Qualifying
Ryan Newman returned to his pole-winning form this weekend as he took the top spot for both the Busch and NEXTEL Cup series races in Dover. Newman lead the Busch race nearly flag to flag to take the easy win on Saturday. Could he do that again on Sunday?
The rest of the top five included Kasey Kahne, Kyle Busch, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jimmie Johnson in fifth.
Drop The Green Flag
After starting on the pole Ryan Newman jumped to the early lead. His car started pushing after a few laps and Jimmie Johnson took over the top spot on lap 31. Johnson continued to dominate the first hundred laps of the 400 lap race.
Storylines
The story of the day was The Chase and the drivers that didn't have the day they needed. Tops on the list was Kurt Busch. Last week Kurt was involved in an early wreck that put his chances to defend the NEXTEL Cup Championship on the rocks. Kurt had lead the most laps during the race and was running in the top ten with less than 25 laps to go when he cut a tire and then got penalized for speeding on pit road. This dropped him to 23rd in the final running order and effectively ended his title hopes.
Matt Kenseth had a tire problem and hit the wall. This dropped him to a 35th place finish. He's not out of it, but he has already used up his one bad race. He will need to string together eight great finishes in order to win the 2005 Championship.
Finally, Tony Stewart just didn't have the car handling at all. He struggled to stay on the lead lap and was the beneficiary of the Lucky Dog free-lap during the race. Tony ended the day in 18th as the first car two laps down. This bad run doesn't bode well for his title hopes. This team just wasn't clicking today.
Chasing The Checkers
Mark Martin took two tires to take the lead on the final pit stop but that didn't turn out to be the right call as everybody behind him had four fresh shoes for the run to the end. When the green flag flew Jimmie Johnson made short work of Martin and retook the lead in just one lap. Mark would fall to fourth over the last 30 laps.
The regularly scheduled 400 lap race had to go into overtime as a Joe Nemechek spin on lap 397 brought on the green-white-checkers finish. Johnson held off Kyle Busch's challenge to take the win as the top five stayed put for the final dash to the checkers.
Top Ten
- Jimmie Johnson
- Kyle Busch
- Rusty Wallace
- Mark Martin
- Ryan Newman
- Elliott Sadler
- Jeremy Mayfield
- Kyle Petty
- Carl Edwards
- Casey Mears
The Points
The points are still very tight so Jimmie Johnson's win moved him up five spots into the lead. Rusty Wallace is second, only seven points behind. The top six are separated by just 23 points.
Kurt Busch is the only driver that has had two bad races. His current 170 point deficit is too large a hole to climb back out of. With Kyle unable to defend his Championship there are now only nine drivers left with a shot at the Cup.
The Chase points are now:
- Jimmie Johnson -0
- Rusty Wallace -7
- Ryan Newman -12
- Mark Martin -21
- Tony Stewart -23
- Greg Biffle -23
- Jeremy Mayfield -81
- Carl Edwards -103
- Matt Kenseth -124
- Kurt Busch -170
Next Week
The 2005 Chase for the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup now rolls into the biggest crapshoot in The Chase. Talladega Superspeedway is a restrictor plate race track which means that the engines are intentionally cut way down on horsepower. The cars are stuck in a big pack all day long and a mistake by any one driver often causes the scary multi car wreck known as "The Big One." This means that drivers are often a victim of a crash that they had nothing to do with.
