Early cautions doom contenders at Darlington

DARLINGTON, S.C. -- NASCAR Winston Cup point leader Matt Kenseth's chances to win Sunday's Carolina Dodge Dealers 400 at Darlington Raceway took a hit when his Ford was damaged on lap five.

However, by halfway through the race, he had returned to the top three.

Before 25 laps were complete at the 1.366-mile speedway two more cautions had eliminated the race's defending champion and the series' most recent winner.

	Bobby Labonte's Chevrolet was left a crumpled mess after an incident at Darlington. Credit: Turner Sports Interactive.

The entire left side of Kenseth's Roush Racing Ford was damaged in the aftermath of a single-car spin in Turn 3 by Jerry Nadeau, who was running second to Elliott Sadler when he spun out.

As the field scattered behind Nadeau, whose car hit nothing, Kenseth dove far below him to the speedway's flat, wide apron.

As Kenseth cut to the left, his car was struck, side-to-side by Jamie McMurray, who had barely slowed as he tried to cut inside the rest of the field to get through Turns 3 and 4.

"Hopefully we didn't kill ourselves," Kenseth said to his crew over his in-car radio. "There was nothing I could do."

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Later, Kenseth reportedly asked his crew if anyone had spoken to McMurray's spotter, since Kenseth said the rookie had hit him, "going a million miles an hour."

When the race restarted, Nadeau had recovered to 21st. Kenseth and McMurray, however, were running 42nd and 43rd. After 115 laps, Kenseth had recovered to run eighth, McMurray was 29th, while Nadeau had run into other trouble and was 37th.

Their troubles were nothing compared to Sterling Marlin and Bobby Labonte's problems.

	Matt Kenseth had damage early but remained on the lead lap. Credit: TSI

The race's second caution flew within a couple laps of the first restart and on lap 23, Marlin, the defending race winner, got tangled up with Jimmie Johnson and bounced off the Turn 4 wall.

Marlin went down the frontstretch and hit the wall again in Turn 1, while behind him the cars of rookies Tony Raines, Jack Sprague and last week's winner Bobby Labonte were all damaged.

Those four returned to the garage, with no chance to win. Marlin and Labonte were the first to return to the track.

"It really started the lap before," Marlin said. "One of the slow cars stayed out (of the pits) and we pretty much had it passed. He was down in Turn 1 and it was a give-and-take deal.

"He knew we were coming and the 20 car (Tony Stewart) was racing down in the corner. I had to check up to keep from wrecking us both. We went down into 3 and 4 and Jimmie and them got a run on me.

"We came up off of 4 and it looked like Jimmie got a little on the loose side. He didn't mean to (but) when he got loose, we hooked bumpers and it turned us both into the fence."

It was the second time in three races that Marlin and Johnson had tangled. Coming to the checkered flag at Las Vegas, Marlin tapped Johnson into a spin that cost Johnson three positions.