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Truex Wins Talladega Mayhem

Martin Truex Jr. emerged the winner of Saturday's Aaron 312 Busch Series at Talladega, in a race that saw almost every car in the field involved in a crash throughout the three-hour long event

With the start of the race delayed by three hours due to rain, trouble began when Mike Wallace and Casey Mears collided while going into Turn 1. As a result, Mears crashed into J.J. Yeley, who in turn crashed into the wall.

The demolition derby did not stop there. A total of 10 caution periods ensued, and even eventual winner Truex was involved in a car-damaging crash on lap 17, when no less than 16 cars crashed into each other.

The mayhem also meant that Carl Edwards, who had so far completed every single lap of the 2005 Busch season, had his streak of good luck broken as he retired after 47 laps. Nevertheless, he lost only nine points of his Championship lead, with so many other cars suffering a similar fate.

"It's really hard to dodge that stuff," said Edwards. "This is pretty bad but we're leading the points because we have got a great team.

"I thought we were going to make it through. The 18 (J.J. Yeley) hit the wall and started coming back down and I thought, 'I am going to sneak right around him and miss this whole deal,' and somebody else hit him and it was over with."

Yeley himself was uninjured, despite taking the hardest hit of the day: bouncing back off the wall, he collided with a dozen other cars who had just entered the corner.

"The first hit into the wall wasn't too bad," said Yeley afterwards. "I know what a pinball feels like. And it's not real good."

At the end of the day, only a quarter of the field was able to make it to the finish without damage, and Chevrolet's Truex crossed the finish line to take his second Busch win of the season, ahead of Ford's Jon Wood and Dodge's David Stremme.

Results of Aaron's 312 at the Talladega Superspeedway

Pos  Driver               Make        Laps
 1.  Martin Truex Jr.     Chevrolet   120
 2.  Jon Wood             Ford        120
 3.  David Stremme        Dodge       120
 4.  Ashton Lewis         Ford        120
 5.  Kerry Earnhardt      Chevrolet   120
 6.  Randy LaJoie         Chevrolet   120
 7.  Justin Labonte       Chevrolet   120
 8.  Jason Keller         Ford        120
 9.  Brent Sherman        Dodge       120
10.  Kertus Davis         Chevrolet   120
11.  Mark Green           Chevrolet   120
12.  Tim Sauter           Chevrolet   120
13.  David Green          Ford        120
14.  Justin Ashburn       Chevrolet   120
15.  Jimmy Kitchens       Ford        120
16.  Steve Grissom        Ford        120
17.  Kevin Lepage         Chevrolet   119
18.  Kevin Harvick        Chevrolet   113
19.  Clint Bowyer         Chevrolet   108
20.  Tony Stewart         Chevrolet   100
21.  Sterling Marlin      Dodge        98
22.  Aaron Fike           Dodge        95
23.  Stanton Barrett      Chevrolet    90
24.  Joe Ruttman          Dodge        87
25.  Stacy Compton        Ford         83
26.  Casey Mears          Dodge        82
27.  Paul Menard          Chevrolet    82
28.  Denny Hamlin         Chevrolet    82
29.  Joe Nemechek         Chevrolet    82
30.  Michel Jourdain Jr.  Ford         79
31.  Kasey Kahne          Dodge        76
32.  Reed Sorenson        Dodge        75
33.  Carl Edwards         Ford         73
34.  Michael Waltrip      Chevrolet    68
35.  Kenny Wallace        Ford         22
36.  Greg Biffle          Ford         21
37.  Tim Fedewa           Dodge        17
38.  J.J. Yeley           Chevrolet    16
39.  Mike Wallace         Dodge        16
40.  Kyle Busch           Chevrolet    16
41.  Johnny Sauter        Dodge        16
42.  Jeremy Mayfield      Dodge        16
43.  Shane Hmiel          Chevrolet    16

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