The House that Rowdy Built: The Food City 250 Review

It took Kyle Busch 28 starts in 2008 to tie a single season record for wins in the Nationwide Series with 10. Sam Ard is the other driver to do that feat. In 2010 it only took 20 races for Kyle to tie his and Sam Ard’s record. That leaves another 12 starts for Kyle to try and break the record.

Busch fought hard to secure his second win of the week at Bristol and ended up sweeping the weekend. There is no doubt that Busch is making a case for himself as best Short Track Racer alive today today. Love him or hate him, Busch commands respect. He may lack the stoic poise that we come to expect from a champion, but there is no doubt that he is one of the top 5 racers of this generation.

Kyle could very well be the first in a new line of NASCAR Champions. The type that ooze personality and refuse to fit into the cookie cutter mold of Champ. But lets not forget, Dale Earnhardt wasn’t your average champ. Nor was Jeff Gordon or Darrell Waltrip. They were all outspoken and often disliked. That’s not even mentioning their shared ‘Move of get Moved’ mentality of racing.

But this article isn’t about what Kyle may be able to do. It’s about what Kyle did on Friday at Bristol. It was a wild race, fitting of the Bristol name. Although it didn’t always seem that way.

It appeared that everyone was going to behave up until lap 84. That’s when Kasey Kahne, Justin Allgaier and Trevor Bayne decided to take it three-wide into turn three. Robert Richardson was slow in the high lane, when Allgaier checked up into the side of Kasey Kahne. Both hit the wall and Kahne rode the wall. Kasey’s day was done, but Allgaier’s was far from over. With 93 laps to go, Lap traffic almost ended Clint Bowyer’s day as Sean Caisse and Joe Nemechek spun together.

I agree with everything ESPN had to say on Friday evening up until a certain point. They claim that Mike Wallace “Checked up” and clipped Bowyer’s front end, sending Wallace into Caisse and Nemechek. I say that Clint checked and spun Wallace.

If Wallace checked, he would have bounced off the wall and Bowyer would have drove right by him. That didn’t happen. What did happen was that Wallace was running his line and Bowyer tried to tuck under him and misjudged the amount of room. Bowyer turned Wallace, but not intentionally. It’s possible that Wallace slowed and that’s why Bowyer clipped him, but ESPN seemed to either miss this point or discarded it entirely.

With 60 laps to go Justin Allgaier got wide and T-Boned Josh Wise. Allgaier would eventually have to take his Verizon entry to the garage.

With 32 to go, Brad Keselowski and Kyle Busch were battling for the lead. Busch completed the pass low, then tried to cut in front of Keselowski. Kyle got wide and let out of the throttle. Brad never was able to ‘whoa’ the car down completely. Kesolowski could have let of the gas and they both could have continued.

But instead, Busch got hit and he brushed the outside wall. He came back down and spun Kesolowski to the inside. Now, Brad didn’t deserve that for what he did to Kyle, but Kesolowski has made several enemies and made a lot of mental errors since beginning his NASCAR career. Perhaps this was mere karma.

With 25 to go, Joey Logano got a bad restart and the field gobbled him up. He almost took Dale Jr with him, but instead got turned by Jason Leffler. Not Jason’s fault, since Logano was three-wide by himself. Joey spun and the field bunched up behind him. Reed Sorenson, Paul Menard, Steve Wallace, Michael Annett, Bowyer, and Keselowski were all tangled up. The latter had considerable damage to his rear but was able to finish the race in 14th.

With 15 to go, Brian Scott and Brendon Gaughan were victims of a bad check up from Reed Sorenson. This set up a great 10 lap shootout for the win, in which the damaged no. 18 Toyota was able to dominate

Race Results and more after the JUMP!

I know that there is no way that so many guys had brake problems. The 36, 26, 91, 90, 73, and 0 all start and parked. It’s sad when you think about the fact that McClure, Morgan Shepherd, and Ryan Hackett would have tried to finish the race.

We found out that as long as Nascar doesn’t try to limit the amount of Cup guys in the Nationwide Series that Carl Edwards will attempt to run the full season in 2011.

Robby Gordon has announced that he will attempt the Montreal Race and K&N pro series driver Paul Harraka will drive Joe Nemechek’s 87 Chevy at Montreal. Why am I talking about Montreal? Because next week the Nationwide Drivers will head to our Northern Neighbors for the NAPA Auto Parts 250 from Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. This is another great chance to see some awesome Road Course racing. Expect to see some of our Road Ringers out there again. I really hope that eventually we get to see a Cup race up in Canada. Check back later in the week for a Preview of the Napa Auto Parts 250.