2008 SPRINT CUP RACE 24: Sharpie 500 @ Bristol

Back to the bull ring of Bristol for Race #24 in the Sprint Cup schedule. The second date at Bristol is traditionally a night race on Saturday nights which was the case for this race. Carl Edwards won the 2007 Fall race at Bristol and he made it known during qualifying capturing the pole over David Reutimann in the #44 car. As the race got underway, Dale Jr. got busted for jumping the start and had to make a pass through penalty. That trapped him 2 laps down, from which he would never recover all race despite having a great racecar. But did Carl Edwards dominate the day? In fact no, none other than Kyle Busch did, leading the most laps starting from the 9th position. A big wreck broke out a little ways into the event that started when Casey Mears thought he was clear of Michael Waltrip in the #55. This happened with a huge pack of cars coming behind and resulted in "The Big One" occuring collecting multiple drivers such as Chase hopeful Kasey Kahne, Reed Sorenson, Sam Hornish, and Michael Waltrip getting caught up in it after the initial contact. After that wreck, it became the Busch/Edwards battle, combined 13 wins rofl. Around 12 to go, Carl Edwards made a move on Kyle Busch to take the lead, basically shoving the #18 out of the way. After Carl crossed the checkers to score his sixth win, Busch came up and gave him some payback smacks. The funny thing was after Kyle hit him, Carl went right back and fishtailed him. Owned. Three Chevys, three Fords, three Toyotas, and one Dodge survived the Bristol bullring to score Top 10 finishes.

The Top 10:
1. #99 Carl Edwards (Ford)
2. #18 Kyle Busch (Toyota)
3. #11 Denny Hamlin (Toyota)
4. #29 Kevin Harvick (Chevrolet)
5. #24 Jeff Gordon (Chevrolet)
6. #12 Ryan Newman (Dodge)
7. #07 Clint Bowyer (Chevrolet)
8. #20 Tony Stewart (Toyota)
9. #17 Matt Kenseth (Ford)
10. #6 David Ragan (Ford)

Off to Auto Club Speedway in California for the next to last race before the Chase.