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Carolina Dodge Dealers 400 - Darlington Raceway
Craven Edges Busch, Tames the Lady in Black
Sadler on Darlington Pole
Beating and banging over the final two laps, Ricky Craven and Kurt Busch staged a battle for the ages. Craven won by mere inches, two thousandths of a second, over Busch in one of the closest and most exciting finishes in NASCAR history. Busch appeared to have the victory in the bag until his power steering failed over the closing laps. With two laps remaining, Craven caught Busch and got under him going into turn one, the two cars made contact, sending the 97 Ford bouncing off the wall and Craven to the front. Busch immediately executed a crossover move, regaining the lead with one lap to go. On the final lap, Craven ducked under Busch in turn four and the two cars touched and banged until the checkered flag, where Craven edged out Busch for the win. It was the second career victory for Craven and the first of the season for Pontiac. Busch finished second for the third time this season. Dave Blaney was third, his career best Winston Cup finish, and Mark Martin and Michael Waltrip rounded out the top five..
Elliott Sadler won his first career pole position on Friday, taking the top starting spot for the Carolina Dodge Dealers 400. Sadler qualified in 28.902 seconds, at an average speed of 170.147 mph, to win his first pole in 146 Winston Cup starts. Ryan Newman, last week’s pole sitter, will start from the outside pole, qualifying 0.132 seconds behind Sadler. Jerry Nadeau and Jimmy Spencer each grabbed their best starting spots of the season, qualifying third and fourth respectively.
