Jeff Burton receives congratulations from Richard Childress Racing teammate Kevin Harvick after winning the Bank of America 500 at Lowe's Motor Speedway. (Photo Credit: Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR)

 

NSCS Recap: Burton Holds Off Kahne For Win At Lowe's Motor Speedway

By Reid Spencer
Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service

Jeff Burton celebrates winning the Bank of America 500 at Lowe's Motor Speedway. (Photo Credit: Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR)

CONCORD, N.C.—Despite Jimmie Johnson’s fast start to the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, Jeff Burton hasn’t been willing to concede the trophy to the two-time defending champion.

On Saturday night, Burton gave more than lip service to that notion, holding off Kasey Kahne to win the Bank of America 500 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway. The victory, Burton’s second of the season and the 21st of his career, vaulted the driver of the No. 31 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet into second place in the standings, 69 points behind Johnson with five races left in the Chase.

“He (Burton) has always been on my radar,” said Johnson, who fought late-race handling problems and faded to sixth at the finish after battling Burton for the lead early in the final 33-lap green-flag run.

Burton had enough speed to hold off Kasey Kahne, who crossed the finish line .946 seconds behind the winner. Kurt Busch ran third, followed by Kyle Busch and Jamie McMurray.

Johnson finished one spot ahead of Greg Biffle, who remained third in the standings. Ignition problems cost Carl Edwards 16 laps early in the race and dropped him to 33rd at the finish. Edwards fell from second to fourth in points, 168 behind Johnson.

“We’re halfway (to the end of the Chase),”Burton said after climbing from his car. “It’s way too early to be handing anyone the trophy. It’s our job to put ourselves in position to go to Homestead (the season's final race) with a chance to win.”

Burton kept the lead with a gas-and-go on his final pit stop on Lap 298, a call made by crew chief Scott Miller.

“That’s what won the race for us,” said Burton, who held the lead for the final 57 of 334 laps after passing Biffle for the top spot on Lap 278.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. cut a tire and slammed into the Turn 2 wall on lap 103. He finished 36th, 45 laps down.

“No warning -- it just popped,” Earnhardt said. “I was running about 90 percent really, not running hard at all. The car was handling pretty good, just popped a tire up there … might have run over something.

“It is pretty disappointing, because I was just taking it pretty easy. We ran real, real hard here in the spring and worked our car too hard. I was just going to take care of the racecar; that was what I was trying to do. We just got some bad luck there.”

Clean air was king at Lowe’s, where Tony Stewart, Kyle Busch and Brian Vickers all opened leads of more than seven seconds at various points in the race. Stewart’s handling suffered in traffic, however, and he finished 11th but remained seventh in the Chase standings, 228 points behind Johnson.

Vickers suffered a hard brush with the Turn 4 wall on Lap 252 and fell to 18th at the finish, one lap down.
      
For Edwards, the end to the fifth Chase week couldn’t have come soon enough, after he scuffled with Kevin Harvick in the Nationwide garage on Thursday and spent the next two days fending off questions about the fracas.

“There’s only one thing to do, and that’s to learn from everything this week,” Edwards said. “That’s for sure. I can guarantee you that if I had the week to do over again, the last seven days would be a lot different.  But you just have to do what you think is right at the time and move on after that.

“Today’s race didn’t help at all. That car right there is a great racecar. I don’t know if we’ve ever had the problem that we had there. It was something with the ignition system, so it’s very frustrating, but nobody got hurt at least, I guess.”