Dover turned into a prize fight for the Chase drivers

DOVER, Del. -- Championship prize fights last 12 rounds, but it's usually a flurry of punches in a short span that decides the winner.

At Dover's Monster Mile, it was a flurry of incidents over a 35-lap span -- followed by a final round, multi-car knockout punch -- that turned the Chase for the Nextel Cup on its ear Sunday and left a majority of the 12 Chasers bloodied and bruised.

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Starting with Kevin Harvick's loose wheel on Lap 168 and winding up with the Lap 203 incident between Denny Hamlin and Kyle Petty that also involved Clint Bowyer, it seemed Chase contenders were taking standing eight counts at every turn.

Harvick? The loose wheel issue was followed by another unscheduled green-flag stop for a flat tire. Jimmie Johnson? A cut tire on Lap 186 cost him two laps. Tony Stewart? Passed by the leader on Lap 192 and never returning to the lead lap. Jeff Burton? Needing two free passes in the first half of the race and still winding up a lap down.

But those were undercards compared to the first of two main events on the day: Hamlin vs. Petty.

Coming out of Turn 4, Petty, a lap down, was hit from behind by Hamlin -- running sixth at the time -- and turned hard into the outside wall, doing heavy damage to both cars. Bowyer, trailing Hamlin, suffered significant damage to his front right fender.

While Hamlin was still strapped inside the No. 11 while it was being repaired in the garage, Petty came up, dropped the window net, words were exchanged and Petty slapped at Hamlin's visor. That prompted Hamlin to climb out of the car but crewmembers stepped between the two to prevent any further confrontations (watch video).

In the blue corner, at 6-2 and 195 pounds, Kyle Petty: "We were a little bit loose. I guess it's my fault. I watched the Busch race yesterday and I knew Denny was sick, I just didn't know he was hallucinating and needed three lanes to get up off the corner because he ran all over us. I guess he is in a race by himself."

In the red corner, at 6-0 and 170 pounds, Denny Hamlin: "I know Kyle gets run over a lot and the reason is he's so far off the pace. I firmly believe in my heart he was trying to get out of the way. I was right there on his bumper, on the inside of him. I think he was trying to go low and when he did, he checked up. That's the reason stuff happens."

That would have been more than enough to cement Dover's slam-bang reputation. But the battle royal was still to come.

Kurt Busch, who had avoided most of the mid-race carnage, slammed hard into the outside wall coming out of Turn 2 two laps after a Lap 384 restart, bounced into Reed Sorenson, was rear-ended by teammate Ryan Newman and collected at least seven other cars in the smoke, including Martin Truex Jr. and Johnson (watch video).

Lap-by-Lap

Follow all the hardships of the Chase drivers in Carl Edwards' wreck-filled win at Dover.

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"I just caught the fence in Turn 2 and it collected so many top cars and everybody, for that matter," Busch said. "It's tough when everybody puts a lot of hard work into building these cars and one little problem like that took out a lot of cars.

"It was a nice top-five that was developing, we actually had 30-lap fresher tires then anybody and something broke."

Newman had perhaps the best view in the house.

"I know [Busch] got high and bounced off the wall," Newman said. "It looked like something broke. If I would have known it was going to be that big of a mess, I would have just hit him and tried to knock him out of the way instead of crossing my car up and blocking the racetrack."

Race-winner Carl Edwards and fifth-place Kyle Busch, who used a free pass late in the event, were the only Chase drivers left on the lead lap at the checkered flag.

Burton (seventh), Stewart (10th) and Jeff Gordon (11th) -- who fought a loose-handing car all afternoon -- managed to finish one lap down, as amazingly did Bowyer (12th) and Truex Jr. (13th), whose No. 1 Chevrolet was puffing steam from a broken radiator.

Matt Kenseth led 192 laps and finished 35th, victim of a blown engine (watch video).

And somehow, when the judges' cards were tallied, the Chase remained a split decision. Gordon leads Stewart by 2 points, Edwards by 3 -- pending a possible penalty after his winning car failed NASCAR's post-race inspection -- Johnson by 4 and Kyle Busch by 10. In fact, the top eight are separated by 75 points -- perhaps the difference between a lead-lap finish and going one lap down at Homestead.

The title -- or cup, in this instance -- remains vacated, awaiting a worthy defender. The rematch? Sunday, Sunday, Sunday -- at Kansas Speedway.

The opinions expressed are those solely of the writer