Clint Bowyer didn’t know for sure that he’d be driving Richard Childress Racing’s No. 29 Holiday Inn Chevrolet until this past Monday. Turns out he’s pretty good on short notice. “My name was on the car,” Bowyer said during a post-race press conference. “I just got in it.”
On a day when the 43 drivers were racing an impending storm as well as one another, Bowyer won the “Dover 200” NASCAR Nationwide Series race at the Monster Mile on Saturday afternoon. Mike Bliss, driving the No. 11 Ridemakerz Toyota, finished a surprising second, while Brad Keselowski, in the No. 88 GoDaddy Chevrolet, overcame a pit road speeding penalty to finish third.
For Busch, it was another day at the Monster Mile that started with promise and ended with disappointment, coming after all three May 2009 races ended with bad luck. It seemed almost typical that at the start of the race Busch couldn’t communicate with his crew via radio. Despite that, his jackrabbit start put him ahead by a full second after just six laps. But that early lead wouldn’t last.
“The more the race went on, the looser we got for some reason,” Busch said. “The guys made adjustments in order to tighten it up and I don’t know if it was just the tires or what, but every time we put a set of tires on we just kept getting looser and looser. It’s a problem when you can’t explain exactly what the car is doing.”
Although Busch finished fourth, he actually extended his points lead by ten because Carl Edwards finished fifth. Busch is now up by 211 points. Keselowski remained 297 points back with his third-place finish.
FIN CAR DRIVER MAKE 1 29 Clint Bowyer Chevrolet 2 11 Mike Bliss Toyota 3 88 Brad Keselowski Chevrolet 4 18 Kyle Busch Toyota 5 60 Carl Edwards Ford 6 38 Jason Leffler Toyota 7 10 Reed Sorenson Toyota 8 99 Scott Speed Toyota 9 32 David Reutimann Toyota 10 27 Jason Keller Ford 11 16 Matt Kenseth Ford 12 66 Steve Wallace Chevrolet 13 15 Michael Annett * Toyota 14 40 Scott Wimmer Chevrolet 15 234 Tony Raines Chevrolet 16 1 Martin Truex Jr. Chevrolet 17 6 Erik Darnell * Ford 18 9 John Wes Townley * Ford 19 62 Brendan Gaughan * Chevrolet 20 28 Kenny Wallace Chevrolet 21 89 Morgan Shepherd Chevrolet 22 1 Mike Wallace Chevrolet 23 23 Ken Butler III * Chevrolet 24 24 Eric McClure Ford 25 12 Justin Allgaier * Dodge 26 61 Matt Carter Ford 27 20 Denny Hamlin Toyota 28 81 Bobby Hamilton Jr. Dodge 29 196 Michael McDowell * Dodge 30 33 Ryan Newman Chevrolet 31 31 Tim Andrews Chevrolet 32 52 Brad Teague Chevrolet 33 7 Jarit Johnson Chevrolet 34 26 Danny O'Quinn Jr. Dodge 35 87 Joe Nemechek Chevrolet 36 5 Casey Atwood Chevrolet 37 102 Andy Ponstein Chevrolet 38 192 Dennis Setzer Dodge 39 91 Chase Miller Chevrolet 40 90 Johnny Chapman Chevrolet 41 47 Coleman Pressley Toyota 42 49 Mark Green Chevrolet 43 141 Kevin Hamlin Chevrolet
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