BUSCH - Sam's Town 300 News

After many yellow flags on the newly configured Las Vegas Motorspeedway, on very hard compounded Goodyear tires, the last lap proved most exciting as Jeff Burton closed up 4 car lengths to get to the outside of Kyle Busch and on the front stretch they banged and bumped to the finish line, with Burton winning and Kyle Busch taking 2nd sideways as he spun down the front stretch before slamming into the wall! That moment was pretty exciting to watch.

Though Kyle looked angry getting out of his car, it must have been at himself. He gave Burton a congratulatory handshake (After Burton went looking for him prior to pulling in the winners circle) and in post race interviews, he said it was a good finish and he just didn't have the equipment at the end to seal the deal. In fact, it looked like he got loose as Burton passed him for the win, but amid all the bumping, it was hard to see at first.

The issues we saw were:
The new banking. (The track was rebuilt to increase the banking in the turns, allowing cars more speed and the potential for more side by side racing.)
The harder compund Goodyear tires. (Race teams had been pushing their cars / tires to the edge of wearing through the tire, causing blow outs. A harder compound, in theory, makes it harder to wear down to that point, as opposed to a softer compound that gets stickier, gets better grip on the track, but as a result, wears out faster.)
The new banking seem to have created a scenario where when cars are too close together, the aerodynamics of a car are disturbed to the point of the down force exhuded on the car is interrupted and the inside car gets loose and spins.

Amid all the disgruntlement of the drivers about the track / tire combination, we were served a pretty good finish! Lucky, or by design? Tomorrows race will tell.

Here are the top 10 finishers from todays race:
J Burton, Kyle Busch, T Stewart, Kurt Busch, D Stremme, C Edwards, K Harvick,
B Labonte, Huffman & Ambrose.