Jack Roush has three cars in the “Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup” championship. Dover International Speedway has four turns that like to eat cars, especially ones that were racing as closely together as Roush’s three cars were for the last 45 laps of the “Camping World RV 400 presented by AAA” on Sunday afternoon. It was a recipe for heartburn.
“I know the first time I went to Bristol and today, I hyperventilated,” Roush said. “I really need to have a paper bag to put my head in. It’s hard not to lose your mind when you’re involved in something [like this], just holding your breath and breathing too fast at the same time as you watch it unfold.”
That was because Greg Biffle, Matt Kenseth and Carl Edwards gave every fan at Dover their money’s worth over that 45-lap span, battling and jockeying for position with mere inches between them at over 160 mph. They finished in that order, giving Biffle his second consecutive Chase win and pulling him into a tie for second in the standings. Mark Martin finished fourth, followed by Jimmie Johnson in fifth. Kevin Harvick, Jeff Gordon, Clint Bowyer, Jeff Burton and Michael Waltrip rounded out the top 10.
“I wouldn’t have want to been in his shoes,” Biffle said of Roush afterwards. “I would not have wanted to be in that position.”
As it was, all three cars came out unscathed after a finish where the description “edge-of-your-seat” might have been too boring to use. It started coming out of a caution period at lap 356, when Edwards was leading the race by virtue of taking only two tires at the pit stop. Martin was running second, followed by Kenseth and Biffle. The latter two quickly overtook Martin, and were running 1-2-3 by lap 362.
At lap 364, Kenseth began to challenge Edwards for the lead. Over the next few laps, he pulled alongside Edwards twice, but then fell back both times. Then Biffle pulled around Kenseth and slipped in behind Edwards. But just as quickly as that happened, Kenseth passed both of them to take the lead at lap 377.
Three laps later, Biffle pulled up on Kenseth’s bumper, as Edwards began to show the effects of the two-tire change. The three began to encounter slower traffic, and Biffle pulled inside Kenseth twice only to fall back. But at lap 391, Biffle pulled alongside, the two bumped, and Biffle then held on. He drove away over the final nine laps to the win.
“It was an exciting day to say the least,” Biffle said. “I think a lot of people got to see great racing. Dover always puts on a great race. This place is so tough. The position I was in, it was kind of fun racing with Matt, because Matt Kenseth is a smart driver. When I got underneath him, he just moved up. He didn’t give me a chance to get on his outside, because I’d passed him three times earlier on the top. So he knew not to let me up there.
“And then Carl came up there and gave me actually a little bit of help. Matt got a little loose off of four, and then didn’t clear a lapped car down the front stretch. I went down on the corner and I figured the lapped car would go high, and I was able to drive in the middle of him and got to his outside. I bet he was spitting nails down there in turn three and four once I got to his outside because I had a little bit faster car. Being on the bottom here you can’t get the gas down and get up off the corner.”
“I had a really good time,” Edwards said. “We took two tires at the end and I’m not sure if that was the right thing or not, but there couldn’t be a better third, leading the points with two teammates finishing in front of me and racing like that. Early in the run I realized Greg was probably fastest and Matt was probably second fastest. I held them off for as long as I could, and then Matt held Greg off for a long time. That was a lot of fun.”
Early on, it appeared to be a typical Dover race. The Monster Mile started chewing up cars virtually immediately when Kurt Busch spun out on the second lap and backed into the Turn 2 wall. There were seven more cautions before the halfway point.
One of those cautions collected Roush’s fourth car, the one he said may have actually been their best car of the day. It was Jamie McMurray, who found himself driving perhaps the best car he’s had in a year. He started fifth, began driving up through the field about 20 laps in and took the lead from polesitter Gordon at lap 30. He gave it up at a caution at lap 69, but then began chasing down Kenseth, who had taken the lead, and ran second for quite a while until more cautions shuffled the field.
But McMurray’s fortunate day more or less ended at lap 161 when Robby Gordon lost control in the corner and forced McMurray into the wall. McMurray went to the garage for a time, then came back out and continued running. He finished 36th.
After the eighth caution period at lap 185, the race stayed green for more than 100 miles. The lengthy green flag run made things interesting as far as pit strategy was concerned, because at that caution period, the top 11 cars did not pit. That included Johnson, who took the lead at that point and held it until he had to make a green-flag stop at lap 239.
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