Kyle Busch overcame the pit-road penalty at Darlington and accomplished his third victory of the year. After the crowd booed him and after calling his vehicle pathetic, despite all he found the victory lane again. NASCAR's least popular driver raced to his third Sprint Cup Series victory of the season Saturday night, winning a battle of destruction at the track "Too Tough to Tame."
"How many times did I hit the wall? I don't know, one, two, three, four, probably five or six," Busch said. "I've got to thank my team, they build them as strong as they can for me, 'cause I like to knock the walls down with them."
Throughout the season this victory has become his eight one; he has achieved most of his victories in a very convincing way. And this one was no different, as Busch led a race-high 169 of the 367 laps in a Toyota that he described early in the race as the "most pathetic car" he'd ever driven.
Busch did show he has got talent indeed; he became the youngest driver to win at NASCAR's oldest speed way. There is no doubt Darlington is one of the hardest places to compete; an offseason repaving project smoothed the asphalt on the egg-shaped, 1.366-mile superspeedway; the result was a new surface which fits the entire field and the track is now extremely fast and a bit dangerous.
Busch was dropped to number 29 despite leading early in the race but was penalized when his crew left a lug nut off his rear wheel following a pit stop. Lap by lap he battled his way back to the front, patiently picking off Jimmie Johnson, Earnhardt and finally seven-time Darlington winner Jeff Gordon to reclaim the top position.
He was advised the turns were pretty dangerous and he had to take it slow and easy, but he couldn't do it. He slammed the walls so many times, his right side of the car was destroyed. But he was not capable of going slow neither keep his feet off the gas until he finished.
On the other hand; Edwards finished second and was pleased with the outcome after initially disliking the new surface. Gordon finished third, who was happy but frustrated at the same time as he is still looking for his first victory of the season.
Earnhardt finished fourth, David Ragan was fifth followed by Matt Kenseth, Denny Hamlin -- Busch's teammate at Joe Gibbs Racing. Travis Kvapil, Dave Blaney and Burton rounded out the top 10. "I just made a huge mistake," Sadler said. "I just went in too low into Turn 1. I was actually trying to give Tony more room and I just got loose under him and spun into him. I know he's pretty mad at me, but nothing I did intentionally. I've never had any problems with him, and don't want to start it tonight."
