| MICHIGAN
INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
Sunday,
August 17, 2008 on ESPN
A
Michigan Sweep for Carl Edwards
Source:
Michigan International Speedway
PHOTO
CREDIT: MICHIGAN INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY
BROOKLYN,
Mich. -- Carl Edwards had to fight off a cluster
of late-race cautions and hold off restart-specialist
Kyle Busch in the process before running off with his
fifth NASCAR Sprint Cup victory of the season, capturing
the 3M Performance 400 presented by Bondo today at Michigan
International Speedway.
Edwards
finished almost one second in front of Kyle Busch, the
Sprint Cup Series points leader, who didn’t give
up much ground with just three races remaining before
the 10-race Chase for the Championship begins. It was
also only the second weekend for a NASCAR sweep at MIS
with Edwards, who turned 29 on Friday, winning the Nationwide
Series CARFAX 250 on Saturday. The only other Sprint Cup
driver to win both weekend races at MIS was Mark Martin
in 1993.
“Bob
Osborne (crew chief) and all the guys in the pit crew
did a great job and the greatest part of today’s
win was that we didn’t give up any more bonus points
to Kyle,” Edwards said. “We’ve got to
try to go out and win the next three events and enter
the chase on even ground.”
Busch,
who became the first driver to lock up a position in the
12-driver Chase field today, has accumulated 80 bonus
points, 10 points each for his eight victories this season.
He leads second-place Edwards by 222 points in the overall
standings.
On
the restarts, Edwards recalled what happened at Chicagoland
last month when Kyle Busch got on Jimmie Johnson’s
bumper on a green-white-checkered restart, and then got
around Johnson for the victory.
“At
Chicago, when we had our trouble, it came down to Kyle
and Jimmie and Jimmie lost it on the restart,” Edwards
added. “Kyle is really good on the restarts and
I didn’t want to have to go through that pain today.”
Asked
what he had for Edwards, Busch, very candidly, said, “Pretty
much nothing. He was just able to take off on those restarts
and get a pretty good run through one and two and once
he got that gap it was just over. We’ll take it.
At least we know we can keep up with the 99 (Edwards).”
It
was also the 11th Sprint Cup victory at MIS for Roush
Fenway Racing team owner Jack Roush, tying the record
also held by the Wood Brothers. Roush Fenway grabbed four
of the top five finishing places with David Ragan tying
his career-high with a third-place finish, followed by
teammates Greg Biffle and Matt Kenseth. It was also Roush’s
20th overall victory at Michigan including 11 in Sprint
Cup, five in the Nationwide Series and four in the NASCAR
Craftsman Truck Series. Add to that the fact that Roush
has kept his winning streak alive at MIS with at least
one Sprint Cup win there every year since 2002.
Today’s
race also created a major shakeup in the point standings.
Jeff Gordon fell considerably after finishing 42nd when
he got into an early race-bumping incident with Johnson
and Tony Stewart. Gordon was sixth going into the race,
but dropped to ninth in the points. Biffle and Kevin Harvick
each moved up three places, Biffle from 10th to 7th and
Harvick from 11th to 8th. Also falling back three places
were Kasey Kahne from 8th to 11th and Denny Hamlin from
9th to 12th. Ragan and Clint Bowyer remained on the bubble,
both tied for 13th just 26 points out of the 12th and
last position for the Chase field.
Return
to our
3M Performance 400 Race Coverage Index.
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