Lots of Action at Both Daytona and Bristol!
Story and photos by: Drew Hierwarter
There was plenty of excitement in Daytona over the weekend. The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series made its annual July stop at the Central Florida super speedway and the action was so close that NASCAR officials had to review video tape and computer scoring to figure out who won. The race had gone to a green-white-checkered finish due to a late caution period and as the cars headed for the first turn after taking the white flag a multi-car wreck behind the leaders brought out the final yellow flag, ending the race.
Carl Edwards and Kyle Busch had been running side-by-side, with neither driver having a clear advantage and officials needed to take a few minutes to determine which one was in front at the time the caution lights came on. It was Busch by a fender.
This was Kyle Busch’s sixth win on the year and clearly puts him in a dominant position in the points when The Chase starts up later in the season. That’s when the points will be re-set for the top twelve and each team will receive ten bonus points for every win. His six wins so far give him a 40 point advantage over his closest rival and this team is showing no signs of slowing down. With 9 more races to go before the cut-off, there’s no telling how many more races the 18 team could win. - - -
Not all of the action was in NASCAR this past weekend. The UARA STARS Late Model Series came to the high banks of Bristol Motor Speedway for the “Thompson Metals 150” on Saturday night. Racing at Bristol is exciting regardless of the type of cars or the stature of the stars and this race was no exception.
Jamey Caudill and Alex Yontz made up the front row and it was Yontz who jumped out to an early lead at the drop of the green. It looked like Yontz would run away with this race as he did here last year, but by lap 91, fifth place starter Jake Crum caught and passed Yontz. Crum led for the next 30 laps while he and Yontz battled side-by-side in a great display of talent and good clean, hard racing. Unfortunately, a cut tire with twenty laps to go brought this battle to an end, sending Crum into the wall and handing the lead back to Yontz for good. It was Yontz’s first win of 2008 and his seventh in UARA competition.
The UARA is a great race series with plenty of NASCAR connections. Pole sitter Jamey Caudill is a team manager for Dale Earnhardt, Jr’s “JR Motorsports”, along with development driver Curtis Truex, the cousin of NASCAR driver Martin Truex. “JR Motorsports” also fields a UARA late model for Richard Boswell II. Several sons of NASCAR personalities are also present in this series as Brandon McReynolds, (son of Larry McReynolds) Cory LaJoie, (son of Randy LaJoie) and Kyle Grissom (son of Steve Grissom) all competed Saturday night.
Race winner Alex Yontz, a former development driver for Richard Childress Racing who now races on his own, said this race was much tougher than last year when he cruised to an easy win. “It was tough tonight,” said Yontz. “We didn’t have to work nearly as hard (last year) as we did this one. You had those veterans beating on you from behind and you really had to work for it but that’s what makes it fun. Jake (Crum) had a really strong car and that was unfortunate luck for him. I hate to see things happen like that. We had a good race car and it was a lot of fun out there.”