Backstretch Motorsports

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (Aug. 11, 2008) – The final four events in the Race to the Chase are packed with subplots.
• There’s Kyle Busch’s attempt at 13 wins in a season. Since the schedule was reduced in size in 1972, 13 wins in a season has been the standard. Richard Petty won 13 in 1975 and Jeff Gordon did it in 1998. Busch has a solid shot a matching – and surpassing – that number. Busch nabbed victory No. 8 last weekend at Watkins Glen, becoming the 18th driver with eight wins in the first 22 races – 13 of the previous 17 went on to win the series championship.

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DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (Aug. 4, 2008) – At what point does Kyle Busch start worrying?

The battle for potential Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup bonus points got tighter this past weekend, with Carl Edwards picking up another 10 bonus points for his win at Pocono – pushing his total to 30.

Busch, with 70 bonus points, still has a 40-point lead – but his comfort zone is quickly shrinking.

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Long Pond, PA) — Intensity in racing is nothing new. Strategies of speed and performance are tough enough to maintain. Compound them with the unexpected factors that can happen during an event, it can be downright nerve-racking. That is when the heat is on. Winners know it and know how to deal with the heat it brings.

Increasing intensity as the NASCAR Chase for the Sprint Cup looms ever closer is overwhelming, and can take even the most seasoned of championsip contenders to the brink of self-destruction.

Carl Edwards won the Sunoco Red Cross Pennsylvania 500, his 11th victory in 142 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races. He not only etched his name into the records books at Pocono Raceway again, he gained another all-important 10 bonus points that put him in second-place potential in the Chase berth.

But not without some heated and unsure moments.

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Speedway, IN) – NASCAR’s best drivers made the best of a bad situation Sunday afternoon, pampering their cars to save tires during a series of short green flag runs at the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard Sprint Cup race.

A rough track and a stubborn tire that refused to cooperate made the race at the Brickyard a survival test for 43 of the world’s best drivers.

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By Reid Spencer

MADISON, Ill. (July 19, 2008) – It took three days for Carl Edwards to get to Gateway International Raceway from his home in Columbia, Mo. – on a bicycle.

Once at the track, however, Edwards picked up his pace considerably for Saturday night’s Missouri-Illinois Dodge Dealers 250 NASCAR Nationwide Series race. In the final 55-lap green-flag run, Edwards’ No. 60 Ford streaked away from the No. 20 Toyota of Joey Logano, taking the checkered flag 6.877 seconds ahead of the 18-year-old Joe Gibbs Racing phenom.

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BEACH, FLA. — Fireworks started the Coke Zero 400 Powered by Coca-Cola Saturday night. Fireworks ended the race as well, both on and off the track.

In a wild and wooly finish so typical of races at Daytona International Speedway, Kyle Busch won by a whisker over hard-charging Carl Edwards with a chain-reaction accident behind them sending up a cloud of smoke that covered the track.

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WEST ALLIS, Wis. (June 21, 2008) — All it took to end Carl Edwards’ year-long NASCAR Nationwide Series winless streak was to change crew chiefs.

The defending series champion had gone 36 races without a victory, and team owner Jack Roush decided that was enough. So Roush Fenway Racing swapped crew chiefs earlier this week, with Drew Blickensderfer taking over for Pierre Kuettel on Edwards’ No. 60 team.

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DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – It’s no secret Carl Edwards loves running the 1.5- and 2-mile tracks on the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series schedule.

Here’s why:

• Of his 10 career NASCAR Sprint Cup wins, seven have come at tracks measuring 1.5 or 2 miles (the other three came at Bristol, Dover and Pocono).
• Edwards has three wins this season, all at 1.5 or 2-mile tracks.
• Edwards has scored a Driver Rating over 100.0 in eight races this season. Four of those were at 1.5- or 2-mile tracks (the only 1.5-mile track this season that Edwards has not scored at least a 100.0 Driver Rating was Lowe’s Motor Speedway. He had an 86.1.)
• His top three Driver Ratings came at tracks of that length (139.8 at Texas; 135.4 at Auto Club Speedway; 134.5 at Atlanta).

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DOVER, Del. — Same song, different verse.

Points leader Kyle Busch made mincemeat of the competition and Sunday’s Best Buy 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Dover International Speedway.

In a race that stayed green for the final 153 laps, Busch gained a total of five seconds over runner-up Carl Edwards on his final two pit stops, built a lead that topped eight seconds and cruised in his No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota to a 4.225-second win, his fourth of the season and the eighth of his career.

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DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – The Coca-Cola 600 – one of the crown jewels of NASCAR – will be especially important to three previous winners for three different reasons:

Kasey Kahne
Kahne is trying to end a winless drought which stretches 52 points races long and, perhaps more importantly, return to the top 12 of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series standings.

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