Bowyer wins Dover Nationwide

The Richard Childress driver charged from 16th place on the grid to pass Busch shortly after the halfway mark, following the first caution period of the day. After that he remained up front all the way to the chequered flag - leading the last 83 laps.

Busch dominated the early going from pole position, leading comfortably up until his first stop on lap 80. He recovered the lead after everyone completed their stops nine laps later and he continued to look untouchable up front.

However things changed once the first caution came out for debris in lap 109. Busch led the field into the pits for what looked to be the last stop for the leaders. He emerged ahead but when the green flag waved six laps later, Bowyer brought the race to life.

Bowyer overtook Busch on lap 118 and he started to pull away, while Carl Edwards did the same with the points leader a few laps later, following the second caution of the day. Busch was able to move back up to second later, but that would not last long for him either.

A third caution came out on lap 144, only 56 from the end, after Ryan Newman hit the wall following contact with Matt Kenseth. Some drivers pitted but not the leaders, who avoided the risk of losing track position as rain threatened to bring the race to an early end.

On the restart Bowyer pulled away from Busch and with 45 laps remaining Mike Bliss moved up ahead of the Joe Gibbs racer. Busch was then left to defend his third place from team-mate Denny Hamlin and a charging Brad Keselowski.

With ten laps to go, Keselowski ran into Hamlin, sending him spinning against the inside barrier and out of contention. The JR Motorsports driver had recovered from being a lap down after missing his pit box during his first stop and being penalised for speeding on pitroad after that.

The green flag waved for the final time with seven laps remaining and Bowyer once again pulled away, while Bliss tried to fend off Keselowski. Busch could only watch the battle for second unfold ahead of him, one that Bliss was able to win, while Bowyer took an uncontested victory ahead of them.

"A great weekend so far here at Dover, I love this racetrack," said Bowyer. "We started a little bit tight because we were so loose in qualifying, that kind of caught us off guard, qualified way in the back. I knew we'd be able to march up through because we had a stronger car and just one adjustment to free it back up and that's all there was to it."

Hamlin had harsh words for Keselowski on his radio, and he confronted him over their tangle following the race. Keselowski said the incident was simply due to Hamlin not leaving him space as he had done previously when the roles were reversed.

"I was just there," said Keselowski. "I was underneath him. Earlier in the day when he got underneath me in the same scenario I gave him room and I paid him a favour and expected the same favour to be returned and he didn't.

"So I held my ground. Same way at [the Sprint Cup race at] Talladega, same way I'll do for the rest of my career. I'm not going to be pushed around whether it's Denny Hamlin or whoever it is."

Busch was once again disappointed to have dominated the race yet ended up not winning, leading a race-high 109 laps but finishing just third. Despite the points serving him well for his title hopes, he was frustrated to miss out on the battle for victory.

Although he experienced radio communication issues and he was unable to talk to his team, he denied that lost him the race - saying that he probably lacked the right set-up adjustment, which turned his car loose following his final stop.

"I don't think so," said Busch about his radio issues hampering his run for victory. "We didn't make a whole lot of changes and so when you don't do so, the track doesn't change, it's been the same since we started, you know the tyres threw us for a loop. Unfortunately we didn't adjust right to what we had for the tyres.

"The guys did a great job, they were good on pitroad but I was so loose there throughout most of the race that I was just barely hanging on."

Edwards rounded out the top five, and consequently opened up the gap to Kyle Busch in the championship to 211 points, as the Joe Gibbs Racing driver seems to be closing on his maiden NASCAR title in a national-level series.

Pos  Driver             Car        Laps
 1.  Clint Bowyer       Chevrolet  200
 2.  Mike Bliss         Toyota     200
 3.  Brad Keselowski    Chevrolet  200
 4.  Kyle Busch         Toyota     200
 5.  Carl Edwards       Ford       200
 6.  Jason Leffler      Toyota     200
 7.  Reed Sorenson      Toyota     200
 8.  Scott Speed        Toyota     200
 9.  David Reutimann    Toyota     200
10.  Jason Keller       Ford       200
11.  Matt Kenseth       Ford       200
12.  Steve Wallace      Chevrolet  200
13.  Michael Annett     Toyota     200
14.  Scott Wimmer       Chevrolet  200
15.  Tony Raines        Chevrolet  200
16.  Martin Truex Jr    Chevrolet  200
17.  Erik Darnell       Ford       198
18.  John Wes Townley   Ford       198
19.  Brendan Gaughan    Chevrolet  198
20.  Kenny Wallace      Chevrolet  197
21.  Morgan Shepherd    Chevrolet  196
22.  Mike Wallace       Chevrolet  195
23.  Ken Butler III     Chevrolet  195
24.  Eric McClure       Ford       195
25.  Justin Allgaier    Dodge      192
26.  Matt Carter        Ford       191
27.  Denny Hamlin       Toyota     189
28.  Bobby Hamilton Jr  Dodge      185
29.  Michael McDowell   Dodge      150
30.  Ryan Newman        Chevrolet  144
31.  Tim Andrews        Chevrolet  100
32.  Brad Teague        Chevrolet  51
33.  Jarit Johnson      Chevrolet  35
34.  Danny O'Quinn Jr   Dodge      34
35.  Joe Nemechek       Chevrolet  25
36.  Casey Atwood       Chevrolet  10
37.  Andy Ponstein      Chevrolet  6
38.  Dennis Setzer      Dodge      4
39.  Chase Miller       Chevrolet  3
40.  Johnny Chapman     Chevrolet  3
41.  Coleman Pressley   Toyota     2
42.  Mark Green         Chevrolet  2
43.  Kevin Hamlin       Chevrolet  1