A wild and crazy night where Tony Stewart needed a relief driver, Jeff Gordon went form 2nd to 30th in the final lap and Kyle Busch won again.
The biggest thing from Saturday night's race at Daytona is that Busch is building a big lead for the beginning of the Chase. A member of another team jokingly asked me after the race if Busch can clinch the title before the Chase.
It certainly seems like that. Busch's sixth win of the year gives him 60 bonus points. Remember that the top 12 after Richmond have their points set to 5,000 and then they have their bonus points added (10 points per win in the first 26 races). Carl Edwards has 3 wins but he was penalized 10 bonus points after his Vegas win when his car failed post-race inspection. So he has 20 bonus points _ same as Kasey Kahne. No one else has more than 10 bonus points.
So Busch has a 50-point lead on all but two drivers entering the Chase as of now. With only eight races remaining until the Chase begins, it seems likely he'll be the points leader going into the Chase and could have a nice advantage. Remember that Dale Jr. only has 10 bonus points and Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart have scored none.
"It helps us out, obviously,'' Busch said. "There are going to be some times that we give up some points to the other guys, we can't win them all. It's definitely going to help us.''
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As for Tony Stewart. He got out of the car on lap 72 after suffering flu-like symptoms. He was treated before the race but felt worse as the race progressed. J.J. Yeley was standing by for him at the start and took over. Yeley finished 20th after he was collected in the final accident.
A big thing to note is that Stewart dropped 3 spots to 12th in the points. He's 2 points ahead of Kevin Harvick, who is 13th in the points. Positions 8-13 are within 34 points (SEE FINAL RESULTS AND POINTS STANDINGS BELOW).
Said Yeley: "It's a big disappointment (of the finish). The team had a really, really good race car. The Toyota power was great. We ran in the top 10 two or three times pretty easy. We wre going to have a good finish. At the end, I chose to go to the bottom and (Michael Waltrip) got up right behind me and got me loose.''
Said Stewart: "Today I had a real severe headache and some other flu-like symptoms. I haven't really felt great for about two weeks but it really didn't bother me. It was just more of a nuisance. It didn't bother me at Loudon (last week) because it wasn't as physical of a race, but it got to where somewhere between last night and when we started today, it got to where I started feeling worse and worse. I felt nauseated, and I was dehydrated. They ended up putting five bags of I.V. fluids in me, just to get me comfortable. I'll go home and go to the doctor and see if we can figure out what the case of this was.
"I thought we were going to be able to (run the whole race) for the first two runs,but once the car got a little bit loose and we had to start really sawing on the wheel, it's like it zapped the energy out of me and I started making mistakes. It was a situation where I was trying to look out for everybody involved on the race team. I wasn't doing us any favors by not being 100 percent. I twas better to get out as early as we could versus sticking it out with 20 to go and expecting J.J. to get the thing back in the top five. It's one of those decisions you have to make early enough, and I knew I wasn't feeling good and I wasn't feeling any better and it was getting worse as we were going. Before the race, the nurse said she was going to buy us a couple of hours and we got three hours out of it. We still had to go out there and try.''
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A critical mistake cost Jeff Gordon big. He was leading on lap 156 when Kyle Busch passed him. Gordon went high to block the top line from passing him but didn't get down fast enough to block Busch on the low side. Busch nosed ahead and when a caution came out was ruled the leader. That was crticial because it allowed Busch _ not Gordon _ to dictate the restart. Gordon is very good on getting a slow restart that bunches everyone behind him and messes up the field. Busch did the same thing. The result was as he kept backing up to Gordon so there wasn't a large gap between them to for Gordon to get a big run, Gordon tried to back up on Carl Edwards in third.
Gordon and Edwards made contact and Gordon spun into the grass in turn 1. He finished 30th.
"I made a mistake there,'' Gordon said. "I saw (Matt Kensth) coming high and he seemed to have more cars behind him and it was a mistake. I should have never left the bottom.''
Said Busch: "You just can't maneuver these cars as well as you could the old car. He couldn't turn from the top lane down to the bottom lane in time to block my run, so he was stuck where he was at.''
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# The estimated attendance, according to the NASCAR race report, was 125,000 --- that's 25,000 less than the estimated attendance for this race last year. It's 50,000 less than the estimated attendance for this race in 2005.
# NASCAR didn't determine the finishing order until after midnight, about 45 minutes after the race ended. Here it is since it didn't make the papers.
After the finishing order is the top 15 in points.
1. Kyle Busch
2. Carl Edwards
3. Matt Kenseth
4. Kurt Busch
5. David Ragan
6. Robby Gordon
7. Kasey Kahne
8. Dale Earnhardt Jr.
9. Clint Bowyer
10. Mark Martin
11. Brian Vickers
12. Kevin Harvick
13. Bobby Labonte
14. Patrick Carpentier
15. Paul Menard
16. Terry Labonte
17. Martin Truex Jr.
18. Joe Nemechek
19. Dave Blaney
20. Tony Stewart
21. David Reutimann
22. Reed Sorenson
23. Jimmie Johnson
24. Regan Smith
25. Michael McDowell
26. Denny Hamlin
27. Michael Waltrip
28. Johnny Sauter
29. Sam Hornish Jr.
30. Jeff Gordon
31. Travis Kvapil
32. Jamie McMurray
33. Jon Wood
34. Casey Mears
35. Boris Said
36. Ryan Newman
37. Jeff Burton
38. Juan Pablo Montoya
39. Elliott Sadler
40. David Gilliland
41. Sterling Marlin
42. AJ Allmendinger
43. Greg Biffle
Lap leaders: Dale Earnhardt Jr. 9 times for 51 laps, Jeff Gordon 2-46, Kyle Busch 3-31, Paul Menard 1-19, Denny Hamlin 2-6, Jimmie Johnson 1-4, Boris Said 1-2, Carl Edwards 1-1, Robby Gordon 1-1, Michael Waltrip 1-1.
There were 21 lead changes among 10 drivers
There were 11 cautions for 33 laps
Avg. speed: 138.554 mph
Margin of victory: Under caution
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POINTS STANDINGS
1. Kyle Busch ... 2,686 points
2. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (up one spot) ... -182 behind leader
3. Jeff Burton (down one spot) ... -202 behind leader
4. Carl Edwards (no change) ... -249 behind leader
5. Jimmie Johnson (no change) ... -367 behind leader
6. Jeff Gordon (no change) ... -437 behind leader
7. Denny Hamlin (no change) ... -446 behind leader
8. Kasey Kahne (up two spots) ... 32 POINTS AHEAD OF 12TH PLACE
9. Matt Kenseth (up four spots) ... 21 POINTS AHEAD OF 12TH PLACE
10. Clint Bowyer (up one spot) ... 14 POINTS AHEAD OF 12TH PLACE
11. Greg Biffle (down three spots) ... 8 POINTS AHEAD OF 12TH PLACE
12. Tony Stewart (down three spots) ... 2 POINTS ahead of 13th spot
13. Kevin Harvick (down one spot) ... 2 points BEHIND 12th spot
14. Martin Truex Jr. (no change) ... 88 points BEHIND 12th spot
15. David Ragan (up two spots) ... 102 points BEHIND 12th spot
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