It’s over.
As of 6:27 p.m., NASCAR called the race official after 171 laps complete, meaning Clint Bowyer is your 2008 Sharpie Mini 300 champion.

Kasey Kahne, who spent close to 40 laps chasing Bowyer through lapped traffic, couldn’t get past him and finished second. David Reutimann finished third, followed by Brad Keselowski.

Posted by From the Archives

Cautions aside, there’s some darn-good racing going on right now at BMS.
A tight duel between Clint Bowyer and Kasey Kahne.
Streamlined racing with drivers running in a tight, smooth pack.
And the fans have stuck around—Turn 2 is packed.

Posted by Brian T. Smith

They’re getting the race in, but it’s a mess.
21 of the race’s first 66 laps have been under caution.

Posted by Brian T. Smith

The race kicked off at approximately 4:30 p.m. By 4:40, we’ve had two cautions.

Bobby Labonte spun on Lap 5 to bring out the first yellow. A few laps later, Martin Truex Jr. got loose and spun in Turn 3, then collected Kyle Busch.

Lap 29 - 10 of the first 22 laps were under yellow. Immediately after he hit Truex and smacked the Turn 3 wall, Kyle Busch headed to the tunnel and out of the track. The kid’s old school right down to the short fuse.

Lap 47 - Competition yellow. Kevin Harvick came in as the leader, having passed Denny Hamlin on Lap 40. Tires will - surprise, surprise - be an issue on a track that, while techinically dry, will still be slick, so NASCAR has programmed in at least one competition caution. These things seem kind of like TV timeouts in basketball. They’re great for TV, but they slow the race down considerably.

Lap 50 - Green flag. Bowyer, Hamlin, Harvick and Scott Wimmer lead the pack. They’re mostly staying low on the BMS concrete, but they’res a lot of two-wide racing. No one apperas to want to risk going three-wide yet, though.

Lap 57 - Storm clouds loom on the horizon. Not a good sign for those who want us to get in 300 laps.

Lap 62 - Bryan Clauson spins and hits the wall to bring out another yellow. Bowyer is still your race leader, followed by Hamlin, Stewart and Wimmer.

Lap 70 - Hamlin gets black-flagged due to a flat tire. He was running second, now is 29th, two laps down, even though his stop was probably less than five seconds long. That’s how short BMS is.

Lap 78 - Hamlin got called back into the pits for a stop-and-go because of a violation in the pits with one of his crew. He now sits 31st, four laps back.

Lap 94 - Dario Franchitti gets bumped by Kasey Kahne and spins out in Turn 2 to bring out the caution. As noted in Brian T. Smith’s story on him in today’s edition of the BHC, the former Indy 500 winner was more excited about racing at Bristol than anywhere else. Too bad for him his day ends early. Did Ashley Judd brave the rain to watch her husband in the Mini 300, or is she watching her beloved Kentucky Wildcats in the SEC tournament?

Lap 104 - Scott Wimmer leads Greg Biffle and Clint Bowyer back to green, then Bowyer promptly drafts around Wimmer and Biffle to take the lead. Carl Edwards, the defending race champion and the King of Concrete, is up to fifth.

Lap 121 - We may lose the race to get to Lap 150. If we get that far, NASCAR could call this one a day and choose not to try to finish it tomorrow. The rain clouds behind Turns 2 and 3 look mightly ominous right now.
Bowyer is your leader. Kahne has moved up to second, followed by Wimmer and David Reutimann.

Lap 138 – Kahne chses Bowyer through lapped traffic. Kahne nearly passed him on the outside, but Bowyer tapped Marcos Ambrose and caused his back end to get loose, forcing Kahne to back off.

Lap 149 - Kahne’s racing like it’s lap 299. If he gets past Bowyer now, he could end up with a win if the rain starts. Bowher is using the papped cars well to hold him off.

Lap 163 - Bowyer held Kahne off and may have just earned himself his first win at Bristol. The yellow just came out, with Bowyer, Kahne, Reutimann and Wimmer leading the way. we’re still turning laps under yellow, but the leaders are staying out to hold their spots. The big deluge at any time. We’ll go back green at Lap 166.

Lap 171 - Red flag is out. ESPN is talking like we will have another change to run some laps under green, although the heavy stuff is still apparently to come. Kahne’s crew chief, Kirk Almquist: “We’re not really happy to see the rain just yet.” Kahne has had possibly the best car all day, but Bowyer’s maneuvering among the lapped cars just kept him at bay.

Still lap 171 - The dryers came off the track and the drivers got strapped back in for racing. Alas, the cursed red banner is waving again. The TV crews keep talking pit strategy when the green waves again, though it looks like something of a wasted argument ast he horizon grows ever more gray. Thousands of BMS faithful are still sitting in their seats, though many are moving up to the higher levels under the cover of the suites. Rarely will you see people acutally move farther up at a sporting event.

Kahne: “I should be leading. I pretty much blew that one. I should have pressed the issue.” Translation: I should have bumped Bowyer out of the way and taken the lead, because we won’t be racing any more today.

You can pretty much close the book on this one. As of 6:24 p.m. we’re getting perhaps the heaviest rain of the day. The lights are on, and Brad Daugherty and Rusty Wallace are going on about how we can still finish this race under the lights, but at this point you’d be talking about 8 or 9 p.m. before we could get the track dry.

Posted by From the Archives

Here we go.

Posted by Brian T. Smith