down in front of David Gilliland and causing a horrible pileup on only lap 17. Tony Stewart suffered probably some of the heaviest damage along with Denny Hamlin, who actually was driving at virtually full speed when he managed to t-bone the pile of cars in front of him. Evidently, the wreck was in a location that the spotters can not see, so Hamlin had no indication that there was a problem. Hamlin ended up out of the race as did Stewart, later, as transmission problems cut his race short. When it was all said and done, there were 12 cars involved in this red flag incident including Tony Stewart, Clint Bowyer, Denny Hamlin, Kevin Harvick, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Bobby Labonte, Paul Menard, Kasey Kahne, Bill Elliott and Scott Riggs.
After that caution, there werent too many crazy incidents on the track for the rest of the race. But quite frankly, there couldve been 20 caution flags, and half the field would STILL be a lap down or more. Those top six were in the top six because they stayed there all day long. Their pit stops were excellent, including one by the 24 crew that was 11.3 seconds for four tires and fuel. Now thats impressive. Gordons teammate, Johnson, ran strong all day as well, but he was no match for Kyle Busch and ended up as the first car a lap down.
I think that if the race went on for about another 10 laps or so that the other 5 guys wouldve eventually been lapped. There was no stopping Busch. He was dialed in and so was his car.
The top ten finishers were:
1. Kyle Busch
2. Carl Edwards
3. Greg Biffle
4. Matt Kenseth
5. Jeff Gordon
6. Martin Truex Jr.
7. Jimmie Johnson
8. Jeff Burton
9. Dave Blaney
10. Jamie McMurray
This caused quite some movement within the top twelve in points.
1. Kyle Busch
2. Jeff Burton
3. Dale Earnhardt Jr.
4. Carl Edwards
5. Greg Biffle
6. Jeff Gordon
7. Jimmie Johnson
8. Clint Bowyer
9. Denny Hamlin
10. Kevin Harvick
11. Tony Stewart
12. Kasey Kahne
Kahne managed to hold onto his 12th place spot despite being involved in that lap 17 incident. Biffles consistency paid off, moving him 6 places up in the points. This weekends race is at Pocono. Im sure that there is going to be some more shuffling in the points after we get through with this tri-oval.
