Martin Truex Jr. earned a career-best finish Sunday at Dover. Credit: Autostock

Rookies refuse to run and hide from Monster

Four first-year drivers finish in top 11 at Dover's tough mile

DOVER, Del. -- Dover might be considered The Monster Mile, but four of the Nextel Cup Series' newest competitors did a good job of taming it in Sunday's Dover 400.

Four rookies finished in the top 11 -- extending a streak in which at least one rookie contender has finished in the top 15 in all 28 races so far this season.

Clint Bowyer had a top-five run going before running out of gas. Credit: Autostock

Dover 400 Official Results Pos. Driver Make 1. Jeff Burton Chevy 2. Carl Edwards Ford 3. Jeff Gordon Chevy 4. Kurt Busch Dodge 5. Greg Biffle Ford 6. Martin Truex Jr. Chevy 7. Bobby Labonte Dodge 8. Clint Bowyer Chevy 9. Denny Hamlin Chevy 10. Matt Kenseth Ford 11. Reed Sorenson Dodge • Complete results, click here • Official standings, click here Victory LaneJeff Burton celebrates in Victory Lane at Dover Final lapsKenseth falls short while Jeff Burton gets the checkered flag Sign up for TrackPass now BUY THE NEXTEL i836

Martin Truex Jr. finished a career-best sixth in his 37th career start. He was the best finishing rookie for the first time in a season that has fallen short of his own and everyone's expectations after he won consecutive Busch Series title in 2004 and '05.

Clint Bowyer suffered a valve train malfunction with less than 30 laps remaining -- a failure that knocked his teammate and former Chase for the Nextel Cup point leader Kevin Harvick out of the race -- and still held on for eighth.

Denny Hamlin battled back onto the lead lap after a caution in the middle of a green-flag pit stop cycle put him a lap down. He finished ninth, his 11th consecutive top-15 finish and his 15th top-10 this season.

The finished knocked Hamlin, the first rookie to make the Chase for the Nextel Cup, from second back to a tie for third in the standings, unofficially, but even at that he's only 18 points behind new leader and Dover race winner Jeff Burton.

Reed Sorenson made up for a crash out of the top five in Saturday's Dover 200 Busch Series race by finishing 11th on Sunday.

The finish was a bitter pill for Sorenson, who led 39 laps Sunday and was running fourth before he ran out of fuel with less than two laps remaining.

"Looking back on it, as bad as our fuel mileage has been this year, we probably should have come in and topped her off there, even if we didn't get tires, when Burton and all those guys did," Sorenson said of Lap 323 pit stops in which he stayed out. "I think our car was good enough to finish top five. We were running fourth there and ran out [of gas] and finished 11th.

"That's seven spots; it's not good but at least we had a decent car. The crew did a good job all day. Nobody made any mistakes this weekend and that's what matters the most."

How good is the rookie class?

This is the fourth time this season that four rookies posted top-15 finishes -- a feat that the runs of Truex, Hamlin and Bowyer, in particular, didn't escape four-time Cup champion Jeff Gordon, who finished third.

"Denny Hamlin has been extremely impressive to me," Gordon said. "He's in the Chase, he's solid [and Sunday] was a solid effort for them.

	Denny Hamlin dropped a spot in the standings, but he trails the leader by just 18 points. Credit: Autostock
	Chase for the Nextel Cup After Dover (2nd of 10 races) Pos. +/- Driver Behind 1. +4 Jeff Burton Leader 2. +2 Jeff Gordon -6 3. -- Matt Kenseth -18 4. -2 Denny Hamlin -18 5. -4 Kevin Harvick -54 6. -- Mark Martin -75 7. -- D. Earnhardt Jr. -102 8. +1 Jimmie Johnson -136 9. -1 Kasey Kahne -182 10. -- Kyle Busch -224 • Complete standings, click here SUPERSTORE •   2006 Chase driver hats!

"I thought I saw at one time, they were pretty far behind, and they end up coming back with a decent finish. Obviously, it takes the team along with the driver, but Denny's been very impressive."

Truex got a vote of confidence from his co-owner, Chase contender Dale Earnhardt Jr., earlier in the weekend. But on Saturday Truex saw a top-10 run in the Busch race vaporize when he hit the wall in the final 20 laps.

He called that a microcosm of a season in which impressive runs have largely been unrewarded with equivalent finishes.

Gordon also cited Truex's effort as perhaps one of the most impressive because, after a restart in the final third of the race left Truex on the tail-end of the lead lap, the rookie drove away from dominant leader Matt Kenseth to secure his finishing position.

"Martin had a great run [Sunday]," Gordon said. "I think the thing we missed on Martin is that out of those guys that got a lap down [when the caution interrupted the pit cycle] or the tail-end of the lead lap, he's one of the only guys that drove away from Matt Kenseth to get back on the lead lap.

"That was pretty impressive."

"When that caution came out I was thinking that we're going to be a lap down and we're never going to get it back," Truex said. "We had a fast enough car that we could drive out there and stay ahead of the leaders and get our lap back.

"With 100 laps to go, our car was so good -- it was just really, really fast. All these guys have been working hard and we haven't had much to show for it lately. It's good to finally get one that we deserve.

"These guys work their butts off, they've been doing it all year long. We've ran like this a bunch of times and didn't have anything to show for it. It's been a really tough year, it's really tested all of us and made us all better and this is what we get to show for it so it feels good."

Hamlin said Dover's monstrous reputation for physically taxing drivers actually did take its toll on him, but he prevailed in the end. With what he confessed, his finish was quite an achievement.

"With about 150 to go I lost all my neck strength and it went downhill from there," Hamlin said. "I just couldn't take anymore. I've really never fallen out of the seat like I did [Sunday]. I think it was worse [because] we didn't have a good car.

"We struggled all day and had a 30th-place car and to finish in the top 10 with it, I'm pretty happy with it."

Hamlin said that that if he's able to win, or contend for the Nextel Cup, Dover might have been his bullet to dodge.

"Yeah, I think so," Hamlin said. "This is by far our worst racetrack. If we can go the rest of the season and turn bad days into good days like this, we should be a contender."