| Bizarre Bristol Busch Bash for Bud Bunch | | Date Created: Mar 24, 2007, 06:43 PM |
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SUNDAY UPDATE: Nextel Cup race report now online! Click this link for the Bristol Cup report.
Amidst a gaggle of yellow flags and even a red flag period, a few laps of racing took place Saturday afternoon at Bristol Motor Speedway as Carl Edwards won the NASCAR Busch Series Sharpie Mini 300. Dale Earnhardt Jr. made an infrequent Busch Series appearance in a No. 8 Budweiser/Sharpie Chevrolet and finished the bizarre race in sixth position.
The race was marked by an assortment of crashes and a surreal incident with slightly more than 100 laps remaining. On lap 189, confusion reigned when NASCAR announced pit lane was open, yet the pit flag and lights remained red-indicating a closed pit lane. Several of the leading cars pitted despite the red light, which should have resulted in penalities. Then, two other lead lap cars waited an additional two laps to pit. So, what should have resulted in the Budweiser car being in the lead for pitting on the correct lap, was disallowed as NASCAR re-aligned the field in the order they were running before the caution flag. The change dropped the Bud car to sixth-place on the restart, and then salt was rubbed into their wounds when a lapped car blocked Dale Jr. in traffic, dropping him further back into the pack. In the final 100 laps, he climbed back into sixth position.
Dale Jr. Quotes: "It was fun when we were racing between the yellows. I was gougin' and goin' at it. But, we really got hurt by the confusion on that yellow - we should have been in the lead. Then, one of the lapped cars really blocked us. I mean, how hard is it to move out of the way?! But, it was fun to get out there and just race hard."
Best Radio Chatter:
The Bristol short track creates many accordian-style crashes, where an incident in front of you makes you a helpless victim. Such an occurence almost swept Dale Jr. into a multi-car crash on lap 25. In the incident, the nose of Junior's car slid under the back of Kasey Kahne's car, lifting it in the air.
Tony Eury Jr (crew chief): (teasing Dale Jr.) "You didn't happen to see what gear ratio he had in there?"
Dale Jr.: "Ha! No, but I can tell you exactly what the trackbar setting is..."
During an yellow flag on lap 118:
Dale Jr: "How long of a race is this? Damn... lotsa yellows... I wanna get some donuts on the car! I think I got one already on the right rear."
Joey Meier (spotter): "I hate to disappoint ya, but you don't really have a proper donut back there."
Dale Jr: (disappointed) "AW! I thought I got into the 21 car pretty good."
Meier: "Yeah. But not enough to get a donut."
Dale Jr. watched as the car he owns - the #88 Navy car driven by Shane Huffman - got punted into the wall by a car that had already been involved in several crashes.
Dale Jr: "God almighty! What the hell! That was dumb. Man, Shane hit that wall hard. That was wild! Water went flying! I don't know what Shane did, but it looked like he stopped and that 38 car went into him at full throttle. He just plowed into him. It reminded me of (Lee) Petty and (Johnny) Beauchamp going up and over the guardrail at Daytona so long ago. Except there was a wall there when Shane hit."
Meier: (commenting on the endless yellow flag laps) "I guess this is going to hurt the average speed of the race. If you bought stock in Speedy-Dry this morning, you're a winner." |
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