Edwards brings down the house.

Monday, 3rd March 2008

One week, two wins for Carl Edwards.

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Earnhardt Jr finally broke free from Biffle on the final corner and although he is still left waiting for his first win for Rick Hendrick, second place marks a good turnaround after his tribulations in California last week. Biffle maintained his and Roush-Fenway’s strong start to the season with third place with Richard Childress Racing teammates Kevin Harvick and Jeff Burton rounding out the top five.

David Ragan made it three Roush cars in the top six with a last gasp pass on Kasey Kahne, who fought off the effects of the flu to take seventh place from the back of the grid. Travis Kvapil put his unsponsored #28 Yates Racing Ford a highly creditable eighth with Denny Hamlin ninth in the leading Toyota and Nationwide Series winner Mark Martin tenth.

Polesitter and Las Vegas native Kyle Busch led the early stages in his #18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota and continued to dispute top spot until a slow pitstop with 100 laps to go dropped him down the order. In traffic Busch’s car wouldn’t handle as well and after a couple of scrapes with the outside SAFER barriers Busch had to settle for eleventh place.

Juan Montoya recovered from several wall banging incidents to finish 19th while Kenseth wound up 20th after his enforced late pitstop. Jimmie Johnson’s bid for a fourth straight Las Vegas win never got off the ground and after starting 33rd Johnson endured one of his worst ever races as he came home two laps down in 29th, seemingly mystified as to his cars lack of competitiveness.

Dario Franchitti also had a hard day and finished three laps behind in 33rd position while Gordon was classified 35th, Kurt Busch 38th and a very sore Tony Stewart 43rd.

Patrick Carpentier, Sam Hornish Jr and Robby Gordon were all crash victims but while Hornish and Gordon suffered tyre failures, Carpentier was left little to no room by Ryan Newman as they battled off turn two with the former Champ Car race winner ending his first race of the season against the inside wall on the back straight.