NASCAR: Wild Man Busch Wins Wild Shootout

Despite being involved in two near wrecks and having a beat up car as a result, wild man Kyle Busch barely edged Tony Stewart at the line of the Budweiser Shootout by a mere .013 seconds, a new record for the popular race.

This year’s shootout was marred by three large multi-car wrecks, all of which started with drivers leaning on the car in front of them on the left side. There was tandem car drafting as well as pack drafting, and I’d expect to see the same style and results in this week’s duels on Thursday and the big 500 on Sunday. You can tell and show the drivers the tapes, but it just takes so little to turn the other car around, mistakes happen to the best of them, but the multi-car wrecks are inevitable.

The shootout started with Martin Truex Jr. on the pole by luck of the draw on Friday night. The first multi-car wreck started during the opening 25-lap segment  when David Ragan got into the back of Paul Menard, sending cars sideways and into Michael Waltrip, Kasey Kahne, Jeff Burton, Matt Kenseth and Juan Montoya. While most of the cars pitted for meatball surgery, Menard, Ragan and Waltrip’s rides were done for the day.

Jamie McMurray grabbed the checkers by the end of the first segment with Jeff Gordon and Kevin Harvick among the top three.

After a 10-minute break for gas, tires and minor repairs, the men hit the track again with the next big wreck just a few laps away. The lap 56 wreck started with Marcos Ambrose getting into the back of Joey Logano, sending the young driver in his No. 20 orange Home Depot Chevy up the track and into Ambrose, Harvick, Kenseth, Dale Earnhardt Jr and Truex Jr. Only Ambrose was able to resume to the pack.

Out front, the lead changed often between Earnhardt Jr, Gordon, Busch, Biffle, Harvick, Stewart, Truex Jr with no one really staying strong until the final laps.

The final ‘big one’ occurred with less than two laps remaining when Gordon got into Kyle Busch, sending Busch sideways for the second time on the night with yet another amazing save. Gordon shot up the track collecting the cars of Kurt Busch, McMurray and Jimmie Johnson.

After bouncing off the other cars and the wall, Gordon’s Chevy ended up on its side and barrel-rolled down the track landing on its roof. Gordon was OK, but the car was ruined.

The first and only green-white-checker restart saw Stewart and Ambrose among the leaders with Stewart pulling away early with help from a resurgent Kyle Busch. As the two cars broke away, you could hear Stewart’s crew chief remind him on the radio that Busch would probably not stay there to the checkers and boy, was he spot on.

As the two cars ran nose-to-tail off the final turn, Busch waited for just the right moment to pull to the outside of Stewart’s Chevy in making the classic ‘slingshot’ move.

The two drag raced side-by-side to the stripe with Busch winning by a matter of a few feet in his torn up Toyota.

In victory lane, Busch was amazed to get there in winning, the $200,000-plus prize money and being turned around as many times as he was.

Behind Busch and Stewart at the finish line were the cars of Ambrose, Brad Keselowski and Denny Hamlin with a total of 13 cars running due to high attrition.

500 Qualifying

After 49 cars took two laps in qualifying trim, two Roush drivers, Carl Edwards and Greg Biffle, stood tall with the two fastest times. Edwards, as polesitter, and Biffle are locked in to start the Great American race with go or go-homers, Trevor Bayne, David Stremme, Tony Raines and ex-champion Terry Labonte the only others locked in at this time.
The rest of the qualifying order will be decided after all of the cars run the 150-mile duel races on Thursday afternoon. Danica Patrick qualified on time in 29th, one spot worse than I predicted.

Don’t miss Sunday’s 500 miler from Daytona. It is the sport's Super Bowl event, but also marks the opening round of 2012 competition for huge sums of money as awards.
This year’s winner? First of all, I think Chevy’s stranglehold on this particular race will come to an end with one of the Fords getting the accolades.

I’ll throw my hat in the ring to say Carl Edwards will kick off the season with a big checkers.  What do you think? Drop me a line.

From Rumorville

It appears that veteran racer Robby Gordon has announced his NASCAR Sprint Cup team is for sale. Over the past five years, Gordon has become less and less involved in NASCAR and much more involved in off-road racing, which he has proven to be more prolific.

That’s it for this week. Next week, RWR will review the Daytona 500 along with more racing news from around the globe.