Points leader becomes the first to fizzle
LOUDON, N.H. - The rain on Friday, which washed out qualifying at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, placed points leader Kyle Busch on the pole for yesterday's Sylvania 300.
But the first-place start masked the harsh reality that the No. 18 wasn't nearly as powerful as it had been throughout the 26-race prelude to the Chase for the Sprint Cup.
Busch led only the first three laps and quickly fell off the pace, a tempo that became even more sluggish after a part failed on his
"We had a part failure and it's one of those things that you can't do anything about," said crew chief Steve Addington. "We weren't very good when we unloaded here, but we felt like we did the right things and were going to have a good racecar."
The failure most likely led to an incident that brought out the race's second caution. On Lap 83, Busch looped his Camry on the back straightaway. Busch saved it and had the car pointed straight again after the spin. But an out-of-control Jamie McMurray slammed into Busch, crinkling the rear of the No. 18 and ultimately saddling the Toyota with a 34th-place finish.
Busch has been the most rambunctious driver this season, his first with Joe Gibbs Racing, scoring eight Sprint Cup victories. But finishing 34th wiped out Busch's points lead. After one-tenth of the Chase, he resides in eighth place, trailing leaders Carl Edwards and Jimmie Johnson by 74 points.
Busch's fizzle looked like it might be only one of Gibbs's two duds. Tony Stewart, making his final NHMS appearance in the No. 20 Toyota (he is switching to the No. 14 Chevrolet next year as the owner of Stewart/Haas Racing), committed an unusual mistake for a two-time champion.
During a caution, Stewart pulled onto pit road for fresh tires and a fill-'er-up. But Stewart was too lead-footed leaving pit road and was tagged with a pass-through penalty on the following turn, putting him a lap down and stuck in 30th place. Given the challenges of passing at NHMS yesterday and the threat of rain shortening the event, it didn't appear likely that Stewart could find his way among the leaders again.
But Stewart kept out of trouble, and after Joe Nemechek wrecked to bring out the race's fourth yellow flag, the No. 20 got its lap back. Stewart finished eighth is now seventh in the points chase, 73 behind the leaders.
"It just shows how the complexion of this sport can change from week to week," said Stewart, who finished second behind Johnson in last Sunday's Chevy Rock & Roll 400 at Richmond International Raceway.
"Last week it was a mistake in the pits. This week it was a mistake on the driver's part. I got a drive-through penalty that got us way behind. We had some bad luck, and then I made our problem worse with our speeding penalty. To fight back to eighth, I'm pretty happy with that."
While Busch and Stewart were uncharacteristically shaky, Denny Hamlin was his usual stout self at NHMS. Hamlin, who won the Lenox Industrial Tools 300 July 1, 2007, didn't lead the field at any time yesterday, but never dipped out of the top 10 for the first 200 laps (he climbed as high as third place).
Debris led to the race's third caution, and Hamlin's crew put him in second place after yellow-flag pit stops. But just two laps after the restart, when Nemechek ripped up his ride, the leaders remained on the track. Hamlin, however, came to pit road under caution. Crew chief Mike Ford, knowing that the No. 11 didn't have enough gas to make it to the checkered flag if the race remained caution-free, called for the stop for another slug.
After pitting, Hamlin restarted in 16th place. And after four more yellow flags allowed the rest of the field to gas up for the rest of the race, Ford's gamble didn't pay off. But in the closing laps, the No. 11 made several passes to finish ninth. Hamlin, who entered the race sixth in the standings, held his ground and has a 1-point lead on the seventh-place Stewart, his Gibbs teammate.
"My guys are pretty resilient," team president J.D. Gibbs said. "We'll come back and have a pretty good run down the stretch."
Fluto Shinzawa can be reached at fshinzawa@globe.com. 