By JENNA FRYER, AP
May 11, 2008
DARLINGTON, S.C. - Kyle Busch won the battle of attrition last night as NASCAR's least popular driver overcame a pit-road penalty and several scrapes with the wall to win the Dodge Challenger 500 at Darlington Raceway.
Busch's third Sprint Cup Series victory of the season hardly thrilled the crowd, which viciously booed him in pre-race introductions and hadn't softened by the time he took the checkered flag. Already loathed by many, he enraged Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s massive fan base by wrecking him as they raced for the win last week in Richmond.
It created a frenzy of hatred toward Busch, but the 23-year-old driver tuned it out and focused on what he does best: winning races.
His win at Darlington was his eighth of the season spanning NASCAR's top three series, and he has won most of them in very convincing fashion. This one was no different, as Busch led a race-high 169 of the 367 laps in a Toyota he described early in the race as the "most pathetic" he'd ever driven.
Busch was leading early in the race but was penalized when his crew left a lug nut off his rear wheel following a pit stop, dropping him to 29th.
He battled his way back to the front, patiently picking off Jimmie Johnson, Earnhardt and finally seven-time Darlington winner Jeff Gordon to reclaim the top position. From there, the kid who chases the checkered flag every time he's on the track pulled away, forcing his spotter to beg him to slow down a mere 50 laps from the finish.
But Busch isn't capable of going slow, and he stayed on the gas until the finish while stretching his Sprint Cup Series lead to 79 points over Jeff Burton.
Carl Edwards finished second, Gordon was third and Earnhardt finished fourth.
David Ragan was fifth and was followed by Matt Kenseth, Denny Hamlin - Busch's teammate at Joe Gibbs Racing. Travis Kvapil, Dave Blaney and Burton rounded out the top 10.
