Richmond winner, Kyle Busch, was the only race leading driver neither confused nor angry Saturday evening.
Busch took the lead with eight laps to go after a caution for debris. But third place Tony Stewart was angry at NASCAR for calling that caution which likely costed him the win. Adding insult to injury; that's when Busch Motorsports' pit crew got their driver Kyle out of the pits ahead of Stewart in first place. "Without that caution there was no catching Tony tonight," Busch said adding "wherever that last caution came from, that was the saving grace.'' Stewart said he thought it was for a water bottle "that's what it looked like to me. I mean, it was out of the groove. It had been sitting there for eight laps." Lastly there was Carl Edwards who had the dominant car for most of the race. On the penultimate restart, after a he pitted, he appeared to jump ahead of Stewart who NASCAR officials said was the race leader. Edwards, who finished tenth after leading a race-high 210-laps, said "I was on the outside and thought Tony Stewart was the leader on the inside. NASCAR told my spotter about three seconds before the restart that the 99 was the leader. "They put us on the scoreboard as the leader and I realized I was at a disadvantaged position on the outside land and NASCAR made a little mistake. I got the best start I could and Tony didn’t start or spun his tires and NASCAR black flagged us. "I don’t know why they black flagged me. I don’t think it is right and I don’t agree with it. Before I say something stupid because I am real frustrated I would like to go talk to them." Robin Pemberton, NASCAR’s president of competition explained, "No. 14 car (Stewart) was the leader, but the No.99 (Edwards) jumped the restart and the call was made from the tower. 14 is the leader, and he didn't even get to the zone to restart the race yet. "Carl, given the information he had, tried to get the best start he could. We were a couple of car lengths before the zone. You have to get to the zone first (to accelerate). That didn't happen." With his 24th Sprint Cup victory, Busch’s fourth at the three-quarter mile oval, he ends a 20-race winless drought. Speaking of droughts Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished second, and is in an almost four-year winless drought. Earnhardt said "I couldn't get enough front brake in it at the end to run as hard as I wanted to, and we just had hurt the balance a little bit on entry." With points leader, Greg Biffle, finishing 18th, Earnhardt is now in second only five points behind Biffle. Jimmie Johnson was also a contender until his car was penalized after a crew member rolled a tire back to the wall unattended (a violation). He was sent to the back of the field on lap 319, but stormed back to sixth. "We could have run third, we could have won the race," he said. After a post-race meeting with NASCAR officials Edwards said "This whole thing is very frustrating. I don't feel like we did the wrong thing." Recent Articles
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