Race Rewind | Bristol 500

DAVID POOLE, dpoole@charlotteobserver.com

Sunday, Mar. 25, 2007

ELEVATORS

UP: Kyle Busch
After several near-misses this year, especially in the Busch Series, the young driver makes it to victory lane.

UP: Jeff Burton
Burton played by his own rule and raced Busch the same way he thought Busch would’ve raced him on the final lap.

DOWN: Joe Gibbs Racing
Tony Stewart leads 257 laps and finishes 35th. Denny Hamlin leads 177 and winds up 14th. That’s tough luck.

SIDEWAYS: Car of tomorrow
The new car’s debut looked pretty much like your typical Bristol race for the most part.

OBSERVATIONS
•  Jimmie Johnson could have come off the track after cutting a tire when he hit the wall with less than 20 laps to go. He didn’t, hoping a yellow would come out. By the time it finally did, though, Kyle Busch had passed Hamlin for the lead because Hamlin had to slow down to keep from hitting Tony Stewart, who was slowing to keep from hitting Johnson. No way in the world that was an intentional move by Johnson to help his teammate Busch, but it wound up having that impact nonetheless.

•  There are things about the new cars NASCAR introduced Sunday that will be better than the cars it’s turning away from. There will also be things about the old car that people think were better. And not everyone will agree on which things fall into which category. Simple conclusions are never possible when you’re dealing with a change as major than this, no matter how much people might look for them.

•  All signs are positive that Kelley Earnhardt Elledge’s surgery on Friday went as well as could be hoped. Elledge, the wife of Reed Sorenson’s crew chief, Jimmy Elledge, and the sister of driver Dale Earnhardt Jr., spent several days in the hospital earlier this month after taking ill. Doctors found a tumor on her pancreas and their concerns about its nature led to the decision to do surgery on Friday. Final pathology tests won’t be back until early this week, but the tumor is believed to be benign and Elledge is expected to make a full recovery.

BRIEFLY
•  NASCAR also took Kyle Busch’s winning No. 5 Chevrolet back to its facility in Concord to measure it and see how 500 laps affected the measurements taken on the car of tomorrow. The team should have the car back in time to use it as a backup for Martinsville next week, a NASCAR spokesman said.

•  Darrell Waltrip took a jackhammer to the concrete in Turn 3 after Sunday’s race to ceremonially kick off the renovation of the Bristol track. Between now and the night race in August, the track will not only be resurfaced with new concrete but will have compound banking added to its high-banked turns.

•  Another pair of milestones were set in Sunday’s race. Chevrolet got its 600th victory in NASCAR’s top series, while Hendrick Motorsports got its 200th victory in Cup, Busch and Truck series competition.

•  Chevrolet’s car of tomorrow is branded as an Impala, and before Sunday the most recent Impala win was Wendell Scott’s victory at Jacksonville, Fla., on Dec. 1, 1963. That remains the only race in NASCAR’s top series won by an African-American driver.

•  Motorcross champion Ricky Carmichael ran his first stock car race in Florida Saturday night, falling out of the 25-lap feature when a flat tire led to a crash on Lap 7. Carmichael was third in his heat race. Matt Martin, the son of Cup driver Mark Martin, was fourth in his heat and seventh in the feature with his dad there to help the Ginn Racing developmental drivers. “This was really, really fun for me,” Carmichael said. “It’s the competitive side of me that makes the result frustrating. I've learned sp much that I can't wait for the next race.” Carmichael will run next in late model races on April 21 and April 28 at New Smyrna Beach in Florida.

TURNING POINTS

Lap 290
Tony Stewart’s car, which had led 257 laps to that point, comes to pit road and the hood goes up. A problem with the fuel pump system ends the No. 20 car’s shot to win.

Lap 294
Jeff Burton restarts in 16th position at the tail end of the longest line of traffic after being penalized for speeding onto pit road on the previous stop.

Lap 484
Kyle Busch passes Denny Hamlin for the lead a blink of an eye before a caution flag flies. Burton is among those who comes in for fresh tires on the ensuing pit stops.

Lap 498
David Ragan’s spin brings out the final yellow flag of the afternoon, setting up a green-white-checkered finish.

Lap 500 Burton gets the nose of his car under Busch’s Chevrolet off Turn 2 and Turn 4 but Busch hangs on to win by less than a car length.

NEXT RACE
GOODY’S 500
Where: Martinsville Speedway
When : 2 p.m. Sunday
TV: Fox, WCCB-TV (Ch. 18)
Radio: Motor Racing Network (WSOC-FM, 103.7)
Last year’s winner: Tony Stewart

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