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Richmond run Spencer takes second Richmond Busch win in a row
Updated: Saturday September 08, 2001 6:55 PM
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) -- Jimmy Spencer pulled away from fellow Winston Cup regular Matt Kenseth on a restart with 35 laps to go Friday night and won the crash-filled Autolite Fram 250 Busch series race. The victory was Spencer's third in 13 starts in the series this year and gave him a sweep of the Busch races at Richmond, both in dominating style. He led 192 laps in May and 169 this time en route to his 11th career Busch victory. Spencer is the first driver to win back-to-back here since Harry Gant in 1991-92. "It's the ultimate short track. Turn 2 is a little tricky, but it is fast and puts on a good race," Spencer said. "You can race people here, you can pass people. It's one of those tracks we can really race hard on." The race also put life back into the series points race as Kevin Harvick wound up 27th after an oil leak. The showing cut his lead on Jason Keller from 316 points to 274 with seven races left. It could have become much closer, especially after Harvick dropped back just 76 laps in, but all the other challengers had trouble, too.
Keller was running sixth when he made a green-flag stop on lap 180. Four laps later, a caution flew and relegated him to a 13th place finish. Jeff Green, the defending champion, pole-sitter and nightlong contender, was burned first by a green-flag pit stop when he was running third, then when he hit the backstretch wall with 54 laps to go. Green finished 22nd, but climbed to third in the points, 377 back. "I feel bad for those guys because they could have made a good points battle out of it, and they didn't capitalize," Spencer said. Spencer appeared to have the strongest car, but he rarely got a chance to show off his Chevrolet's power because of a string of nine cautions that slowed the race for 58 laps until the final green flag on lap 235. Then, beating Kenseth to the first turn, Spencer gradually pulled away, building a lead of more than a second and winning going away. His margin of victory was 1.345 seconds. Kenseth held on for second, followed by Virginia native Kevin Grubb, Geoffrey Bodine and Johnny Sauter in his Busch debut. "This is unbelievable," Sauter said. For Grubb, the result was especially sweet since his family lives in Mechanicsville, only about five miles from the racetrack.
"It seems like every week we're getting closer," said Grubb, who passed Bodine on the 249th lap around the three-quarter-mile oval and matched his career-best finish of third for the third time this season. Defending race champion Jeff Burton of South Boston finished ninth. The race was the first since NASCAR levied fines against four Busch drivers for their actions during the race at Darlington Raceway last Saturday, and more fines are likely after another ugly confrontation. Greg Biffle, third in the points race, had tangled with Jay Sauter earlier in the race, and was passing him on lap 184 outside of turn 4 when Sauter's car suddenly veered into Biffle's, sending both in the wall. The wrecked cars were still steaming on the track when Biffle climbed from his, walked over to Sauter's and delivered a roundhouse right-hand punch through the window of the car. "I think it was pretty obvious that the 43 wrecked us back," Biffle said, claiming Sauter's crew had promised revenge earlier in the race. "Muhammed Ali he's not," Sauter said after leaving his car.
Biffle finished 35th and dropped to fourth in the points race.
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