Bowyer wins at Talladega

Jeff Burton and teammate Clint Bowyer did the two car tango up until the final turn on Sunday at Talladega Superspeedway. Bowyer pulled around Burton as they headed to the finish line, Bowyer edging out Burton by .018 seconds and captured his first victory of the season and the fifth of his career.

“Things played out just as we planned.” Bowyer said in victory lane.

[media-credit name=”CIA Stock Photo” align=”alignright” width=”239″][/media-credit]“Well, I mean that is plate racing, we put ourselves in position to win the race and Clint (Bowyer) did a great job, I thought he made his move a little too early and as it turned out he did it perfect. We had a great day, part of me wants to cry and part of me wants to cheer, anytime you leave here and the car is in one piece you should be happy; but to come that close after the year we have had is pretty disappointing.” Burton said.

This win also gave Richard Childress Racing (RCR) its 100th victory in the Sprint Cup Series.

“I told him( Richard Childress) , this is Chevrolet’s 100th Anniversary, what an awesome paint scheme, so proud of the paint scheme, this is Richard’s 100th race that he has won in the Cup series, so I told him congratulations, I guess I am going to have to race his ass for the 101st ( laughs) ,but just thank you to Cheerios, Hamburger Helper, everybody involved with this car, BB&T, they have been a long supporter of ours, it meant a lot to me to get all these guys back in victory lane before we cap off this season.” Bowyer said.

Dave Blaney finished third, Brad Keselowski fourth and Brian Vickers finished fifth.

“It was interesting the whole race. Our Miller Lite Dodge was fast all day. I worked really hard with Dave Blaney all day. He was a great, great helper and I owe a lot of credit to him. We stayed smart and brought it up front at the end.” Keselowski said.

Carl Edwards finished 11th and holds a 14 point lead over Matt Kenseth (finished 18th) in the series standings with five races to go.

“That was a heck of a day for teamwork. Greg (Biffle) did an unbelievable job of sticking with me and we get to come out of here extending our points lead, which is good. It is good for Ford and good for Subway and everybody. I am pleased that we are able to get out of here with the points lead intact because you just never know what can happen here and to extend it is just great.” Edwards said.

“It was a frustrating that we ran up there most the day. David was a great drafting partner and he broke something on the last restart, broke something in his engine. I had to try to find somebody with two laps to go and that is hard.” Kenseth said.

Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch were both in accidents on lap 104. Both drivers had to go to the garage for repairs. Harvick finished 32nd and Busch 33rd and sit fifth and sixth in the series standings.