Kyle Busch takes fourth '08 Cup win

The Sprint Cup Series points leader beat the Roush Fenway cars of Carl Edwards and Greg Biffle, who led 228 laps between them, mostly during the first part of the race.

Busch could barely keep up with the Roush duo in the early going but then emerged up front during a round of pitstops halfway through the race.

Running in clean air, he started to emerge as the dominant force and eventually led 158 laps, to score his second ever victory at the Monster Mile and his 10th of the year including the Nationwide and Truck Series.

The win allowed him to increase his gap in the standings on a day when a number of the top runners for the championship didn't score many points.

"We didn't have the car to beat today," Busch said. "Carl Edwards and Greg Biffle were better than us but we made it on the long run as good as they did and I knew if we could get track position and get in front of them we would be a little bit better.

"The guys on pit road had a phenomenal day, got us up front, kept us up front and that's what won it for us here today."

Busch was the only Joe Gibbs Racing driver in contention for victory as a multi-car wreck on lap 18 took out Denny Hamlin and sent Tony Stewart to the garage for a number of laps.

Elliot Sadler got tapped on the rear by David Gilliland exiting Turn 2, then crashed against the barrier and came to a halt in the middle of the track. Stewart crashed into Sadler's car, igniting a chain reaction that involved at least eleven cars, notably Clint Bowyer, Kasey Kahne, Kevin Harvick and Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Despite the early wreck, the race then unfolded without many incidents and only four more caution flags came out. Not much seemed to be happening from then on and the only pass for the lead on the track and under green-flag conditions, took place on lap 171 when Edwards overtook Biffle.

"That darned 18 (Busch) car got us again," said Edwards after finishing second. "I felt like we were at least as strong as anyone and probably the best car for a lot of the race. On that last run we got off pit road just a little bit slow and then the car was just not quite as fast for the first half of that last run as it needed to be.

"So it's very frustrating to finish second with that good a race car, but we battled all day and that's what we ended up with."

Underlining the supremacy of the Roush Fenway cars at Dover was Biffle taking third despite some electrical problems, finishing ahead of his teammate Matt Kenseth to put three of the team's cars in the top five and four in the top ten as Jamie McMurray took tenth.

Jeff Gordon rounded up the top five, running solidly as the best Chevrolet of the day to have a good points paying day even if neither him, nor any of his teammates, looked capable of matching the pace of the Roush Fenway cars and Kyle Busch. Martin Truex Jr finished sixth behind him as the last car on the lead lap.

Juan Pablo Montoya was the best Dodge finisher in 12th place after starting 35th on his second weekend working with his new crew chief Brian Pattie. The Colombian earned the free pass twice during the race but lost the handling on his car in the final stint and ended up a lap down.

Sam Hornish Jr was the best rookie finisher in 18th and is now tied in the rookie standings lead with Regan Smith.

Busch now has 142 points' advantage over Jeff Burton in the drivers' standings, although most notably he has already scored 40 bonus points towards his Chase seeding as the season enters its second half in the run to the series' 'play-off'.

Pos  Driver              Car        Laps
 1.  Kyle Busch          Toyota     400
 2.  Carl Edwards        Ford       400
 3.  Greg Biffle         Ford       400
 4.  Matt Kenseth        Ford       400
 5.  Jeff Gordon         Chevrolet  400
 6.  Martin Truex Jr     Chevrolet  400
 7.  Jimmie Johnson      Chevrolet  398
 8.  Jeff Burton         Chevrolet  398
 9.  Dave Blaney         Toyota     398
10.  Jamie McMurray      Ford       398
11.  Travis Kvapil       Ford       398
12.  Juan Montoya        Dodge      398
13.  Brian Vickers       Toyota     397
14.  Ryan Newman         Dodge      397
15.  David Ragan         Ford       397
16.  David Gilliland     Ford       396
17.  Casey Mears         Chevrolet  396
18.  Sam Hornish Jr      Dodge      396
19.  Robby Gordon        Dodge      396
20.  Kurt Busch          Dodge      396
21.  Regan Smith         Chevrolet  396
22.  Paul Menard         Chevrolet  395
23.  Mark Martin         Chevrolet  394
24.  JJ Yeley            Toyota     393
25.  Jeremy Mayfield     Dodge      393
26.  Reed Sorenson       Dodge      393
27.  David Reutimann     Toyota     393
28.  Michael Waltrip     Toyota     392
29.  Patrick Carpentier  Dodge      392
30.  Michael McDowell    Toyota     392
31.  Kasey Kahne         Dodge      391
32.  Bobby Labonte       Dodge      390
33.  Bill Elliott        Ford       389
34.  Joe Nemechek        Chevrolet  387
35.  Dale Earnhardt Jr   Chevrolet  386
36.  Clint Bowyer        Chevrolet  380
37.  AJ Allmendinger     Toyota     364
38.  Kevin Harvick       Chevrolet  325
39.  Scott Riggs         Chevrolet  307
40.  Tony Raines         Chevrolet  297
41.  Tony Stewart        Toyota     199
42.  Elliott Sadler      Dodge      16
43.  Denny Hamlin        Toyota     16