2008 SPRINT CUP RACE 27: Sylvania 300 @ Loudon

The final stretch to the Championship took the Sprint Cup drivers through ten races in ten straight weeks. Kyle Busch entered the Chase as the top seed due to his eight wins throughout the first 26 races. Carl Edwards entered the Chase in 2nd, Jimmie Johnson in 3rd. This year there were several Chasers that hadn't won a race so far in 2008: Jeff Gordon, Matt Kenseth, Greg Biffle, Tony Stewart, and Kevin Harvick. In 2007, Clint Bowyer was the only Chaser that hadn't won during the year, but proved all of his doubters by winning this Loudon race a year ago kicking off the Chase. So how did Loudon go this year? Well, once again qualifying was rained out which put Kyle Busch on the pole for the gazillinth time this year. But when it came to racetime, Busch's car fell through the field as later on he broke a sway bar which made is car extremely difficult to drive and it all resulted in spinning out his car around Lap 85 of 300 and then getting hit in the rear by Jamie McMurray as a smokescreen made by the #18 covered the racetrack. Another big wreck occured when the field stacked up and they went five wide at one instant! You can't go five wide without something happening. Kyle Petty was in the middle of that and got squeezed out...lost control and hit Matt Kenseth in the #17. Casey Mears and David Gilliland also got involved in this. As for who ran well all day, Jimmie Johnson had the dominated the day leading the most laps but Greg Biffle appeared late with a good short run car to beat Johnson to the line to claim his first win of the year, much like Bowyer did in 2007. Five Chevys, two Fords, two Toyotas, and one Dodge mustered up Top 10 finishes, eight of those Chasers. Now Johnson and Edwards would be tied in points with Biffle a close third.

The Top 10:
1. #16 Greg Biffle (Ford)
2. #48 Jimmie Johnson (Chevrolet)
3. #99 Carl Edwards (Ford)
4. #31 Jeff Burton (Chevrolet)
5. #88 Dale Earnhardt Jr. (Chevrolet)
6. #2 Kurt Busch (Dodge)
7. #1 Martin Truex Jr. (Chevrolet)
8. #20 Tony Stewart (Toyota)
9. #11 Denny Hamlin (Toyota)
10. #29 Kevin Harvick (Chevrolet)

Off to the monster mile of Dover for the second Chase race.