By Gary Camp,
Dover International Speedway Staff

DOVER, DE. -September 20, 2008- Back in June, Kyle Busch was running out in front of the "Heluva Good! 200" at Dover International Speedway when a wreck ended his chances at a victory. This time around, there was no such incident to stand between Busch and his eighth Nationwide win of the season.

Busch drove away from Mike Bliss during a green-white-checkered finish to win the "Camping World RV Sales 200 supporting the Childress Institute for Pediatric Trauma." The win was Busch’s 19th win over all three of NASCAR’s major racing series this season. Brad Keselowski overcame a couple pit road mishaps to finish third.

“It was a great run for us today,” Busch said. “I’m really proud of all the guys on this team and everybody at Joe Gibbs Racing. It was just a phenomenal race car and a lot of fun to drive.”

The race saw seven cautions for 34 laps, most of which came in the final 60 miles. That tilted the race in Busch’s favor – his car was best off restarts, while Bliss and Keselowski were better on long runs. Bliss was leading by two seconds when the caution flag came out after a crash on lap 142. He was third out of the pits, behind Scott Wimmer and Busch. Busch quickly took the lead and held it through three subsequent cautions and restarts.

“This car ran real well in the spring, and we didn’t really change a lot from that setup,” Bliss said. “The car was very good from 25 laps on. Up to 25, it was just average. [Busch] was just a bullet. It was a good run for us. I honestly thought we finally had a chance to win a race, but Kyle decided to come to this race.”

Said Busch: “We had a good enough car to where in the long runs I could back it off a little bit and he would catch us. It would take a 200-lap long run for him to gain the ground back that he’d lost. Our car was so good on the green-flag run, it’d just go.”

Busch led the first 72 laps until Kelly Bires, who started second alongside Busch, brought out the day’s first caution flag when he hit the wall in Turn 3. Busch gave it up for just one lap during the pit cycle, but took it back and led the next 25 laps until Brian Clauson, who’s gunning for Rookie of the Year honors, got tapped from behind and lost control on the front stretch.

Bliss came out of that caution with the lead, and held it for the next 44 laps. But when Derrick Cope and Scott Lagasse tangled at Lap 142, Wimmer changed up his pit strategy and got out of the pits in front of both Bliss and Busch.

“The only way we were going to get in front of the 18 was to get out in front of him,” said Wimmer, who finished fourth. “We took two tires twice there and just ran out of left side tires there. Restarts were tricky. We definitely didn’t need them at the end and we got a bunch.”

Restarts or not, it probably didn’t matter much for Wimmer. Busch drove right by him when the green flag fell at Lap 148, and was not seriously challenged the rest of the way.

“I had been doing a couple things on the last couple starts to make sure I got good starts,” Busch said. “I wasn’t too happy with our transmission ratios. Going through there I broke reverse, so now we’ve got to go through the transmission anyway, so I can pick my own ratios for the next time.”

Keselowski finished third after a day that had him fighting uphill most of the time. Issues on pit road cost him track positions on a couple occasions.

“We had a fast car, and it sounds like we were identical to [Bliss],” Keselowski said. “We were good on the long run, and just average on the short run. We had some problems on pit road and came back out 15th, and then had some more problems and had to go to the tail end. We just have to keep working on pit road and try to fix that.”

One of the incidents injured two members of Keselowski’s crew. The car fell off the jack during a right-side tire change, and the tire changers appeared to catch a hand inside the car’s fender.

“I guess one of our crew members is at the hospital,” Keselowski said. “I think he’s my next-door neighbor too, so I’ll have to go check on that tonight. They said something about a tire coming off and bumping the [jack] handle, but I’d have to look at the video on that.”

Mishaps befell several of the fastest qualifiers. At lap 34, Denny Hamlin, who qualified third, had to make an unscheduled green flag stop because of a loose wheel. He was able to recover to finish sixth.

At lap 137, Kevin Harvick, who had qualified sixth, was running in the top five when his brakes ceased to function. He managed to coast the car to a stop in the Nationwide garage, where his crew made repairs and got him back out on the track. But he finished 28th, 37 laps down.

Another incident involved points leader Clint Bowyer and his closest competitor Carl Edwards. Bowyer was coming down pit road and was to the right of Edwards when David Reutimann came out of his pit quickly, forcing Edwards to the right and into Bowyer, who in turn crashed into the pit road wall. Bowyer had to return to the pits to fix significant sheet-metal damage.

“This pit road’s just tight,” said Bowyer, who recovered to finish 10th while Edwards finished sixth. “I was on the outside of [Edwards], and [Reutimann] came out and just turned straight right, and went into him and he went into me. But that’s what this team’s about – they never give up and never quit digging. That’s what’s gonna win us a championship.”

Bowyer’s recovery – he started 22nd and was as far back as 20th with 80 laps to go – minimized the damage done to his points lead. He ended up surrendering just 19 points to Edwards, leaving him with a still-comfortable advantage of 186 points. However, Keselowski’s third-place finish brought him much closer to Edwards, leaving him just 62 points back.




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