The Food City 500 on this fine Sunday afternoon was yet another classic example of Bristol Motor Speedway being Bristol. The cars at the end of the day were a lot more banged, battered, and broken than when the day began. Emotions and egos may have been more bruised and damaged than the cars in the grand scheme of the action -- again, typical for short-track racing at a track like Bristol. Although the final outcome was not what the consensus of fans at the track may have wanted, the race winner, Kurt Busch, was not a stranger to victory lane at the World's Fastest Half Mile.
This may not have been a "typical" Kurt Busch victory at Bristol, but the outcome was very much the same. In his past nine trips to Thunder Valley, Busch has claimed five wins, accounting for one-third of his career victories to date. Busch's first win in the Cup series was the 2002 Food City 500, the spring "day" race at Bristol he has now won four of the last five times (Kevin Harvick last year being the only exception). While he has been a prolific winner at the spring race, he hasn't been quite as succesful at the late summer night race, where his only win came when he swept the track's Cup events in 2003.
The difference in Busch this time around versus past seasons clearly was in the car he was driving - the blue #2, made famous by it's previous occupant, Rusty Wallace. Wallace was a multi-time winner of Bristol races, nine times in all in his impressive career. With Busch's previous success in the Roush #97 car combined with the car history of his new Penske #2 ride, Busch had to feel pretty good about his chances at the half-mile bullring.
Although the day's biggest winner was Busch, who won his first race of the season and gained 11 positions up to 16th in the standings, others turned a tough day at the track for most into a gain in the standings for themselves. Kevin Harvick notched his first top 5 of the year, finishing in the runner-up spot, and gained 10 spots in the standings, up to 13th. The third-place finisher, Matt Kenseth, got his third top 5 and fourth top 10 of the season while leading the second-most laps (124) and taking over the series' points lead after the first five races. Rounding out the top 5 were Carl Edwards, who claimed his personal best Bristol finish to date and moved up eight notches into the 22nd spot in points, and Bobby Labonte, who finally had something to show for his efforts at the end of the day in his new Petty #43 and moved up to 32nd in points after previous struggles.
Others, namely much of the rest of the field, were not as fortunate. Tony Stewart was the race's most dominant driver, leading almost half of the laps (245), but failed to crack the top 10 as his car faded slightly to the 12th spot. Stewart had to be happy with his movement up in the standings, though, as he gained a few spots to crack the top 10 in ninth. Jimmie Johnson was the biggest sufferer of the day, but his failure was to the benefit of just about everyone else. Thanks to a first-lap flat tire on Johnson' #48, he fell behind early and never really caught up. His green-flag pit stop after only a few laps put him multiple laps down to the field, spoiling his crew chief's (Chad Knaus) return after a four-race suspension. Johnson ultimately finished in the 30th spot, better than some but low enough to lose the points lead and slip to third. The biggest losers in the standings today were Jamie McMurray (35th - down eight spots to 24th), Jeff Burton (34th - down seven spots to 18th), and Martin Truex, Jr. (38th - down six spots to 21st).
Both Busch and Kenseth made gains in the points but didn't really make friends on their way to the finish. Kenseth was angered by Busch, his former teammate, for getting him sideways near the end and taking over the lead. Jeff Gordon, who ran strong much of the day, was irate with Kenseth, after getting bumped into a spin-out on the final lap to finish poorly in 21st. Gordon was the third-place car at the time of the contact between the two cars, and he showed his displeasure with an uncharacteristic post-race shove of Kenseth as Kenseth approached Gordon to reconcile after the race. There may be some lingering bad blood between the two as they head to Martinsville next week, but they may have been just the most visible of multiple instances where tempers flared during another caution-filled event.
A summary of this race can be made in a only a few words: Busch, bumps, and Bristol. Those same words described four of the previous eight races there as well. Need you say much more than that?
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