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Busch notches 3rd Sprint win
Oakland Tribune, May 11, 2008 by Anonymous
DARLINGTON, S.C. -- Kyle Busch won the battle of attrition Saturday night as NASCAR's least-popular driver overcame a pit-road penalty and several scrapes with the wall to win at Darlington Raceway.
Busch's third Sprint Cup Series victory of the season hardly thrilled the crowd, which viciously booed him in prerace introductions and hadn't softened by the time he took the checkered flag. Already loathed by many, he enraged Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s massive fan base by wrecking him as they raced for the win last week in Richmond.
It created a frenzy of hatred toward Busch, but the 23-year-old driver tuned it out and focused on what he does best: winning races.
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The win was his eighth of the season spanning NASCAR's top three series, and he has won most in convincing fashion. This one was no different, as Busch led a race-high 169 of the 367 laps in a Toyota he described early in the race as the "most pathetic" he'd ever driven.
He also overcame every speed bump thrown his way on the track "Too Tough to Tame" en route to the win.
"Darlington showed again tonight it's one of the hardest places. Always has been, always will be," Busch said. "We're going to go through a lot of Mac tools trying to fix this thing, but that's OK. They gave me such a race car."
An offseason repaving project smoothed the asphalt on the egg- shaped, 1.366-mile superspeedway, and the new surface gave the entire field fits. It made the track extremely fast and grippy, forcing Goodyear to bring a very sturdy tire that could handle the speeds and survive long runs.
Busch was leading early in the race but was penalized when his crew left a lug nut off his rear wheel following a pit stop, dropping him to 29th.
He battled his way back to the front.
Carl Edwards finished second and was pleased with the outcome after initially loathing the new surface.
He was followed by Jeff Gordon, who was happy with the finish but frustrated he's still searching for his first win of the season.
Earnhardt finished fourth.
Busch stretched his Sprint Cup Series lead to 79 points over Jeff Burton.
Massa wins Turkish GP pole
ISTANBUL, Turkey -- Felipe Massa of Ferrari won the pole position for the Turkish Grand Prix for the third straight year.
The two-time defending race champion will start first on the grid for today's race at the Istanbul Speed Park after clocking a best lap time of 1 minute, 27.617 seconds.
Heikki Kovalainen of McLaren will start second after finishing less than 0.2 seconds behind Massa. Kovalainen's best career qualifying position comes less than two weeks after a violent crash at the Spanish GP that left the Finn in the hospital.
Stenhouse tops Speed
SPARTA, Ky. -- Ricky Stenhouse Jr. raced to his first ARCA RE/ MAX Series victory, taking the lead after a late restart and holding off Manteca's Scott Speed by 0.374 seconds in the Kentucky 150.
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