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Busch Prevails At Darlington

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By JENNA FRYER

The Associated Press

Published: May 11, 2008

DARLINGTON, S.C. - Kyle Busch won the battle of attrition Saturday as NASCAR's least popular driver overcame a pit-road penalty and several scrapes with the wall to win the Dodge Challenger 500 at Darlington Raceway.

Busch's third Sprint Cup Series victory of the season hardly thrilled the crowd, which viciously booed him in prerace introductions and hadn't softened by the time he took the checkered flag. Already loathed by many, he enraged Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s massive fan base by wrecking him as they raced for the win last week in Richmond.

It created a frenzy of hatred toward Busch, but the 23-year-old driver tuned it out and focused on what he does best: winning races.

His win at Darlington was his eighth of the season spanning NASCAR's top three series, and he has won most of them in very convincing fashion. This one was no different, as Busch led a race-high 169 of the 367 laps in a Toyota he described early in the race as the "most pathetic" he'd ever driven.

He also overcame every speed bump thrown his way on the track "Too Tough to Tame" en route to the win.

"Darlington showed again tonight it's one of the hardest places. Always has been, always will be," Busch said in Victory Lane. "We're going to go through a lot of Mac tools trying to fix this thing, but that's OK. They gave me such a race car."

An offseason repaving project smoothed the asphalt on the egg-shaped, 1.366-mile superspeedway, and the new surface gave the entire field fits. It made the track extremely fast and grippy, forcing Goodyear to bring a very sturdy tire that could handle the speeds and survive long runs.

The combination of the smooth surface, hard tires and narrow racing line put passing at a premium, and forced several drivers into the wall for the infamous "Darlington stripe."

Busch was no exception, bouncing hard off of it at least twice in what was an eventful fight to the finish. He was leading early in the race but was penalized when his crew left a lug nut off his rear wheel following a pit stop, dropping him to 29th.

He battled his way back to the front, patiently picking off Jimmie Johnson, Earnhardt and finally seven-time Darlington winner Jeff Gordon to reclaim the top position. From there, the kid who chases the checkered flag every time he's on the track pulled away, forcing spotter Jeff Dickerson to beg him to slow down a mere 50 laps from the finish.

"I know you are digging, dude, but you've got to take care of that thing there," Dickerson radioed. "You're scaring the fans. There's not enough security up the Turn 2 wall. Just nice and easy."

But Busch isn't capable of going slow, and he stayed on the gas until the finish while stretching his Sprint Cup Series lead to 79 points against Jeff Burton.

"I can't tell you how many times he tried to give the race away by slamming into the wall, his right side was destroyed," Gordon said.

Carl Edwards finished second.

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