Busch makes it a three-some at Bristol

Kurt Busch did what only three other drivers have been able to do at the famed Bristol Motor Speedway on Sunday, won his third race in a row. Only Darrell Waltrip (7 wins in a row), Cale Yarbourough (4 wins in a row) and Fred Lorenzen (3 wins in a row) have done what many consider one of the hardest feats in racing. Busch didn’t have the dominant car all day. After a thirteenth place starting spot, he hung around the middle of the pack for the first part of the race. Rusty Wallace though, showed the 160,000 fans in attendance that he was hungry for a win. Wallace would lead four different times for 100 laps and looked poised at the end of the race to pounce on Busch. Wallace took the lead from his teammate and pole sitter, Ryan Newman after just twenty-five laps. Wallace stayed in the front until a charging Jamie McMurray got into the side of rookie Kasey Kahne and the two went spinning in turn one and two. McMurray was able to continue, but Kahne had to head for the garage and was out for the day in the Dodge Dealers car. Wallace had a great pit stop and came out in front again. He moved away from the field until Tony Stewart found his groove and moved up to take the lead on lap 81. Stewart stayed in the front until an accident took Bobby Labonte and Jeff Burton into the garage. Stewart suffered from bad pit stops all day and came out behind the 22 car of Wimmer. As the cars came out of turn two, Wimmer had to slow to stop from getting into the back of Ricky Craven. Wimmer hit Craven, and Stewart slammed into the back of Wimmer. Stewart felt something was done wrong on the track and started a bumping game on the track under yellow, beating the back of Wimmer’s car until NASCAR felt it necessary to penalize both drivers a lap in the pits. Wimmer’s crew was upset, but NASCAR upheld the penalty. Greg Biffle came out of the pits with the lead after that caution, with Wallace close behind. The two played cat and mouse, trading the lead for the next eighty laps. The long green flag runs enabled cars to race on the track and several of the drivers made moves to the front. On lap 202 a caution involving Ricky Rudd and Casey Mears took everyone into the pits again, and Sterling Marlin took only two tires. His pit strategy worked as it got the Coors Light car into the lead and gave the Tennessee driver the track position. Speculation was that two tires would fade quickly, but Marlin kept the lead until lap 276 when Wallace got back under him. Dale Earnhardt Jr. had moved his Budweiser Chevrolet up through the field and got the lead from Wallace, which erupted the crowd. Earnhardt was able to lead for 91 laps, but a rear tire problem had him fading quickly until he spun in turn two when he was just about to loose a lap to the leader. This allowed the entire field to get fresh tires, except Kurt Busch who elected to stay on the track for track position. Busch had thought that several of the cars behind him weren’t pitting and told crew chief, Jimmy Fenning that he would stay on the track. Busch’s decision turned out to be a good one as he kept the Sharpie Ford out front during each run. Caution flags fell in the right positions and with the help of some lapped cars and great restarts, Busch was able to move away from second place Rusty Wallace. The real drama came late in the race when NASCAR red flagged the field with only six laps to go after Dale Jarrett hit the wall in turn two. Jarrett pulled to the inside, but left debris on the track and the cars pulled into the pits while they cleaned the track off. When the car were restarted, more debris fell off a wrecked car and the officials were forced to run a few more caution laps. The green flag would come out with only three laps to go. Busch came out of turn four and got a great start on second place Wallace, who had his hands full of Kevin Harvick running with fresher tires. Busch stayed in front and took his third win in a row at Bristol by just under a half of a second. Wallace finished in the second spot with Kevin Harvick taking third. Harvick had an up and down day, but worked on the car until he got it right. He came up short in the end. Sterling Marlin had his second top five finish of the 2004 season with fourth and Matt Kenseth again took a top five finish after having a sub par day. Kenseth also took a bump from Jamie McMurray after the race as the two had battled on the track, and McMurray thought a bump was out of line on the track. Ken Schrader had his best finish of the year in the Schwann’s Dodge and the best finish for BAM Motorsports, finishing sixth just in front of Ryan Newman in seventh. Jamie McMurray overcame several problems of the day and came back for eighth just in front of Jeff Gordon who also had to work his way back from a lap down to finish in ninth. Michael Waltrip stopped his slide to the bottom of the points with his first finish in the top ten of the 2004 season. There were 13 lead changes among 10 drivers and only eleven caution periods, far off the record. The NEXTEL Cup travels to Texas Motor Speedway for the seventh race of the season next week.