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©SpeedwayMedia.com |
Clint Bowyer may not
have had the best car
Saturday night. But he
was in the right place
at the right time.
Bowyer came out the
victor after late
contact between race
leader Dale Earnhardt
Jr. and Kyle Busch.
Denny Hamlin was in
search of his first Cup
victory at Richmond
International Speedway
and dominated the race.
Hamlin led a race record
of 381 laps until be had
a tire slowly go down
and eventually let go
with 8-laps to go. “You
can’t whine about it. It
just wasn’t meant to
be. God didn’t want me
to win today.” Hamlin
said.
NASCAR said the he
intentionally brought
out the caution flag to
keep from going a lap
down. NASCAR gave him a
two-lap penalty. “Just
a kick in the face after
a bad deal.” Hamlin
said.
This setup a Earnhardt-Busch
battle in the final laps
of the race. Contact
from Busch in turn three
sent Earnhardt into the
wall, giving Bowyer the
lead. “Everybody
probably is racing
around the race track
scared to death of
wrecking Dale Earnhardt
Jr., so why wouldn’t I
be any different?” Busch
said.
“But that was just a
product of good hard
racing and I apologize
that it happened and I
hate it that it did. If
I wanted to do it
deliberately I would
have waited until the
last lap where I
probably still could
have won the race.”
Busch continued.
“I wasn’t good on the
bottom, so I moved up
top to run as good as I
could. He had been
running the bottom. I
figured we’d race it
out, and he got a great
run around one and two
and nearly got by me. He
gave me room on the
outside off of two, so I
wouldn’t say it was
intentional going into
three, because if he
wanted to, he could have
run me in the fence off
two” Earnhardt Jr.
finished 15th.
Bowyer was able to hold
off Busch on a final
green-white-checkers
restart and won his
first Cup victory of the
season, second of his
career. “They were
putting on a show for a
while, they were racing
hard and that’s what
racing at Richmond is
all about. It just
didn’t work out. I told
the cops when they were
escorting me, I told
them they better get
over there and escort
Kyle Busch out of here.”
Bowyer said.
Busch finished second,
Mark Martin finished
third, Tony Stewart
fourth and Martin Truex
Jr. finished fifth.
A 12-car accident on lap
230 brought out the red
flag and delayed the
race for a little over
20 minutes for cleanup.
Contact between Dave
Blaney, J.J. Yeley and
Carl Edwards triggered
the pile-up. Points
leader Jeff Burton was
involved.
Michael Waltrip was
parked for contact with
Casey Mears with 45-laps
to go.
Busch took over the
points standings by 18
points over Jeff Burton,
who finished 12th
after being involved in
a earlier accident.
Earnhardt Jr. is 104
points behind.
You can reach Barry at
barryalbert@speedwaymedia.com
You can reach Tina at
tina@speedwaymedia.com
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