The thirteenth round of the 2008 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series was unlucky for just about everybody save for Kyle Busch, who took the Best Buy 400 by the scruff of the neck just prior to the half way mark and proceeded to lead the majority of the final 200 laps.
With the bumpy and slick concrete surface of the one mile Dover International Speedway magnifying the difference in performance between those who nailed the correct set-up and those who just missed it Sunday's 400-lap race could hardly be described as a classic despite an early race multi-car wreck that involved no less than six of the drivers who came into the day among the top 12 in points.
While the lap 19 crash that involved, among others, Tony Stewart, Denny Hamlin, Dale Earnhardt Jr, Kevin Harvick, Clint Bowyer and Kasey Kahne, certainly shook the running order up in the middle of the pack it had little effect on those who started at the front and such was the dominance of Greg Biffle, Carl Edwards and finally Busch that it was hard to see any of the above mentioned contenders challenging for the win in any case.
In front of a large but nowhere near sold out Delaware crowd it was polesitter Biffle who took off like the proverbial scalded cat, opening up a two second lead inside ten laps before, on lap 17, David Gilliland tapped Elliott Sadler into a spin coming off turn two. Sadler hit the outside wall and bounced back directly onto the racing line in front of a large pack of traffic. First to pile in was Stewart who punted Sadler's car back to the outside where he was hit by the rapidly approaching Hamlin and Scott Riggs. No sooner had Hamlin and Riggs made contact Earnhardt Jr, Bobby Labonte, Bill Elliott, Kahne and Bowyer joined the fun with Paul Menard and David Ragan somehow threading their way through without sustaining any meaningful damage.
With the track blocked with severely damaged cars NASCAR chose to red flag the race and while Sadler and Hamlin were the only drivers to be out on the spot, several others including Stewart and Harvick would spend more than 50 laps making repairs before returning to the track.
The delay didn't dampen Biffle's spirits however and as soon as racing resumed he quickly re-established his lead over third place starter Kyle Busch and the second of the Roush-Fenway machines of Carl Edwards. After two more quick caution periods Edwards moved into second spot and seemed content to sit about one second of Biffle's rear bumper as a round of green flag pitstops approached just shy of the lap 150 mark.
When Biffle pitted on lap 148 he conceded the lead for the first time under green flag conditions all day and while he soon regained it as the order cycled through Edwards was able to pass him for the lead for good on lap 170. Now it was Edwards' turn to pull away as Biffle, hampered by alternator problems, began to struggle.
Kyle Busch moved into second spot on lap 185 and slowly worked his way onto Edwards' rear bumper as a second round of green flag stops began on lap 225. It was now that Busch's #18 Joe Gibbs team came into their own, turning Busch's car around in under 13 seconds and handing him the lead when the order shuffled out.
Busch didn't get a chance to showcase his new lead for long though as the fifth and final caution period of the day waved for debris on lap 242, bringing Edwards, Biffle, Matt Kenseth, Jeff Gordon and the rest of the leaders back onto Busch's rear bumper. But Busch needn't have worried for when the green flag dropped on lap 247 Busch simply drove away again.
