NASCAR is a very competitive activity, the number of talented drivers and teams challenging weekly for each race and ultimately for the championship if they can finish in the top ten consistently enough, is increasing every year. Matt Kenseth surely hopes his luck and fortune for this season has turned after his daily double on Friday afternoon, he won both the pole position for Saturday afternoons Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway and the Diamond Hill Plywood 200 at Darlington’s 1.366-mile egg-shaped track. Matt inherited the lead after misfortune struck the lead car of Kyle Busch, who suffered a cut right-rear tire, and was victories under the record-equaling 10^th caution of the night, after Morgan Shepherd lost control after a restart. Kenseth ended up winning in a green-white-checkered-flag finish in a caution filled race that was six laps longer than the scheduled 147 laps.

Lady Luck showed her ugly head to Kyle Busch with just two laps to go.

Matt finally achieved his first long sought after victory of the 2009 campaign at Darlington Raceway, which is his third at the historic venue that has seen its share of champions and his 25^th victory in the series, which leaves him fifth-best on the list of wins. Friday night probably couldn’t have gone much better for Matt, who has been suffering after a series of miscues and mishaps that left him in 12^th place in the standings after starting out the season by winning the first two cup races of the season.

Busch ended up finishing 16^th after leading for a race-high 143 laps and was only a few laps away from victory when he ended up running over debris from a crash between Scott Lagasse Jr. and Joe Nemechek and cutting his tire. The 16^th place finish did trim Joe Gibbs Racing team’s standings advantage to 37 points and tightened up the season standings heading into the heated part of the year.

Jason Leffler finished second in his Toyota, just ahead of Carl Edwards in third and Erik Darnell in fourth, both of which drive Fords.  Justin Allgaier managed to run consistently by staying out of the way and finished a competitive fifth, ahead of Ryan Newman in sixth, Mike Bliss in seventh place, Jeff Burton in eighth, Brian Vickers who managed to take ninth place and the final position in the top ten was taken by Scott Wimmer.

Image: Newscom

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Petty Enterprises recently announced that Kyle Petty will take a leave of absence from the no. 45 Dodge beginning on the June 1st race at Dover until July 12th when the Sprint Cup Series heads to Chicago. The reason for Petty’s leave from the team is to attend his daughter’s wedding, and he will then join the TNT booth to report from broadcasting duty.

The void in the no. 45 car will be filled by NASCAR rookie, Chad McCumbee, at Dover and Chicago, with Terry LaBonte to drive the car for the five races in between. Chad filled in for Petty during his injury last season with very little success, and attempted to replace him at Texas earlier this year, but he failed to qualify for the event.

For Terry LaBonte, this is his first opportunity to team up with brother, Bobby LaBonte, at the Cup Series level. The two-time former champion last competed in a Cup Series race at Watkins Glen in 2007. He ran three races that season, resulting in a pair of 30th place finishes and another 35th. He competed in 31 events from 2005-2006. His last full-time season was 2004 with Hendrick Motorsports, in which he finished 26th in points. His last victory came in the Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway in ‘03.