Sharpie 500 Race Review

Bristol Motor Speedway -- 08/23/08

Author: Becca Gladden

Published: Monday Aug 25 2008 12:38am

Would it be overstating things to say that when Carl Edwards put the bumper to Kyle Busch for the lead with 30 laps to go at Bristol, it might have been the move that saved the 2008 NASCAR seasonΔ

The majority of NASCAR fans were really not enjoying Busch's overall dominance, watching him lead laps and win races week after week - a third of all the races so far this year.

Though Carl Edwards started on the pole and led 53 of the first 54 laps, it was Busch who controlled the majority of the race, taking the lead at lap 55 and holding it until lap 469 - a total of 415 of 500 laps led.

In fact, aside from a big crash at lap 216 that took out a number of cars, including some Chase contenders, the race might have gone down as very boring - until the Edwards bump-and-run on Busch, and a little extracurricular activity between the two after the checkers.

The biggest wreck of the night was triggered when Casey Mears moved up the track in front of Michael Waltrip, setting off a multi-car crash that collected Kasey Kahne, Denny Hamlin, Clint Bowyer, Reed Sorenson, Robby Gordon and Sam Hornish Jr., along with Mears and Waltrip. Mears told the media that his spotter had erroneously cleared him.

Earlier, Martin Truex Jr. and A.J. Allmendinger were involved in a two-car skirmish, a spin by Sterling Marlin gathered Joe Nemechek and Jeff Burton, and Dave Blaney spun by himself and hit the wall. Nemechek was also involved in an early incident with Jimmie Johnson.

But other than those minor mishaps and one big one, the race was all Kyle Busch, until Edwards made the conscious decision to use the chrome horn. Though Busch had the fastest car on the long runs, Carl was good on restarts, especially after adjustments made on his final pit stop.

Catching up to Busch, Edwards said determining what to do was easy for him. "The way this works is - a real smart racer explained it to me this way after he wrecked me and I was real mad - he said, ' just had to look at your rear bumper and decide, would you do this to meΔ And you had before, so it was a real simple decision.’ Earlier in the year we had a Nationwide race and Kyle was a lot faster than me and he went ahead and got to my back bumper and just smoked the back bumper of my car and sent me up the race track. Afterwards he said, ‘Sorry man, my car was just faster.’ So, in my mind, I had to ask myself when I went down there in the corner, ‘Should I lift and brake early and do the best I can, or should I just kind of give him a little tap and see what happens.’ So that’s the way it went and that’s the decision I made. I’d do it again.”

Edwards went on to win the race with an almost two second lead over Busch. Then, after crossing the start-finish line, Busch pulled alongside Edwards and slammed into his side twice. Edwards hit Busch back, turning him around, and proceeded on to Victory Lane.

The win was Edwards's sixth of the season to Busch's eight, with Carl now 212 points behind Kyle in the standings - notwithstanding Edwards's 100-point penalty earlier in the year.

Finishing behind Edwards and Busch were Denny Hamlin, Kevin Harvick and Jeff Gordon. Rounding out the top 10 were Ryan Newman, Clint Bowyer, Tony Stewart, Matt Kenseth, and David Ragan.

Though there wasn't as big a shakeup in the points as there has been the past few weeks, a few drivers were impacted in noticeable ways. Dale Earnhardt Jr. started the race in 40th place and went a few laps down after jumping the start and getting black flagged. He fought back for an 18th-place finish, enough to move him past Jimmie Johnson in the standings from 4th to 3rd, with Johnson never rebounding from the damage he received early in the race.

Denny Hamlin, Clint Bowyer, and David Ragan each gained a spot, with Hamlin and Bowyer now 11th and 12th in points and Ragan at 13th, just 12 points below the Chase cutoff.

The biggest loser among Chase contenders was Kasey Kahne, who finished 40th after being involved in the big wreck. Kahne fell three spots from 11th to 14th and is now 56 points out of 12th.

This week the series heads to Fontana, California, where the winner in February was … Carl Edwards.