RICHMOND, Va. -- Clint Bowyer won the race off pit road with about 28 laps to go Friday night and easily went on to his fifth career Busch Series victory (watch video). Matt Kenseth dominated much of the latter part of the race, but pitted along with the other leaders after the final caution flew on Lap 223. Kenseth came out fifth, behind Bowyer and Jeff Burton, after a mishap with the jack on Kenseth's right side. Burton was third, followed by Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch.
Scott Wimmer was the top "Busch Guy" with a tenth place finish for Richard Childress Racing as a late replacement for Timothy Peters. Regan Smith was the second True Busch Racer with his 15th place finish for Ginn Racing. Shane Huffman in the No. 88 U.S. Navy Chevrolet was third in 18th while Jon Wood and Bobby Hamilton Jr. were fourth and fifth in 21st and 22nd respectively.
Kevin LePage drove the No. 52 Ford for Jimmy Means Racing and moved into the top 40 in Busch Class points. Hopefully we will see LePage running more in this series now that he is not attempting to make Cup races with Front Row Motorsports.
Alabamian and ARCA regular Mike Harmon ran Busch in Phoenix and moved up into the top 40 as well. He drove the No. 44 All Sports Armour TUSCON Chevrolet.
Morgan Shephard made his 3rd Busch race of the year and moved up to 43rd in Busch Class points. I am happy to see old Morgan do this. He doesn't belong attempting Cup, but he can still wheel a car.
Timothy Peters had an excellent run in the No. 21 for Kevin Harvick Racing. The former bring your sponsor and pay to drive member of the Bobby Hamilton Racing team is getting the chance of a lifetime to drive excellent equipment thanks to Harvick's association with Richard Childress Racing. Peters is now 17th in Busch Class points.
Shane Huffman settled for bad luck Friday night when he crashed out early. "As the field came through turn four to complete the first lap of the race, the No. 88 car cut through the grass and then went back up the track collecting the No. 33 and 18 cars. The Navy Chevrolet sustained significant damage and Huffman drove the mangled car directly to the garage area. Crew Chief Wes Ward assessed that the damage was too significant to repair and the team loaded up.
“I don’t know what happened there,” Huffman said. “It just cut hard to the left when I got on the brakes in four. I hate it for this Navy team. We had such a good run here in the fall and I was looking forward to a repeat of that performance here tonight.” Huffman fell to 9th in the Busch Class standings.
There are 22 Big Time Buschwackers in this Saturday's Busch Race. This is totally out of hand and destroying the series. NASCAR needs to change things soon. All this is is Cup practice. There is no semblance of a Busch race left.
Given that ####, let's see who the Busch Class points leader may be come Sunday. Marcos Ambrose is starting 12th in class and 29th overall. Can Bobby Hamilton Jr. catch him? It's very possible that Hamilton will be the number one Busch Guy come Saturday. He starts 9th in class and 26th overall.
But isn't the door wide open for someone else? It sure appears so. First in line is Shane Huffman. Huffman is third in the true Busch standings. He will start 6th in class and 20th overall.
Any other takers? Mike Wallace? Nope he qualified like #### Regan Smith? No he starts behind Huffman.
So while your watching the Nextel Cup Series Busch Series Practice Session keep in mind there is a Busch Class points race going on out there between Ambrose, Hamilton, Huffman and others. I'll give the best odds to Huffman. But I won't take your bets.
This list was compiled based on the following. Any Cup driver who has run 4 or more of the 6 cup races is not qualified.
However, attempting to qualify for a Cup race and not qualifying does not make you a Cup driver. If you fail to qualify for less than half of the cup races, you are simply a Cup wanabee. Therefore you will find a driver on this list who has attempted to make the field for all of the Cup races. However, he is a Cup wanabee and needs to run Busch the rest of the year to see if he is capable of learning more on the Busch track instead of on the Cup sidelines. Can you say Paul Menard? Or should we say Daddy's Money Menard.
You will find also Ward Burton on this list for a similar reason. He has tried to make five of six Cup races but Morgan McClure Racing just needs to hang up the Cup dream. Face it guys, if you can't get along with other people well enough to merge with another potential Cup team, your days of Cup dreams are over.
This list also includes drivers that have not attempted all Busch Races. You don't have to try to race all Busch races to be a Busch regular or a "Busch guy." All of these drivers have run at least four of the seven Busch races.
It's an interesting group. And with more support from NASCAR it could be a very interesting group.
C'mon NASCAR, word is some NASCAR fans were bored this weekend because there was not a Cup race. We will never fix that really. There will always be singularly focused fans who are bigger celebrity worshipers than race fans and will never see past the NASCAR trees thus missing out on other great forests. But maybe somewhere out there under some of those eight caps there may be some fans that we might attract to other racing series if we package them right. What do you say we put our heads together and see what we can come up with?
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