2009 Dickies 500

Fort Worth – Kurt Busch won the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Dickies 500 at Texas Motor Speedway.  Busch raced up front most of the day against his little brother, Kyle, who was trying to become the first driver in history to win all three of NASCAR’s premier series races in one weekend. Kurt enjoyed racing his brother for the win, “Racing my little brother head to head for the win is bitter sweet.  I was rooting for him, but, at the same time, we wanted to put our Miller Lite Dodge in victory lane.  We raced hard.  It was cat and mouse on those restarts. Then it came down to the crew chief, Pat (Tryon) putting in the right calls and getting us the fuel milage to bring it home.”

The victory put Busch into 4th place for the Championship, 171 points behind the leader, Jimmie Johnson. Johnson, who had been invincible during the 10-race Chase for the Cup, got caught in an accident only 3 laps into the race, finishing 38th.

Johnson’s misfortune opened the door for the 2nd and 3rd place drivers to make a move in the points standings. Mark Martin, who is second in points, finished 4th, and moved to within 73 points of Johnson with 2 races remaining.  “It’s not over yet,” Martin said, “The top-six spots are being raced for like a dog fight.” Another of Johnson’s teammates, Jeff Gordon, who is 3rd in points, started on the pole, but soon found himself in danger of going a lap down, ultimately finishing 13th. Gordon was obviously disappointed with his finish, “I’m just terrible at this place.  I don’t know what it is.  I can qualify and the guys gave me a real good car on Friday but I just don’t have the feel for this place.”

It was almost a clean sweep for Kyle Busch this weekend, having already won the WinStar World Casino 350k truck race and the O’Reilly Challenge race in the Nationwide Series. The younger Busch led for 232 laps before running out of gas with a lap to go, handing the race to his brother and finishing in 11th place.

Finishing the race in 2nd place was Denny Hamlin, followed by Matt Kenseth, Mark Martin, and Kevin Harvick.