MILLINGTON, Tenn. - Clint Bowyer won his second Busch series race of the season, rallying from deep in the field to win the Sam's Town 250 at Memphis Motorsports Park on Saturday.
Bowyer worked his way to the front after starting 35th in the 43-car field and dominated the second half of the race. He closed to within 100 points of defending series champion Martin Truex with three events left.
Truex, the pole-sitter who wound up third, leads with 4,511 points to 4,411 for Bowyer.
J.J. Yeley was second and former series champion David Green fourth.
"Today, we did everything we could do, even though I put us in a bad spot," said Bowyer, who crashed his Chevrolet in the final turn of his second qualifying lap in the morning. "We'd had the fastest car in practice, and I was trying to prove it in qualifying. Maybe it just made me mad enough to do what I had to do."
Bowyer, who shook off a 33rd-place finish at Charlotte last weekend, was in the middle of the fray with a sledge hammer as his crew made repairs.
"I was an auto body man. I know how to knock out dents," Bowyer said.
Carl Edwards, whose car was stopped for speeding as he tried to get from morning Nextel Cup practice at Martinsville, Va., to Memphis to run this event, arrived moments before the race. He started 38th and wound up fifth.
The race featured a record 15 caution flags, including two multicar accidents in Turn 4 during the final 50 laps. No one was injured in the mishaps.
TRUCKS: Ricky Craven drove the last 145 laps on the same tires and tank of gas, and made Jack Roush the leader in career wins among owners in the NASCAR Truck series with a victory at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway. The win in the Kroger 200 was the 37th for Roush in the series. Ted Musgrave finished fourth and took the points lead from Dennis Setzer, who was 19th. Musgrave, who trailed by five points coming in, leads by 54 with four races left. Darrell Waltrip, 58, in what could be his final NASCAR start, finished 13th.
CHAMP CAR: Oriol Servia won the pole for the Lexmark Indy 300, making Newman/Haas teammate Sebastien Bourdais wait at least one more day to take the series title for the second year in a row. Bourdais, a St. Petersburg resident, crossed the line 1.6 seconds after the session ended, so his final lap, which would have clinched the pole and the title, did not count.
