September 22, 2008
By Ron Felix
CIA Stock Photo
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Biffle Battles With Teammates
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In the final 44 laps at Dover International Speedway, Greg Biffle battled with his Roush-Fenway teammates Matt Kenseth and Carl Edwards to win the Camping World RV 400 on Sunday. Biffle tasted victory for the second consecutive week, also winning last Sunday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. It was his 14th victory in 214 career races. Biffle took the lead for the final time with eight laps to go, becoming the first driver to win the first two Chase races.
"I knew I had to race Matt Kenseth clean. He's a great teammate," Biffle said. "I got a run up on the outside of him and got up beside him. He tried to pinch me off going down the backstretch, which is what he should have done, obviously. We got together a little bit, but I had my nose out there, and I couldn't give up. It was my last chance to get him."
It was a tense day for Jack Roush as he watched his three drivers going door-handle to door-handle, swapping the lead and rubbing fenders with each other in the final laps.
"I just told them not to wreck each other," said Roush.
Kenseth and Edwards finished second and third respectively and Mark Martin secured the fourth spot. Jimmie Johnson was fifth followed by Kevin Harvick, Jeff Gordon, Clint Bowyer, Jeff Burton and Michael Waltrip to round out the top ten.
Martin was looking racy all day -- he almost got by leader Edwards on the last restart but had to fall back.
"With four fresh tires and Carl (Edwards) on two, I wanted to go up there and take it," Martin explained. "But my car just wasn't up to that challenge. We gave it our heart and soul, but we just weren't up to a short run challenge. It looked like before the caution came out that we were going to run Carl down and really make a race out of it at the end. But that last run, we gave it all we had, we were just a little short."
Kyle Busch, driver of the No. 18 Interstate Batteries Toyota Camry, suffered a fatal part failure in his engine and finished a disappointing 43rd. It was another tough blow for Busch, who entered the Chase for the Sprint Cup first in the standings, but has now finished outside the top-30 in each of the last two races. Last week at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon, Busch finished 34th after having early race problems with a sway bar. The 23-year-old Las Vegas native, who held the point lead for 17 consecutive races before dropping to eighth after New Hampshire, fell to 12th after his Dover effort and is 210 points behind series leader Carl Edwards.
“It’s pretty disappointing,” Busch said. “Something broke inside the engine. I’m not sure what it is.”
Crew chief Steve Addington and the Interstate Batteries crew looked over the No. 18 Toyota for several minutes before determining the problem could not be fixed.
“Right now, it could be a lifter or a valve spring,” Addington said. “We don’t know. It ran long enough and just pushed the thrust out of the camshaft and it’s leaking oil so we’re done. Mark Cronquist (head engine builder at JGR) and his guys have been bullet-proof all year long. If anybody says anything about our engine department, tell them to come and see me.”
Busch’s JGR teammates – Tony Stewart and Denny Hamlin – endured disparate days. Stewart finished a solid 11th, while Hamlin came home 38th after heading to the garage area just past the halfway mark of the race to replace his car’s driveshaft and rear-end gear.
"It was one of those days where we were a little bit off, but I thought the guys had good pit stops all day, I felt like I got in and out of the pits good all day, but I felt like I was the weak link today in the equation," said Stewart. "I lost about six or seven spots on restarts picking the wrong lane to go to, but we got all those back. Just where we ended up was about where we deserved to be. That was about as good as we were all day.”
Dale Earnhardt, Jr., No. 88 National Guard/AMP Energy Impala SS, suffered a blown right rear tire on the 141st lap. He managed to keep his Chevy out of the wall, but the shredding tire damaged the fender of the car. He finished 24th, three laps down to the leader and now sits ninth in the point standings.
"I really hate how it hurt our points race, but that was the best we could do today," Earnhardt said. "We didn’t put the right set-up underneath it. Me and Tony Junior worked on that direction today, but it was the wrong direction. So, we’ll try to rebound next week.
"We’re going to Charlotte to test this week. I’m optimistic. To be honest with you, when a tire blows like that, I’ve seen a lot of other teams just give up and ride it out. And we got ten spots better than I think a lot of other guys would have. We’re going to work hard.”
Michael McDowell scored a 29th-place finish and took Raybestos Rookie of the Race honors for the sixth time this season and twice in the last three races.
"We had a better car than we ran," said McDowell. "The first hundred laps just killed us. Within the first 150 laps we were already two laps down. The car just was way too loose in the beginning. I made a mistake and hit the fence early on and, you know, we just fell behind."
There were 10 caution periods for 45 laps, with three drivers failing to finish the 400-lap race.
The Sprint Cup Series moves to Kansas Speedway next Sunday, September 28th for the Camping World RV 400. The race starts at 1:30 p.m. EDT with live coverage provided by ESPN2 beginning with its pre-race show at 1:00 p.m. The race will also be broadcast live on MRN radio and SIRIUS Satellite Radio Channel 128.
For full final race results...
(Insider Racing News)
For top-40 Sprint Cup drivers points...
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