NASCAR Busch ignores pit, wins

Kurt Busch ignored his crew chief's pleas and went on to Victory Lane.
BRISTOL, Tenn. (AP) -- Crew chief Jimmy Fennig was furious.
Under caution with 119 laps to go Sunday in the Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway, driver Kurt Busch decided to ignore Fennig's instruction to pit for tires.
"Oh yeah, he was upset," Busch said, grinning sheepishly after getting the worn tires to carry him to his third straight victory and fourth in the last five tries on the concrete half-mile oval.
Busch had pitted only 23 laps earlier and he looked in his mirror and saw other drivers behind him staying on track.
"So, I just stayed out," he explained. "But all those guys were a lap down. It was a decision I was wrong on and I had to bail myself out on it."
Ideas
Busch said he spent the next few laps fending off the longtime crew chief's ideas on how to come in and get tires, after all. But Busch was leading for the first time in the 500-lap race, and didn't want to sacrifice track position for new rubber.
"I was trying to convince him of different things I saw from the race car and allow him to be more positive about the situation," Busch said. "So, it took a few laps but, with 80 to go, he was like, 'OK, dude. It's in your court. I'm all behind you now.' "
Fennig acknowledged he was angry at first.
"I felt we needed tires, but I'll tell you one thing, I probably have the best guy in the business when it comes to tire management," Fennig said.
Despite the ill-advised decision to stay on track and the fact that he had been fighting a poor-handling car all day, Busch made it all work at his favorite track, holding off frustrated Rusty Wallace to the end.
"This one by far has got to be the sweetest because of what we had to overcome," Busch said of his victories here, nearly half of his career total of nine. "Our engine had about 1,000 RPM less all day today and I just couldn't get the car to handle right."
Busch won with the help of a series of late-race caution flags that left Wallace, a nine-time winner at Bristol, unhappy and riding a string of 104 consecutive races without a victory despite leading 100 laps and having what appeared to be the fastest car most of the day.
"Doggone, man," Wallace said, shaking his head. "We didn't need those last cautions. I was just about to pass him that one time."
There were three cautions in the final 35 laps, the last coming on lap 494 when rookie Scott Wimmer and Dale Jarrett bumped, sending Jarrett into the wall.
Red-flagged
NASCAR red-flagged the race for just over 11 minutes to get the track clean and give the drivers a chance to race to the end.
The green flag waved with two laps to go and Busch's Roush Racing Ford easily pulled away from Wallace, beating the Dodge to the finish line by 0.428 seconds -- about five car-lengths.
Busch joined retired drivers Darrell Waltrip (7), Cale Yarborough (4) and Fred Lorenzen (3) with at least three consecutive victories at Bristol.
Kevin Harvick pressured Wallace for a while near the end, but wound up third.
Sterling Marlin finished fourth, followed by Matt Kenseth, Ken Schrader and pole-starter Ryan Newman, who made up a lost lap. Five-time Bristol winner Jeff Gordon also had to make up a lost lap to finish ninth.
Kenseth leads Busch by 21 points in the points standings. Dale Earnhardt Jr., who led 91 laps, fell out of contention when he had to make an extra pit stop because o f loose lug nuts. He salvaged an 11th-place finish but fell from second to third in the standings, 41 points behind Kenseth.