Sylvania 300: Live
After a wet morning, the jet engines have given way to racecars, and the Sylvania 300 is underway. It's grey, it's gloomy, but the rain is supposed to stay away -- and so chances are that NASCAR's Chase for a Championship will look a whole lot different by dusk than it did at dawn today.
LAP 300 -- It's over. Greg Biffle wins the Sylvania 300, claiming the victory and putting himself among the legit contenders for the 2008 Sprint Cup title. Jimmie Johnson -- the new points leader -- finished second, followed by Carl Edwards.
We'll be back later with some analysis.
LAP 295 -- Biffle still leads by half second, but with Edwards falling back, it's a two-man race.
LAP 290 -- Greg Biffle might've been saving something. Because now he's flying. Steaming past Johnson on the backstretch, he surged to the lead, and within three laps his edge is half a second. Can he make it on fuel, however?
LAP 285 -- Patrick Carpentier -- running 31st -- gets shoved into turn 2, bringing out the yellow and bringing Jeff Gordon into pits for four tires and fuel. He was in the top 10, but he'll reemerge closer to 20th. The leaders, again, stay out.
LAP 282 -- The caution is out as David Ragan gets booted by Michael Waltrip on the backstretch, and Clint Bowyer is into the pits. The leaders, however, stayed out.
LAP 280 -- With 20 laps to go, Johnson continues to control the field. Biffle and Edwards are comfortable in second and third, but Earnhardt is getting better and moves by Burton. So long as the fuel is right, this seems Johnson's to lose.
LAP 270 -- Hamlin and Stewart pit, taking two tires and topping off fuel without losing much ground. Stewart is 11th, while Hamlin is 14th. With fresh rubber, though, they might be able to make a run here.
LAP 266 -- AJ Allmendinger into the wall along the front stretch. It'll be interesting now to see who might pit, and who uses this to save fuel and chances it by staying out.
LAP 250 -- The first five cars are all Chase contenders, and they've checked out on the field a bit. Johnson, Biffle, Edwards, Burton and Earnhardt are within 2.6 ticks of each other -- nobody's within 3 seconds of them. But both Biffle's and Edwards's crew chief say they can't make it the distance on fuel if things remain full throttle.
LAP 230 -- The red flag has been replaced by the yellow.
LAP 228 -- Chad McCumbee hit Matt Kenseth just coming out of turn 4, a crash that could have wide-ranging implications. Firstly, it brought out the red flag that stops the race temporarily. Secondly, it likely ends Kenseth's day, and means Kyle Busch probably won't be the worst Chase finisher. Thirdly, it helps those who are close to fitting in their fuel mileage stretch things further with the caution laps; And fourthly, if those cars do pit, Hamlin should be able to move back toward -- if not into -- the front.
LAP 225 -- Hamlin comes in to the pits, giving up second place, but taking a gamble that could pay dividends down the line. He's likely good to go on fuel now, so if this thing stays primarily green he could see the gamble pay off big time. Right now he's 20th, however.
LAP 220 -- Stewart passed Almirola on the restart ... and Joe Nemechek spun before a lap was complete. Count Stewart on the lead lap. Nemechek dumped a bunch of fluid on the track, so this could be a decently long delay. That'll only help these cars who were thinking about trying to stretch their fuel the rest of the way.
LAP 218 -- One situation to watch is that Tony Stewart is the second car a lap down, behind Aric Almirola. Should Stewart pass him, he'll be in position to be the Lucky Dog, and then he's one caution from being a fashion again.
LAP 215 -- The leaders are in. Looks like everybody is taking four tires and fuel. Coming out, it's Johnson, Hamlin, Biffle, Edwards, Burton, Earnhardt, Harvick, Kurt Busch, Truex and Gordon.
LAP 214 -- Caution for debris. This shold be interesting. This could be the last stop in terms of fuel, so we'll see how track position plays out now.
LAP 211 -- Are the Chase drivers running conservatively before making a final push? Until Hamlin just moved to the speed chart, nine of the top 10 quickest laps were steered by non-Chasers last time around.
LAP 200 -- Two thirds of the way through, it's: Biffle, Johnson, Hamlin, Burton, Kurt Busch, Edwards, Truex, Earnhardt, Kahne and Harvick. Clint Bowyer, the early favorite, is 11th. Right now this would seem Biffle's race to lose, with Hamlin in contention as well. Johnson's not as fast as he was early in the run.
LAP 198 -- Earnhardt is blaming his troubles on a bad set of tires, and he's now sixth.
LAP 180 -- Monitor Jinx alert. Soon as I wrote that, Junior started slowing down, getting passed by Biffle, then by Johnson. He's slid back because he's running around the 40th best speeds among the 43 cars.
LAP 166 -- Junior back to the lead. He looks dang good today, Junior Nation.
LAP 161 -- Stewart had a good stop (14.8 seconds) but he was too fast exiting and had to take a pass-through penalty. He's now a lap down, with only 25 cars on the same circuit as the leaders. That's going to make it even tougher for the lap-down cars to recover.
LAP 155-157 -- The leaders make green flag pit stops, with Greg Biffle initiating the sequence by being the first to duck in -- then turning that into a lead. He came out first, followed by Earnhardt, Hamlin, Johnson, Busch, Burton and Montoya.
LAP 152 -- Jamie MacMurray is back on track, 68 laps down and with the 26 on his right side formed by white masking tape. Quite humorous.
LAP 151 -- With Lap 151 on the blog, and board, this thing is official. No Monday race for New Hampshire.
LAP 141 -- Kyle Busch lost another lap, so the former points leader -- is it too early to term him such? -- has fallen to ninth in the standings if the race were to end now. He'd be ahead of only Kenseth and Stewart. Johnson would be leading, with Earnhardt and Edwards each within 15 points of first.
LAP 138 -- Junior is driving away from the field, opening up a lead of 3.5 seconds on Johnson. Those two are teammates with Gordon, and since it's now been 50 laps since they pitted, it seems the Hendrick machines are all good when things stay green for a while.
LAP 134 -- Tony Stewart is in trouble, running 22nd and struggling to stay on the lead lap. But Jeff Gordon is good. He's 10th, but is consistently posting laps among the fastest in the field. He appears to be good on long runs, so if things stay green for much of this race's second half, Gordon could be a factor.
LAP 120 -- The field has thinned out, and there's not much racing going on. Just a lot of riding. Earnhardt and Johnson are within a quarter second, though the rest of the top 10 is each about a second back. Tenth-place Martin Truex is 10.1 ticks behind.
LAP 105 -- It doesn't look as though Busch made big gains in his lengthy stop on pit road. His lap speeds are 35th best, and almost 5 mph slower than Earnhardt's.
LAP 100 -- One third of the way through, it's a Chase-dominated field. It goes Earnhardt, Johnson, Kurt Busch, Edwards, Biffle, Hamlin, Burton, Kenseth, Montoya and Bowyer. That's eight contenders within the top 10. Harvick (13th) and Gordon (14th) are also in good shape. The Gibbs boys of Stewart (26th) and Kyle Busch (42nd) aren't quite so good.
LAP 92 -- Kyle is back on the track, eight laps down. MacMurray is off, however, so he actually gained a spot, up to 42nd.
LAP 91 -- Judging by the cheers of the crowd, I'd say Dale Earnhardt Jr. just took the lead. And I'd be right.
LAP 89 -- The leaders pitted, and Stewart was second, but he had issues with a front left fender and had to come in again. He's now 34th, but on the lead lap.
LAP 83 -- Kyle Busch spins as he goes on to the backstretch, causing a plume of smoke that resulted in a wreck between David Ragan and Jamie MacMurray. Those guys aren't in the Chase, so it doesn't really matter -- but Busch is in BIG trouble. He's now four laps down, and still on pit road as the race restarts.
LAP 78 -- Add Joey Logano to the list of drivers who've been lapped by Jimmie Johnson.
LAP 75 -- We're halfway to halfway -- the point where it becomes an official race -- and it's Johnson, Stewart, KURT Busch, Edwards, Earnhardt, Hamlin and Bowyer. Kurt Busch is pulling some of the fastest laps in the field (about 123.1) while his little brother is one of the slowest at 119.4. That suggests that although the 18 team has fixed its broken sway bar, it hasn't addressed its early problems. The longer the green the worse this will get for him.
LAP 66 -- After Jimmie Johnson took the lead from Carl Edwards a couple laps earlier, he just went past Busch on the inside of the corner between turns 1 and 2. Busch is now two laps down, with the lapped car of Patrick Carpentier ahead of him as well. That means it'll take at least three Lucky Dog passes to put Busch back on the lead lap unless he's able to do it by putting himself off the conventional pit sequence.
LAP 46 -- Carl Edwards is rolling along as the leader, while Kyle Busch languishes at the back of the pack. "As I watch the field pull away," he just moaned over his radio.
LAP 35 -- Kyle Busch came into the Chase as the points leader, but he's had nothing but trouble so far today. He broke a sway bar early in the run, had fallen from first to ninth within 17 laps, and by 21 ovals he was 15th. He intentionally entered the pits early, knowing it would push him from 23rd to 42nd, but then jumped out in front of the pace car and was penalized a full lap. He left the pits 43rd.
