There were two races going on during the O’Reilly Challenge. The primary race, which was won by Kevin Harvick (who practically owns the Busch Series when he decides to run), and Carl Edwards’ race to finally finish off the series championship. Edwards had to finish 36th or better to seal the deal and, thanks to some attrition, Edwards sealed the championship before the end of the race.
Clearly, the last several laps were one of the weirder Atlanta finishes in recent memory. Is there anything NASCAR should have done differently?
1. Hendrick’s Half – If you add up all the races that Hendrick Motorsports drivers have won this year – Jimmie Johnson’s eight, Jeff Gordon’s six, and one each for Kyle Busch and Casey Mears – you’ll see that Hendrick drivers have won 16 of 33 races – just under half of the all the races this season.
The Busch Series race at Memphis was more like a Friday night Demolition Derby than an event that originated from the number two stock car series in America. On a day when almost half of the race was run under the yellow flag, a total of 25 caution flags for 117 laps dominated the headlines, coming up one short of the all-time record for the series. The longest green-flag run of the entire race was 20 laps, from lap 20 through lap 40; the wreckfest made the race horrific to watch and caused several teams to use pit strategy to get to the front, as several teams found their fuel windows extended due to the slower average speed. In fact, all of the fits and starts allowed teams to run over half of the race on their final pit stops.
More than likely, Carl Edwards will clinch his first-ever Busch Series championship this Saturday at Memphis. An eighth-place finish is all that’s needed to secure the trophy with three races left, no matter what second-place point man David Reutimann does on the racetrack. It’s a significant achievement for a man who’s never won a title in any of the top three series, validation of a sparkling season in which the No. 60 has won four times, collected 19 top-10 finishes, and leads his closest pursuer by 638 points. Yet even with all those scintillating stats, there appears to be a slight tinge of wonder, a feeling that even things could have gone so much better.
All weekend long at Lowe’s, both complaints and concern centered around the tire Goodyear brought to the event. After seeing the race unfold, is the tire still too hard for this surface – or are drivers getting to the point of whining about something a little too much?
The Busch Series was once again the playground of the Buschwhackers. Greg Biffle and Carl Edwards dueled at the front of the pack for much of the first two-thirds of the race. By lap 129, Clint Bowyer assumed the point. Biffle led one more lap on lap 139, but lost it to Jeff Burton, who led the remainder of the race to capture his 26th career Busch Series victory.
Frontstretch sat down with Keller during a break in activity at Charlotte and talked to him about his week, his career, and his car for this weekend. When asked about his week, Keller said:”It has been a very busy week. We’ve been getting a lot of attention. It has been an honor to compete in the Busch Series all these years.” Keller noted “It has been an honor to carry the banner for the Busch series this weekend. It has felt very good to have so much attention focused on the series and if it is because of me, so be it.”
After observing one restrictor-plate race with the Car of Tomorrow package, should there be changes made for future events at Talladega? Also, which type of restrictor-plate racing was better – the old car or the new car?
Nationwide Insurance has signed a seven-year agreement to be the title sponsor for what is now the Busch Series, taking over for Anheuser-Busch, who has been in control since the series’ “inception” in 1982. The insurance company is not new to NASCAR; Nationwide has had an agreement with Speedway Motorsports for the past eight years, and provided free transportation at SMI tracks along with information guides. They will also become the official auto, home, and life insurance provider of NASCAR with this agreement, taking over the role that is currently occupied by Allstate.
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