It was All-Star night at Lowe’s Motor Speedway…. We started off the night with the Nextel Open…and we didn’t make it to turn two before a multi-car pileup occured. The ensuing restart wasn’t much better….we made it about a lap & half before we saw the yellow wave again. All in all, we got about 8 green laps in the books out of the initial 20 lap segment (20 was the operative number of the evening…..all five segments were of that length). Carl Edwards led all 20 circuits of the opener. In segment two, we were all green after one little glitch on the initial lap, and Carl Edwards got sandwiched late by Martin Truex Jr & Johnny Sauter as those two drivers advanced to the feature. Kenny Wallace’s campaign paid dividends as he was the driver voted in by the fans to the Nextel Challenge. In the main event we went like this…. Segment #1: Matt Kenseth led every lap and wins $75K. Segment #2: Kyle Busch led every lap and wins $75K. Segment #3: Even more boring….Matt Kenseth wins [but no payoff for seg 3] Segment #4: Finally some action. Kenseth gets caught speeding on pit road and has to go to the back….giving hope to all others. The Busch boys take each other out early and wouldn’t you love to be a fly on the wall for that meeting? Might want Mom and Dad around for that one! Casey Mears and Denny Hamlin put each other out of their misery a little later on and we finally get some good racing for about 10 of the final 15 circuits as Kevin Harvick holds off Jimmie Johnson in the final segment to win the Nextel All-Star Challenge for the first time (but this was RCR’s 4th victory in this event). Harvick’s win was worth a cool $1,031,539, and add that to the $106,535 that Jeff Burton got for fourth and RC is throwing the party (and probably a welcome for his new sponsor as well).(Stock Car Fans)(5-19-2007)
