Image by i heart him via FlickrJamie McMurray got by Kyle Busch on a late restart and pulled away to an easy victory in Saturday night's Bank of America 500 at Charlotte, and Jimmie Johnson added a few more points to his lead in his quest for a fifth straight championship.McMurray got ahead of Busch coming out of Turn Two on the final restart of the night on Lap 314 (of 334) and pulled away as Busch battled Johnson for second place. McMurray crossed the finish line 1.886 seconds ahead of Busch for his third win of the season, the sixth of his career and his second at Charlotte Motor Speedway. It was only the 13th win by a non-Chase driver in a Chase race since the format was adopted in 2004.
The victory comes almost eight years to the day after McMurray's first career victory. He won at Charlotte in 2002, driving in relief of Sterling Marlin, who had broken his neck in an accident two weeks earlier.
Busch, who led a race-high 217 laps was upset with the runner-up finish. He appeared to be on his way to victory when NASCAR threw a caution for debris on Lap 308. "I don't know what the caution was for. You know, apparently there was a mouse that ran across the race track or something," Busch said. Around the 100-lap mark, Busch had almost a four-second lead on Jeff Gordon when his throttle stuck. That problem eventually resolved itself.
Early on, it looked like it might not be Jimmie Johnson's night. He started tenth, but quickly started falling back with a loose car. It got too loose and he spun it around coming out of Turn Two on Lap 34. He was in the middle of traffic, but somehow managed not to hit anything or get hit. He dropped as far back to 37th, but got up toward the front by staying out when most of the lead lap cars pitted during a caution on Lap 128. He restarted fifth, then moved up to third through a long round of green-flag stops. Johnson finally ran down McMurray and took the lead on Lap 189, holding it for 15 laps until Marco Ambrose spun to bring out a caution that got finally got Johnson back in sequence with everyone else. He was quite happy with his third-place finish.
Denny Hamlin also had to overcome some adversity to finish fourth. Ryan Newman got loose and pounded the wall on the second lap of the race. Hamlin had to slam on the brakes to avoid Newman and flat spotted his tires. After pitting for fresh rubber, he restarted in the rear of the field, but steadily worked his way up toward the front. He finally settled into the top five, but couldn't get the adjustments he needed to challenge for the win.
Only three other Chase drivers finished in the top ten. Greg Biffle finished fifth, Matt Kenseth sixth, and Kevin Harvick eighth.
After putting himself back in championship contention with good runs in the last two races, including a win last week at Fontana, Tony Stewart is back to long odds again. He slowed when Newman spun on Lap 2 and got tagged in the rear by David Gilliland. He made several pit stops to try to repair the damage, but fought an ill-handling car the rest of the night and came home 21st.
Jeff Gordon also had his share of problems. The polesitter led the first seven laps, but fell back with a loose car. On Lap 190, it died on him with a bad alternator. He coasted around to the pits and lost a lap changing out the battery. He got the lap back with the free pass on the caution for Ambrose's spin, but was never happy with the way his car was handling. A pit road speeding penalty on the final stop of the night doomed him to a 23rd-place finish.
Kurt Busch was going for the sweep of the three Charlotte Cup races (including the Sprint All-Star Race), but he spun out on Lap 24. He didn't hit anything, but couldn't quite get going again. He finished 30th, worst of all the Chase drivers.
Other Chase drivers: Carl Edwards finished 12th. Clint Bowyer was 17th. After a spin of his own, Jeff Burton finished 20th. (Race results)
With his third-place finish, Johnson increased his lead over Hamlin to 41 points. Harvick is the only other driver within 100 points of Johnson; he's 77 points down. Gordon stayed in fourth place, but dropped 156 points down. Kyle Busch moved up four spots in the standings to fifth. He's now tied with Stewart, 177 points behind Johnson. With the win McMurray moved past Newman into 13th, best of the non-Chase drivers. (Points standings)
A pre-race stunt caused a fiery mess along the frontstretch of Charlotte Motor Speedway, but no one was injured. Daredevil Spanky Spangler, driving an RV with "Hold my beer. Watch this" spray-painted on the side, was being chased by a police car driven by his son Bryan. There was a series of planned explosions as the vehicles approached a jump, but the bottom of the RV caught fire and landed nose first on some junked cars near the ramps. It took several minutes for rescue workers to pull Spanky from the RV, but he walked to an ambulance that took him to the infield care center. He was treated and released.
