NASCAR entered a new era over the weekend when the long awaited, and much maligned, “Car Of Tomorrow” made its race debut at the tight Bristol oval. While feedback from the fans seems to have been positive, many of the drivers, including eventual race winner Kyle Busch (5), were still vocal in their feelings about how the new car handles. Even as he celebrated his win (below) Busch commented “I’m glad we could come out of here with a victory, but I still can’t stand to drive these things. They’re terrible.”

The race was dominated by the Joe Gibbs cars of Tony Stewart (20) and Denny Hamlin (11) who between them lead for 434 of the 500 laps before hitting problems. Pole sitter Jeff Gordon (24) also hit problems but managed to fight his way back up to third, sufficient for him to take over the Nextel Cup series points lead from the absent Mark Martin. A late caution saw the race end with a two lap shoot out from which Busch emerged ahead of the hard charging, but clean driving, Jeff Burton (31).  As well as being the first win for the COT, Busch’s victory was the 200th for Hendrick Motorsports and the 600th for Chevrolet.

The Top 10 Finishers were:

1. Kyle Busch (Chevrolet)
2. Jeff Burton (Chevrolet)
3. Jeff Gordon (Chevrolet)
4. Kevin Harvick (Chevrolet)
5. Greg Biffle (Ford)
6. Jeff Green (Chevrolet)
7. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (Chevrolet)
8. Clint Bowyer (Chevrolet)
9. Jamie McMurray (Ford)
10. Casey Mears (Chevrolet)

This entry was posted on Monday, March 26th, 2007 at 9:09 pm and is filed under NASCAR. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.