Truex pulls away to win a wild one at Bristol

BRISTOL, Tenn. (AP) -- Martin Truex Jr. won his first NASCAR Busch Series race Saturday, pulling away after a restart nine laps from the finish in a race that ended in confusion and anger at Bristol Motor Speedway.

	Truex won in just his 20th start. Credit: Autostock

Truex, in his 20th race and first full season in Busch, gave Chance 2 Motorsports co-owners Dale Earnhardt Jr. and stepmother Teresa Earnhardt their first Busch victory by a driver other than Little E.

"Dale Jr. is a class act, giving me this opportunity," Truex said after celebrating with a smoking burnout on the front straightaway. "I told him I would make the most of it. I think we can go on and win the championship."

Truex is the first Busch regular to win a race this year. The previous events were won by Nextel Cup stars Earnhardt, Jamie McMurray, Kevin Harvick and Greg Biffle.

There weren't very many other happy drivers after the race, which ended under caution.

NASCAR stopped the race for just over eight minutes to clean the track after Robby Gordon ran into the back of Tim Fedewa's car and spewed water from a broken radiator on lap 233 of the 250-lap event.

After the green flag came back out on lap 242, there was some very hard racing for position.

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On the next trip around the half-mile concrete oval, David Stremme bumped past Harvick for fourth place. On lap 248, Harvick hit Stremme from behind and put him in the wall. Both continued racing and NASCAR left the race under green.

Half a lap later, Biffle hit Johnny Sauter, sending Sauter sliding sideways, and the green flag remained out.

Finally, NASCAR had to wave the eighth caution flag of the day on lap 249 when Johnny Benson and Stremme crashed together as Benson tried to drive past the battered car for a top-five finish.

	Greg Biffle was never able to rally after he lost track position in the middle of the race. Credit: Autostock

As the field finished the race under caution, Mike Bliss, who was second, apparently got confused and pulled into the pits on the front straightaway, giving up the runner-up spot to Harvick. Bliss wound up driving across the finish line on pit road and in 17th.

Rookie Kyle Busch wound up third, followed by Biffle, David Green and Tony Raines. Benson wound up 13th and Stremme 18th.

Former series champion Harvick, who came into the fifth race of the season with a 26-point lead over Green, increased his lead to 41 points. Truex moved past Michael Waltrip into third, 50 points behind the leader.

It appeared that a number of cars made passes on the final lap, a violation under NASCAR's rule that freezes the field when a yellow comes out.

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Tempers flared and there were a number of heated arguments and accusations after the race. The NASCAR hauler looked like a meeting hall as drivers and crew chiefs crowded in with complaints about finishing position or to be chastised by NASCAR for their actions.

Waltrip was scored in seventh but complained to NASCAR, to no avail, that he was passed under yellow and should have been third.

"There at the end, it was pretty much mayhem," Busch said. "I saw a bunch of guys squirting down low and I just followed them down there."

Harvick apologized to Stremme for putting him in the wall, saying it was not intended as a payback. But Benson and Stremme wound up in a verbal confrontation, first on pit road and again in the NASCAR hauler.

"I know he doesn't have full control of his car there, but he needs to slow down," the irate Benson said.

Biffle may have been the most disappointed driver after starting from the pole and leading the first 116 laps. His team chose to try to make it on one stop and Biffle wound up nearly losing a lap on worn tires. He never got back into contention.

"There's no excuse for it," Biffle said. "We should have come in and we didn't."

(Copyright 2004 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)