Sprint All-Star Race Race Review

Lowe's Motor Speedway Charlotte -- 05/16/2009

Author: Becca Gladden

Published: Monday May 18 2009 2:02am

Thank goodness for the final 10-lap shootout segment of Saturday night’s All-Star Race at Lowe’s Motor Speedway. Without it, the event might have gone down in history as one of the most boring ever.

Instead, it proved to be a real thriller, including a tight battle for the win in the final segment with several of the sport’s highest-profile drivers in the mix – Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart, Matt Kenseth, Ryan Newman, and Kyle Busch among them.

In the end, Gordon and Newman crashed, Busch fell back, Kenseth finished second, and Stewart prevailed – giving Stewart-Haas Racing its first-ever Cup victory, and Stewart his first win as a Cup owner/driver.

The race was divided into four segments: a 50-lap segment with a mandatory green-flag pit stop on Lap 25 for tires, two 20-lap segments, and the final 10-lap free-for-all.

Jimmie Johnson led a field of 21 to the green flag, including 18 drivers who qualified under the race’s usual criteria, along with Joey Logano, the winner of the fan vote, and Sam Hornish Jr. and Jamie McMurray, who finished 1-2 in the 40-lap Sprint Showdown heat race.

Johnson led all 50 laps of Segment One, and Kyle Busch led all 20 laps of Segment Two after he came out first from pit road. It was 81 laps into the race, during Segment Three, when the first green flag lead change occurred, as Jeff Gordon passed Kyle Busch for the lead. A few drivers had issues during the third segment, including Jimmie Johnson, who sideswiped the wall; Greg Biffle, who was collected by a loose Sam Hornish and sent to the garage; and Jeff Burton, who experienced engine issues.

Gordon won Segment Three and was in the lead at the start of Segment Four. A few laps in, Gordon, Newman, and Kyle Busch went three-wide and ricocheted off one another, sending Gordon sliding through the infield grass and back up the track to bring out the caution. The lead changed hands several times in the final laps, though it looked as though Kenseth, who was out front with five to go, might prevail. But Stewart was able to catch him with two to go and pass him cleanly on the bottom, holding on for the win.

“I can't believe he gave me the bottom,” said an exuberant Stewart after the race. “I just cannot believe he gave me the bottom. But I'll take it. Matt is a guy you can trust. We got to second there, got by the No. 18, and I thought, ‘All right, we have a shot at this thing.’ We weren't that good until the last run.”

From Kenseth’s perspective, he did all he could to hold Stewart off, given his car’s handling at that moment. “It sucks getting beat, obviously,” he said. “I thought we had a shot. Most of the night, we were really good on long runs and really bad on short runs. We were just really loose and we tightened it up a lot there at the break. The tires held up for four or five laps. I just got too tight and Tony was running up on me real fast there, and I chose the middle because I’d been really fast in the middle of one and two. That was my best groove. I just hit the ground and got so tight I couldn’t get it to turn.`

The final running order (top 10) was: Tony Stewart (1), Matt Kenseth (2), Kurt Busch (3), Denny Hamlin (4), Carl Edwards (5), Mark Martin (6), Kyle Busch (7), Joey Logano (8), Jamie McMurray (9), and Dale Earnhardt Jr. (10).

Jimmie Johnson led the most laps overall with 50, Kyle Busch led 33, and Jeff Gordon, 11. Johnson finished 13th and Gordon ended up with a DNF, as did Ryan Newman and Greg Biffle, both in wrecks, and Burton with the engine trouble. Matt Kenseth led four laps in the closing portion of the race and Tony Stewart led the final two laps.

The race was a warm-up for this weekend’s big Coca-Cola 600 on the same track.
It is a much different beast though, trading a segment of short heats for an endurance event of extreme proportion.

Please check back later in the week for our race preview.

Comment on this article.

(255 chars max)

Username:
(No HTML)

Captcha:

User	Comment
grippy	testing yet again lala
HotRodMike	Do you really think Jimmy Johnson can keep this up race after race? Something has to give, his nerve or is car are the most likely.
TrackRat	Looks like Greg Biffle was just a passing fad this year. He raced a good Chase, but just could not keep up the pace till the end.
TonySfan	Tony Stewart is still my favorite pick for this but I`d like to see Jimmie take this one. He`s really earned it. :D
racefan	Go Jimmie go! Hoping he wins this one one more time!
mwwmzt	xbtfztadxifgqorktkzludynfkwhvd&artid=296&code=
mwwmzt	xbtfztadxifgqorktkzludynfkwhvd&artid=295&code=
mwwmzt	xbtfztadxifgqorktkzludynfkwhvd&artid=294&code=
fdxizg	oeszfbhmqtxzrsomqnswyuogksdbbw&artid=291&code=
fdxizg	oeszfbhmqtxzrsomqnswyuogksdbbw&artid=289&code=