Kurt Busch and Dodge Win First Budweiser Shootout

Kurt Busch managed to win his very first restrictor plate race and what better way than to kick off the season with a trophy and big payday (over $200,000) for sponsors Shell-Pennzoil.

It also marked the first win for a Dodge product in the 33-year history of the Budweiser Shootout.

The race began with Dale Earnhardt Jr out front, the result of a lucky draw from the festivities the night before. Twenty-three cars followed the fan favorite across the stripe to take the green before drivers decided on "dancing" drafting partners. With the new surface and changes to the cars, the new fast way around the big track turns out to be to be two cars running nose-to-tail.

It didn’t seem to matter what brand you were driving, just what combo worked well in the wind.

Early good combos were teammates Jeff Burton and Kevin Harvick and Chevy "buds" Joey Logano and five-time champ Jimmie Johnson.

Kasey Kahne dropped out by lap 11 with engine woes while Burton was the fast cat on the track, winning the first segment with Harvick and Dale Jr close by.

After a 10-minute break for minor repairs, the pack hit the track again, still looking for the best partner in order to get to the front.

On the second lap of the 50-lap segment, all heck broke loose when Ragan Smith and Carl Edwards tangled, sending several other top cars such as Logano, Dale Jr and Juan Montoya out of the race.

Not far into the segment, the second incident found Mark Martin and Kyle Busch into each other with both eventually out of the big show.

The were lots of two-by-two cars zipping around that appeared to work the best. Not three, not four, but two good cars with two good drivers turned out to be the hot ticket.

In the final dozen laps, Ryan Newman was being pushed around the track by a fast Denny Hamlin with Kurt Busch helped by Jamie McMurray.

These four cars wound up pulling away from the next pack of six and drag raced to the finish line by several seconds over the final closing laps.

Over the final thousand feet, Busch moved high with McMurray sticking with him, while Hamlin dove below Newman and crossed the line first—but because of going below the yellow line, NASCAR quickly stepped in and awarded the win to Busch with McMurray second and Newman, Johnson and Greg Biffle rounding out the top five.

An elated Busch said, “I’m glad to see this win for Shell and Pennzoil. This is a great start for a new relationship.”

On the other end of the comment trail, Hamlin said, “The yellow line is there for safety reasons. I should have gone high, but didn’t want to get into the 39.” Hamlin wound up being credited with 12th place, the last car on the lead lap.

The race gave us a good idea of what to expect at this year’s Daytona 500, that being a 200 mph high-speed chess match with a whole bunch of luck to get into the winner’s circle.

What do you think of the way the cars run now? Will we have a great 500 race next week or will we see more of the two car breakaways witnessed on Saturday night?