Raines pleased with clean second-place finish

BRISTOL, Tenn. -- Tony Raines hesitated.

No, he didn't botch a restart late in the Channellock 250 NASCAR Busch Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway. And, no, he didn't take it easy as he tried to chase down winner Kevin Harvick.

	Tony Raines starts 22nd in Sunday's Food City 500 Winston Cup race. Credit: Autostock

Raines hesitated when posed with a question after he climbed from his No. 33 Outdoor Channel Chevrolet. So many races at Bristol have ended in controversy, as the guy who was in second place bumped the guy who was leading, causing a lead change.

Raines was the guy in second place in the closing laps, not far from Harvick's rear bumper. A tap of Harvick's car could have given Raines his first Busch Series victory.

Wasn't it tempting?

That's when he hesitated.

"I don't know. We'll never know, will we?" Raines said.

"I know where I would've put him," Harvick said. "I would've put him up in the first row the bleachers if I was looking for my first win."

Harvick was kidding, but he was expecting something from Raines.

CHANNELLOCK 250 Happy Harvick celebrates his ninth Busch Series win. Play video Raines, Keller and Green talk about their top-five finishes Play video  •  Results  •  Standings  •  Harvick wins wreck-marred Busch race at Bristol

"This is Bristol, this is short-track racing," Harvick said. "I would've gotten out of the car content to take the circumstances that were dealt. I know I would've done the same thing, and that's part of this racetrack and part of short-track racing."

But was it part of Raines' plan to get around Harvick?

"I'd rather not say, but he's won Busch races, and I haven't," Raines said. "I'm pretty hungry. We were trying real hard. We just couldn't get to him. He was a little faster on that restart."

That restart came with four laps to go after NASCAR displayed the red flag. Raines was plotting his strategy while he sat on the backstretch under red, but the plan never came to fruition.

"It would've been exciting," Raines said. "Maybe it would've been like a Darlington finish. ... I was sitting on that red flag thinking, 'If you've got a good car and can make it work and win a race, that's what 125,000 fans came to see.'"

But when the green flag waved, Harvick took off. By the time the duo reached turn 1, Raines knew something was wrong. His car pushed up the track, and he lost ground to Harvick -- ground Raines never made up.

"It was doing stuff it had never done before," Raines said. "I was pretty sure I had a right-front going flat or something wrong. It just may have been rubber buildup on the front. I didn't get it cleaned enough. I don't know. I worked really hard getting them clean. ... Something wasn't right. But Kevin was really strong. He didn't win the race by accident."

Still, it wasn't all bad for Raines. The second-place finish matches his career best, and it came with a part-time team. Raines and BACE Motorsports moved to Winston Cup this season, but Raines is still running a limited Busch scheduled.

He didn't look limited Saturday.

"It's close. I've been close a couple times," Raines said. "I really thought we had a car today that was going to do it. With 10 to go, we were running Kevin down. I was working my line in 1 and 2 and we started picking up on him.

"That last restart, the car just didn't come back like it had been," he continued. "Kevin's usually really good on restarts, and I knew that. I spun the tires real bad on the get-go, and then it wouldn't turn, so we ran second today."

Raines' Busch team has a couple of crewmen who work on both teams, but for the most part, the Busch team is self-contained. Raines finished 13th in the car at Las Vegas and will run again next week at Texas Motor Speedway.

And finishing second will help both efforts.

"It's all good," Raines said. "It's good for the driver, it's good for the crew, it's good for morale all across the board. If we have a little mishap tomorrow, it might not make us feel so bad. But if we run good tomorrow, it will make for a really good weekend in Bristol."