Wrecks put Biffle in Busch point lead

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- For no less than the third time this season, Friday night Todd Bodine was blamed for a wreck in which there was little, if any evidence he caused -- but when the dust cleared, Greg Biffle was unofficially the new leader in the NASCAR Busch Series point standings.

In the previous two events, Jack Sprague had seen his lead shrink from a most recent high of 80 points after the Nashville round last month to 68 after Kentucky to just 46 after last weekend's event in Milwaukee, which Biffle won to move into second.

After Sprague's car was annihilated in the Turn 2 crash with just four laps remaining, knocking him back to 28th and when Biffle finished second behind winner Joe Nemechek, Biffle unofficially held a 39-point lead over new second place man Jason Keller and was 45 points clear of Sprague.

"I never want to see anyone have trouble and I understand Jack got tangled up in something there at the end," Biffle said. "I certainly don't want to see anybody get tangled up in crashes like that but if we keep running second, third and first we're gonna keep gaining points on 'em no matter what.

"That's exciting for us (if we're ahead). I knew were probably going to end up in the points lead. I was counting as I was riding around the race track and I was trying to find the 24 car behind me on the race track and I knew he was about 10 spots back, so I thought that would give us the points lead."

The change came when Sprague tried to driveunder Bodine with less than five laps remaining. Sprague's car wobbled, hit Bodine's and knocked them both into the outside wall, setting off a melee that according to speedway sources involved 16 cars to some degree.

"Just typical Daytona racing," Bodine said. "We made some deals with some guys, if we went to the outside we would go together and, as usual, they didn't stick to the deal. There's no friends out there. You try to do what you think you can do with guys, make deals and pull them to the front and nobody went with me.

"I got hung out on the outside and we were still holding our own pretty good by ourselves -- the Excedrin Chevrolet was such a good race car and the Amick motor was incredible. Jack just got loose underneath me. He had been getting loose a lot -- I had been watching him coming up off the corner and getting aero loose.

"That's what happened (coming off Turn 2). He got loose, got his back end into me (and) that got me up into the wall."

Rookie Kasey Kahne had a lead lap run going until he came upon the accident scene. His car was vaulted over the nose of Sprague's car, almost turning over in the process.

"It looked like the 24 just spun or got loose and got into the wall," Kahne said. "I tried to go low but Hank Parker was there and there was really just nowhere to go."

Sprague, who with 20 laps to go had moved into the top-10 and was there on the next-to-last restart with 10 laps remaining, claimed Bodine had hit him and knocked him out of shape, but TV replays of the incident showed no evidence of that.

"I was just trying to stay out of trouble and keep this from happening," Sprague said. "I had worked pretty good with Johnny (Sauter) all night and was trying to help him get by Bodine there and Bodine was beating the crap out of the side of his car for two solid laps.

"Finally, going down the frontstretch I was able to push Johnny by him and as soon as I did he (Bodine) started hitting me. The deal is, he wrecked me before I ever got into (Turn) 1. I was wiggling back and forth and I just kept wiggling and saving it until I finally couldn't save it any more coming off 2."

Only 12 laps earlier, Kerry Earnhardt -- who earlier in the day announced plans to run a Winston Cup restrictor plate race this fall at Talladega lost control coming off Turn 4 and abruptly turned into Randy LaJoie's ninth-place team car to Nemechek's.

It touched off a wild wreck that eliminated the pair and Bobby Hamilton Jr. -- who hit LaJoie's car head-on at the head of pit road after he tried to avoid the wreck using the service alley.

The only driver injured in accidents that caused four of seven cautions was Christian Elder, who suffered a mild concussion in the Turn 2 wreck and was treated and released from the track's infield care center.