Last week Greg Biffle left the field behind in Texas, for the second week in a row a Roush Racing driver ran away with the race as this week Kurt Busch lead 219 of the 312 lap race in Phoenix. Some pit strategy shuffled the running order for a bit but there was never really any doubt about who had the car to beat.
Qualifying

Jeff Gordon said that his laps didn't feel that fast, but it was good enough to win the pole.


Jeff's 133.675MPH lap was almost half a second off of Ryan Newman's track record from November of 2004 when he qualified at over 135 MPH. Kurt Busch posted the second fastest lap to round out the front row.

In the history of NEXTEL Cup racing at Phoenix the race has never been won from the pole, and only once from the front row (Jeff Burton started second in 1999) so qualifying isn't necessarily the key to a good day.

Drop The Green Flag

Kurt Busch took the lead on the backstretch of lap one and lead the entire first half of the race. Roush Racing teammate Greg Biffle spent much of the first half running second. It really was looking like the race would be decided between these two unless something dramatic happened.

Storylines

On lap 166 Matt Kenseth cut a tire down and hit hard in the turn three wall. During the ensuing pit stops Mike Bliss missed his pit stall and cut back up into traffic right in front of Greg Biffle who plowed into the back of him. This accident drove a bumper brace from Bliss' car into the front of Biffle's car puncturing something in the radiator area, sending Biffle to the garage for extensive repairs and knocking him out of contention.

Lap 205 saw a six car pileup that included Jimmie Johnson, Tony Stewart, Ricky Rudd, Rusty Wallace and more. Was that a case of payback gone wrong? We saw from Tony Stewart's in-car camera just a couple of laps before Tony got into the back of Jimmie Johnson to move him out of the way. This wreck was caused when Jimmie returned the favor. Jimmie said that he'd never hit anybody on purpose. But of course he'll say that. NASCAR has a history of fines and points penalties for drivers who say otherwise.

Chasing The Checkers

Different pit and tire strategies shuffled the field for much of the second half of the race. However, with 43 laps to go Kurt Busch worked his way around Michael Waltrip for the lead and set sail for a comfortable win in Phoenix. This win was the 12th win on Kurt Busch's career and makes Kurt the 12th Ford driver to win in the 18 races held at that track.

Top Ten

1. Kurt Busch
2. Michael Waltrip
3. Jeff Burton
4. Dale Earnhardt Jr.
5. Brian Vickers
6. Bobby Labonte
7. Carl Edwards
8. Kyle Busch
9. Johnny Sauter
10. Joe Nemechek

The Points

This was the first race of the year where Jimmie Johnson did NOT have a top ten finish, however he still has a massive lead over Kurt Busch. His 173 point lead is the equivalent of more than one full race. If Jimmie starts the race in Talladega and parks it on lap one he will still leave with the point lead, even if Kurt Busch dominates and wins.

Jimmie Johnson is having the kind of season that caused NASCAR to change to the "Chase For The Cup" format. His 7 top tens and 5 top five finishes in 8 races is exactly the kind of consistency that the original point system was designed to reward.

1. Jimmie Johnson 0
2. Kurt Busch -173
3. Greg Biffle -208
4. Jeff Gordon -233
5. Elliott Sadler -251
6. Mark Martin -263
7. Ryan Newman -266
8. Carl Edwards -281
9. Sterling Marlin -292
10. Rusty Wallace -300

Next Week

Next week the NEXTEL Cup series heads to Eastaboga, Alabama to visit the Talladega Superspeedway. The restrictor plates will be in place for this weekends race so, just like Daytona, the cars will be in big packs all day long. This is another weekend of white-knuckle racing as the huge wreck known as "The Big One" is just an inch away.