Rating the Race: Darlington - Dodge Challenger 500

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Kyle Busch paced the field by a couple seconds to earn himself the checkered flag on Saturday night for the Sprint Cup Series’ running of the Dodge Challenger 500 at Darlington Raceway to pick up his third win of the season, tying him for the series lead with Carl Edwards, but despite what the final race stats might indicate, Kyle wasn’t exactly in a league of his own as he had been in so many previous races this year. Busch definitely had a strong car all night long, but was forced to overcome a pit road drive-thru penalty and several meetings with the outside retaining wall en route to victory, and at one point even transmitted over his team radio that this was the most pathetic thing he’d ever driven, but he caught a few breaks from some of the other top cars in the field along the way to get there.

The early stages of the race were pretty much a battle between Busch, Dale Earnhardt Jr, and polesitter, Greg Biffle, as the three drivers swapped the lead around on several occasions. The race started to take on a new look, though, when Kyle Busch was penalized by NASCAR for having a loose lugnut in the pits while the field was under caution on lap 139. Busch had come into the pits as the race leader, but was then forced to restart at the tail end of the field.

The penalty handed the lead back over to Earnhardt, but Biffle - whose car looked as though it was really just beginning to flex its muscle for the first time - passed him on lap 160. Greg was running away with the lead, but then came in for an unscheduled pit stop on lap 191 because he thought that something might be wrong with the transmission. The field eventually cycled through a round of green flag stops, and Biffle was once again the leader, but the car couldn’t hold on much longer. Biffle was forced to retire his car on lap 237 due to transmission failure, ending his bid for a third Darlington win.

Denny Hamlin took the lead from Martin Truex Jr. on the restart and led the race until the sixth caution of the evening came out on lap 246 for a Brian Vickers spin, at which point the no. 24 DuPont team was able to get Jeff Gordon out of the pits first and into the leader’s seat. Gordon went onto lead the next twenty laps until Kyle Busch found his way back to the front and passed his former teammate on lap 268. The two drivers exchanged the lead again after a lap 279 caution for debris, but Gordon dropped a few spots on the restart and Busch took the lead for the fifth and final time on lap 281.

Lap 301 drew the final caution of the race when Martin Truex Jr. spun out Denny Hamlin as the two battled for 7th place. Kyle Busch narrowly excaped pit road with the lead still in-hand, and from there he drove away from Carl Edwards - who had climbed up to second after starting 36th - and, held onto the lead for the final 66 laps of the race, as he led a race-high 169 of the 367 laps run. Edwards was able to hold on for a 2nd place finish. Following the race, Edwards said that he hates finishing second and that he really wanted to beat the 18 car, but Kyle was pretty much unbeatable.

Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr. pretty much hung around the top-five for the entire evening, and went onto finish 3rd and 4th respectively. David Ragan ran just outside the top-ten most of the night, but a late-race charge catapulted him to a 5th place finish - his second in the last three races, and he now sits 12th in points.

Matt Kenseth turned a solid run into a 6th place finish to give him his first top-ten in the last four races, as he moves up two spots in 20th in points. Denny Hamlin rebounded from his earlier accident to finish 7th, and Travis Kvapil made his Lafayette Ford sponsor proud with his 8th place run. Dave Blaney earned his first top-ten finish of the season by finishing 9th, and Jeff Burton fought his way back from being a lap down earlier in the race to complete the top-ten.

Two-time Cup Series Champion, Tony Stewart, had what was probably the fastest car at the end of the race, but needed one more caution to be able to have a shot at a decent finish. All the way back on the second lap of the race, Elliott Sadler bobbled getting into turn 2 and got into Stewart. The wreck knocked the toe out of Tony’s car, and he soon found himself a lap down - and, then another. He was able to race his way back to just one lap down, and eventually raced his way into the position of what would have been the lucky dog spot, but unfortunately for Smoke, he never got the final caution his team needed to put him back on the lead lap.

Kevin Harvick suffered the hardest hit of the night when he got himself loose and smashed the wall just past the SAFER barrier on lap 148. He was running in the top-ten at the time, but the accident forced him to take his car to the garage. The bonehead move of the race award would have to go to Brian Vickers. During the lap 237 caution, Ryan Newman was down on the apron headed to pit road when Vickers just made a left turn from all the way up on the track to bang his car into the side of Newman, who had been charging his way back from being two laps down and was in contention to be the lucky dog recipient.

Busch’s victory gives Joe Gibbs Racing their fourth win in 2008, which is tops in the series. The win also opens Busch’s lead in the standings to 79 points over Jeff Burton, and 134 over Earnhardt Jr. Ryan Newman and Kasey Kahne both dropped out of the top-12 in points, as Jeff Gordon and David Ragan find their way in.

the Grades:
the Race: 85%
the Drama: 74%
Coverage: 86%
Pre-Race: 77%

Overall Grade: 82.2%

For more lap-by-lap coverage, please read Dodge Challenger 500 at Darlington Raceway over at Restrictor Plate This and Darlington “Live” on Type Delay over at Rev. Jim’s NASCAR Rants’n'Raves.

 Complete Results (from nascar.com):

 Sprint Cup Series Standings (from nascar.com):