If nothing else, Kyle Busch is proving that his 2008 success at Joe Gibbs Racing is a total team effort.

The 23-year-old driver drove to the pole for Saturday night's Sprint Cup All-Star Race XXIV at Lowe's Motor Speedway, just ahead of former teammate Jeff Gordon and brother Kurt Busch.

The qualifying format for the All-Star event is much, much different than a time trial for any other race on the Sprint Cup Series schedule. Instead of a driver making laps on track alone, in the All-Star format the driver has to complete three laps and the pit crew has to perform a four-tire pit stop.

Kyle Busch's crew dropped a four-tire stop of 13.4 seconds, and that combined with his laps gave Busch an elapsed time of 121.956 seconds. Gordon had the same speed of pit stop, but was about a half-second off of Busch's time.

A few penalties were assessed including Dale Jarrett, Kevin Harvick, and Casey Mears earning five-second penalties and speeding on to pit road were Denny Hamlin and Carl Edwards, earning each of them a 20-second penalty.

Jimmie Johnson's time was disallowed after missing a lug nut on the pit stop, pulling ahead, and then having service done outside of the pit box area by the Lowe's crew.

Kurt Busch's Miller Lite crew busted out a 12.9-second pit stop which was the fastest of the night. Harvick's team had the same time, but the penalty was a killer.

Jeff Gordon ran a very respectable third on Saturday night in the Dodge Challenger 500 at Darlington Raceway.

The only problem, though, was that Joe Gibbs Racing's Kyle Busch was much, much faster and cruised away with the win for the third time in 2008 to tie Carl Edwards for the most this year.

It was Gordon's highest finish since his third-place result at California in February and showed that the extensive testing work that Hendrick Motorsports' teams have combined to do has started to pay some dividends for the new race car.

It still, in Gordon's mind, wasn't enough:

"I wish I wasn't so darn competitive because you have no idea," said Gordon. "I am happy that we have a top-five and we are third, but also how frustrated I am because of how far off we are from winning races right now. We did the tire test here at Darlington and the No. 18 just kicked everybody's tails tonight."

Tails kicked, indeed.

Four of the 2008 season's first 11 races have gone to Joe Gibbs Racing and just one to Hendrick by way of Jimmie Johnson's win at Phoenix. Stats like that are a far cry from 2007 when Hendrick picked up seven wins up this point a year ago.

What: Subway Fresh Fit 500
Where: Phoenix International Raceway, Phoenix, Ariz.
When: Saturday, April 12 8:30pm/et FOX
Distance: 312 laps, 500k
Weather: Clear, with a low around 61. East northeast wind around 7 mph.
2007 Winner: Jeff Gordon
Predictions: Keep Reading





Gordon Was Horrible at Texas, Could Be Horrible at Phoenix - All across the NASCAR web world, there's been plenty of talk about how bad Jeff Gordon was one week ago at Texas Motor Speedway.

There's also been plenty wrote about how Gordon scored his first Phoenix victory one year ago in this same race and how that should bode well for a comeback for the Hendrick Motorsports driver.

I just don't see that happening. Remember back to last fall when Gordon was battling teammate Jimmie Johnson for the Cup title and how Gordon flat out struggled to stay in the Top-10. During Friday's practice sessions at PIR, Gordon was a lowly 30th-fast in both practices.

Jeff Gordon had to be more than happy to get on the plane and leave Fort Worth on Sunday after finishing dead last in Sunday's Samsung 500.

Gordon started the day 18th and quickly slid through the field as he simply couldn't drive the car into or out of the corner. By the time the first caution came out on lap 29, Gordon was close to going a lap down.

After a pit stop, Gordon came out 32nd and could not make up any ground. Current race leader Jimmie Johnson lapped the No. 24 and on lap 109, Gordon spun off of turn four and backed into the wall.

While the damage was repairable, the Hendrick Motorsports team decided to take the opportunity to try and figure out why the No. 24 just simply would not handle.

Gordon would later come out of the garage area multiple times as the Samsung 500 turned into a glorified test session.

Sunday's Sprint Cup Series race at Martinsville Speedway saw its share of spins and wrecks to contribute the races 18 cautions.

Aside from Matt Kenseth's antics, the biggest crash of the day involved 5 cars early in the 500 lap event. The melee, shown below, involved Jeff Gordon, Bobby Labonte, Aric Almirola, Scott Riggs, and Martin Truex Jr.


Almirola slid the nose of his No. 8 coming off of turn four into Bobby Labonte on the outside, turning the No. 43 and blocking the track for the rest of the field. Riggs then gets turned by Gordon as the accordion effect takes shape, damaging the nose of the No. 24.

So what's all this talk about a drought for Hendrick Motorsports?

Team driver Jeff Gordon gave the racing media a chance to quit their barking about the HMS performance over the first five races by putting his No. 24 Chevrolet on the pole for Sunday's Goody's Cool Orange 500.

His seventh-career Martinsville Speedway pole -- yep, that's just one shy of the track record -- came quite solidly after picking up over two-tenths of a second from his fastest practice lap, enough to make his qualifying lap of 19.666 over a tenth quicker than 2nd-place Denny Hamlin.

The pole was Gordon's 65th of his career, 2nd of the season, and yada yada yada. In other words, Jeff Gordon is in normal form at Martinsville this weekend and barring a large concrete block hitting the front end of his car, he's gonna be tough as nails on the .526-mile track.

Aric Almirola, David Ragan, and Jamie McMurray rounded out the latter half of a top-5 that could easily be mistaken for a Nationwide Series lineup. The rest of Hendrick will line up 10th (Jimmie Johnson), 22nd (Dale Earnhardt Jr.), and 39th (Casey Mears).

Five races into the 2008 Sprint Cup season, the Fanhouse recaps the Top-5 lessons learned in 2008. Check back each day to get revved up for Sunday's Goody's Cool Orange 500 at Martinsville Speedway.

NASCAR on Fox has had a better start to its broadcast season over 2007, and no one is completely sure why.

The ratings have jumped 5.7% on average -- including the rain-plagued Auto Club 500 -- over last year's numbers. There isn't much that has changed in the sport that I'd think would increase ratings. A new car? More foreign drivers at the back?

Those don't seem like plausible reasons. Maybe it has something to do with Hendrick Motorsports being winless so far, or even the fact that Dale Earnhardt Jr. even has a legitimate shot to win races right now.

People tire quickly of watching the same winner in each race especially when its Jimmie Johnson winning two of the first five in 2007, or Jeff Gordon starting from the pole in two of those races.

Sure Carl Edwards has won two in 2008, but he's penalty after winning at Las Vegas kept people involved, not bored.

What: Kobalt Tools 500
Where: Atlanta Motor Speedway, Hampton, Georgia.
When: Sunday, March 9, 1:00p/ET on FOX (Green Flag 2:00p/ET)
Distance: 334 laps, 500 miles
Weather: Sunny, with a high near 56. Northwest wind around 5 mph.
2007 Winner: Jimmie Johnson
Predictions: Keep Reading



Jack Roush's Community Relations

A hot topic all around Atlanta Motor Speedway this weekend has been the feud between Jack Roush and, well, the rest of the NASCAR garage.

Jeff Gordon keyed his in-car radio as he crossed the start/finish line Friday night at Atlanta Motor Speedway to end his qualifying run and called his lap "decent".

The lap turned out to be a little more than decent as Gordon won the pole for Sunday's Kobalt Tools 500. The pole was the 64th of Gordon's career.

Gordon paced all drivers with a lap of 185.251mph, just quicker than teammate Jimmie Johnson Dale Earnhardt Jr.*** who qualified 2nd for Sunday's race with a lap of 184.862mph.

Gordon was pleasantly surprised with his lap because in an interview after his run he called the car "evil" -- a common theme among several drivers Friday at Atlanta. The teams had the chance to test the next-generation car at Atlanta last fall, however, Goodyear changed the tire combination for this race, its first at the track.

That took many drivers for a loop, including Denny Hamlin who heartily disagreed with the practice of changing the tire from testing to the race. By changing the tire combination, teams can use very little of their notes from testing.

Overall grip appears to be the biggest factor for Sprint Cup drivers as the both the straightaway speeds and corner speeds have changed dramatically from the old car at Atlanta. Last year, Ryan Newman won the pole at over a 193mph average.

Five drivers failed to make the field including Ken Schrader, Bill Elliott, Johnny Benson, Burney Lamar, and John Andretti. For a complete field rundown, click here.

(***= Edited. Shout out to Becky for catching my mistake!)

This week's crash video of the week takes on a particularly nasty tone with 4-time Sprint Cup champion Jeff Gordon.

This incident, from Sunday's UAW-Dodge 400 in Las Vegas, happened after a restart with 5 laps to go. As you'll see, Gordon (in the green car) will slide underneath Dale Earnhardt Jr. (white car) as Matt Kenseth (blue car) heads up top.

As they enter turn 1, Gordon and Kenseth draw alongside each other and when they exit turn 2 at 0:14, they make contact.



Gordon admitted fault for the accident after he got tight off of turn 2, slid into Kenseth, and then lost control himself. The No. 24 then slid into a break in the inside wall, catching the front end and ripping it all to pieces.