Stewart worked with his unofficial restrictor plate teammate, Dale Earnhardt Jr, throughout the race to keep their cars at the front of the field. With only five laps left, the caution flag waived for debris, setting up a green-white-checkered finish. The two drivers raced in line for the first lap, but Junior pulled out of line after that to try and slingshot past him. Unfortunately for Earnhardt Nation, though, Junior didn’t get the support behind him that he was hoping for, and Stewart cruised to the finish to pick up the win.

The next four cars in line behind Stewart all went onto pass Earnhardt, and surprisingly enough, none of them are Sprint Cup regulars. Stewart was followed to the line by David Stremme, Bobby Hamilton Jr, Jason Leffler, and Mark Green, all of whom recorded their best finishes of the season. Earnhardt eventually finished in sixth.

The race was plagued with 8 caution flags, one of which was a 12-car wreck set off by Kevin Lepage. Carl Edwards – who came into the race only nine points out of the series lead – was collected in the carnage, and the race was then red flagged for about 25 minutes. Clint Bowyer, the series points leader, finished 25th and Kyle Busch came home 18th.

The victory marked Stewart’s third win in the Nationwide Series in 2008 in only five races run, and it was the first in his career at Talladega in any of the series. He’s finished 2nd in the Sprint Cup Series on six occasions, and last year’s 2nd place run in the Nationwide Series was his previous best effort prior to this race. Before finishing 2nd last year, he had 4 consecutive DNF’s in the Nationwide Series. The win is also the sixth time a Joe Gibbs Racing car has won this year in the series, as well as their fourth in a row.

Nationwide Standings (from nascar.com):

Post from: EveryJoe

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