Weekend That Was: Kan.

If you were one of the few who could stay with the LifeLock 400 through two rain delays and roughly six hours Sunday, you still probably weren't sure who won the Nextel Cup race right at the end.

But this time, NASCAR got it right.

Sure, it would have been the stuff of storybook legend if Clint Bowyer, credited with finishing second, had been able to pass Greg Biffle on the last lap for a win at Kansas Speedway, Bowyer's home track. Bowyer did in fact pass Biffle on that last lap, but it was after the yellow caution flag flew and the field was frozen -- and Biffle knew it, or at least claimed to and certainly acted like he did (watch video).

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Therein lay the biggest problem with creating the confusion: Biffle prematurely went into celebration mode. It wasn't the smartest thing The Biff has ever done, cutting his engine off on the final turn and unbuckling safety devices in his cockpit as he prepared to celebrate his first win since the final race of last season.

Biffle later claimed he was "steering with his knee" at that point.

"I was trying to save enough fuel to do burnouts and drive to Victory Lane," he said. "The race was over. The caution was out and we were the winner."

It wasn't nearly that clear to Bowyer or Jimmie Johnson, who, unlike Biffle, are engaged in the Chase for the Nextel Cup championship. Trailing behind Biffle as the No. 16 Ford slowed down and took to the apron on the bottom of the track in his effort to be able to save enough fuel to celebrate in style, Bowyer and Johnson had as much trouble as everyone else figuring out what was going on at first.

Bowyer thought Biffle was required by NASCAR's cloudy rules to maintain the speed being set by the pace car at least until Biffle reached the checkered flag, and he told reporters he didn't think Biffle was doing that. Johnson agreed and said that although he "felt bad for the 16," Bowyer should have been the rightful winner.

Wrong.

The governing body that so often gets hammered for doing something obviously wrong got it right this time, ruling that Biffle's car was under power and maintaining a reasonable speed behind the pace car at the end. It said nothing about the dangers of him steering with his knee or unbuckling his seatbelts before the car had rolled to a complete stop -- and there is no truth to the rumor that Biffle's car owner, Jack Roush, is poised to protest forthcoming penalties for such infractions.

Roush had plenty to whine about without embracing another controversy involving the finish of one of his drivers. This was the second week in a row that he had fielded the winning hand, only to be questioned at the finish or shortly thereafter.

Carl Edwards' win one week earlier at Dover lost much of its luster with Roush when Edwards' No. 99 Ford failed post-race inspection and ultimately was slapped with a 25-point penalty that dropped Edwards from third to sixth in the Chase points standings. Roush complained -- and not without some merit -- that it was a ridiculous penalty, assessed for Edwards' car being too low on a track where that would have meant absolutely no advantage and, in fact, would have been a disadvantage.

His complaints, naturally, fell on deaf and unsympathetic NASCAR officials' ears. He expected nothing less, but felt compelled to fire off the verbal salvoes nonetheless.

Then came the Biffle controversy, which wasn't complete until the field of 43 cars and fans in attendance had endured two lengthy rain delays and television viewers had to negotiate a station switch to ESPN8 -- or was that the national Dodgeball finals on "The Ocho?"

Busch upset with Jr.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. got into the back of Kyle Busch in Sunday's race at Kansas forcing the No. 5 into the wall and all but ending Busch's title hopes. Afterward, Busch had some choice words for the driver replacing him at Hendrick.

• Complete story, click here

The bottom line is that Biffle was under power and in first when Juan Montoya blew a tire and the final caution came out, effectively freezing the field. Folks no doubt are going to bring up a number of races in the past where perhaps NASCAR didn't adhere so strictly to this rule (remember the way the final lap of the season-opening Daytona 500 unfolded? (watch video)) but in this case it would have been totally bogus to give the victory to Bowyer over Biffle.

Now if folks want to complain, there was the matter of telling everyone the race was going to be called after 225 laps when it was restarted following the second rain delay -- and then calling it on account of darkness on Lap 210. That, too, was the right call. It was getting too dark to race safely and the planned green-white-checkered couldn't come off because of the considerable debris Montoya's shredded rear tires left spread all over the track.

But it's a tough pill to swallow when a team plans for the race to last 225 laps because it was told it would, and then to have it end after only 210. Biffle never would have had the gas to make it to Lap 211, let alone 225.

Then again, anyone who counted on it actually lasting to 225 was stupid or naive, or a dangerous combination of both. They believed everything NASCAR had to say.

Stewart's rain dance

You almost had to feel sorry for Tony Stewart, and that's usually very difficult for any objective observer to do.

He gambled on the rain coming down harder and lingering longer when he stayed out on fumes prior to the long delay that began when the cars were parked following Lap 148. With a thunderstorm threatening, all the leaders had been racing hard to get in position by the halfway point, which was Lap 134. But once that passed and the rain hadn't hit yet, many of them came in for fuel -- gambling that the rain would hold off long enough for them to regain track position on those, like Stewart, who stayed out (watch video).

Instead, it looked for a while like Stewart's gamble would pay off and the race would not be re-started, giving him a rain-shortened victory. Not only did that not happen, but once the race resumed Stewart immediately got caught up in a mess that began when Ken Schrader's No. 21 Ford got turned sideways (watch video).

Thought for the day: would NASCAR have pressed so hard to have the event resume after the second delay if this hadn't been a Chase race? Had the race ended there, by the way, Stewart would have held a comfortable lead over the rest of the Chasers.

Instead, Stewart finished 39th and fell to fourth in the Chase standings, 117 points behind new leader Jimmie Johnson.

Thumbs up

• To Johnson, Bowyer, Jeff Gordon and Kevin Harvick, the only Chasers to stay out of trouble and come away with decent finishes at Kansas. Harvick made the biggest jump in the Chase standings, moving up to fifth (just nine behind Stewart) by virtue of his sixth-place finish Sunday.

Thumbs down

• To Stewart, for staying out on the track after getting damage to the left-front of his No. 20 Chevrolet following the Lap 156 incident involving Schrader and fellow Chasers Martin Truex Jr. and Matt Kenseth. When the green flew, tire smoke could be visibly seen rising from his left-front -- and sure enough, that tire blew out a few laps later, causing damage to Kurt Busch's car and sending Stewart into a spin that collected Edwards and ultimately ended what could have been a decent day for Edwards, who instead finished 37th.

Kyle vs. Junior

Kyle Busch also gave a big thumbs-down to the driving of the man who will replace him at Hendrick Motorsports at the beginning of next season, Dale Earnhardt Jr.

But couldn't Busch think of a more classy way to lay the blame at Junior's feet without throwing Earnhardt all the way under the bus? Yet you knew it was coming. If you were watching on TV, it was like, "Wait for it. ... wait for it ... "

And then sure enough, Busch emerged from the Infield Care Center and promptly ripped Earnhardt, who already was accepting the blame for taking Busch out of the race and maybe out of the Chase on his radio (watch video). It wasn't Junior's finest hour, to say the least; but if Busch really knew Junior was working the top line of the track and had the faster car, shouldn't he have maybe worked to get to the middle or the bottom a little quicker, too?

In the end, there was no doubt that Junior punted Busch. But Busch is going to have to learn at some point (well, so is Kevin Harvick, who has been racing much longer) that these sometimes are unintentional "racing deals" and that it isn't necessary to verbally rip to shreds the offending party -- even if it is the guy who is about to take your job.

Pit stops

• It is interesting that Hall of Fame Racing keeps claiming that it hasn't made an official decision on which manufacturer it will align with for next season, when the same group saying that now very clearly stated the day they took over the operation that they would drive whatever cars Joe Gibbs Racing did. That means they'll be in Toyotas next season. End of supposed story.

• Kyle Busch's win in the Busch Series Saturday was impressive, but some of the comments being made by team owners make one wonder how many Busch races most of the top-level Cup drivers will enter next season and beyond. The Cup guys have liked driving Busch cars in the past because they felt it gave them an edge in the Cup race that followed on weekends when both series run at the same track; next season that edge will disappear when the Cup Series starts running the Car of Tomorrow full-time and the Busch cars remain the same. Already several of the big-time teams have indicated they plan to scale back on their Busch programs beginning next season.

• Sunday proved to be a good day for Dodge at Kansas. Dodge drivers Reed Sorenson, Elliott Sadler and Kasey Kahne finished seventh, eighth and ninth, respectively, in the LifeLock 400, and Chase participant Kurt Busch led the most laps (76) in his No. 2 Dodge before he suffered damage because of Stewart's mishap on Lap 176, forcing him to settle for 11th.

The opinions expressed are those solely of the writer