Kahne outruns Busch to win Bristol Food City 500
Mar. 17, 2013
By Seth Livingstone
Special to NASCAR News Service
BRISTOL, Tenn. -- After
dueling door-to-door with Brad Keselowski, Kasey Kahne got the jump on
the final restart and went on to post his first NASCAR Sprint Cup Series
victory at Bristol Motor
Speedway in Sunday's Food City 500.
"I don't think I had
anything for Kasey. I'm not sure anyone did," said Kyle Busch, who
finished second after dominating much of the weekend. Keselowski, the
defending race winner, finished third.
Kahne, who had finished no
better than fifth in any of his previous 10 Cup races at Bristol,
assumed the lead after his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson
blew a tire, bringing out the
race's 10th caution.
Busch, who had won the pole
in track record time on Friday, posted the fastest laps in both of
Saturday's practice sessions, then won Saturday's NASCAR Nationwide
Series event, led the first 55
laps before pit road speeding violation under caution shuffled him back
to 32nd.
He was undaunted in his recovery, battling his way back to 16th in the next 40 laps. He was second to Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin on Lap 155 after the race's fourth caution.
Hamlin led 117 of the first 189 laps before surrendering the lead in the pits to teammate Matt Kenseth.
Joey Logano, who started 10th,
had been making steady progress and was challenging leader Jeff Gordon
on Lap 348 when Hamlin, his former JGR teammate sent him spinning into
the outer
wall. That led to a post-race exchange between Logano and Hamlin.
Asked if he and Hamlin had a problem, Logano replied: "If we didn't we do now."
A crash on Lap 391 of 500 took out race leaders Gordon and Kenseth.
Gordon climbed the track
with a right-front tire going down and Kenseth had nowhere to go,
slamming into the rear of Gordon, totally demolishing the front end of
his JGR Toyota.
"Not a lot either one of us could do about that," Kenseth said.
Keselowski's third-place
finish vaulted him to the lead in the Sprint cup point standings, nine
points ahead of Dale Earnhardt Jr., who finished sixth after qualifying
32nd. Kurt Busch finished
fourth (his best finish for Furniture Row Racing) and Clint Bowyer was
fifth.
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