2007 Sharpie 500

The 2007 Sharpie 500, the 24th race of the 2007 NASCAR Nextel Cup season was run on the newly repaved and reconfigured .533 mile Bristol Motor Speedway in Bristol, Tennessee on Saturday night, August 25, 2007.

2007 Sharpie 500
Race details
Race 24 of 36 in the 2007 NASCAR Nextel Cup Series season
Date August 25, 2007 (2007-August-25)
Official name Sharpie 500
Location Bristol Motor Speedway, Bristol, Tennessee
Course Permanent racing facility
0.533 mi (0.857 km)
Distance 500 laps, 266.5 mi (428.89 km)
Weather Temperatures reaching as low as 69.1 °F (20.6 °C); winds speeds reaching up to 8 miles per hour (13 km/h)[1]
Average speed 89.006 miles per hour (143.241 km/h)
Pole position
Driver
Gillette Evernham Motorsports
Time 16.016
Most laps led
Driver Kasey Kahne Gillette Evernham Motorsports
Laps 305
Winner
No. 99 Carl Edwards Roush Fenway Racing
Television in the United States
Network ESPN
Announcers Jerry Punch, Andy Petree and Rusty Wallace

This race was the tenth to use NASCAR's Car of Tomorrow, as Kyle Busch won the inaugural event with this car, the Food City 500 on March 25 this year. But that race was on 36-degree high banked turns and the old concrete surface. For this race, one of the most popular in NASCAR, the new concrete surface with its new progressive banked turns between 24 and 30 degrees made its NEXTEL Cup debut.

Pre-Race News

Qualifying

Kasey Kahne won the pole position on the newly rebanked and resurfaced track. This was Kahne's 14th start on the point. Juan Pablo Montoya joined Kahne on the front row; Montoya's second starting position is the best of his NASCAR career so far.

Failed to qualify: David Reutimann (#00), Sterling Marlin (#78), Brian Vickers (#83), Kevin Lepage (#37) and Stanton Barrett (#34).

Race

Carl Edwards won the Sharpie 500 for his second win of 2007 and the sixth of his career. Together, he and second-place finisher Kasey Kahne led 487 of the race's 500 laps. Kahne alone led 305 of them, more than in any other race in his career.

The rest of the Top 5 finishers were Clint Bowyer, Tony Stewart, and Dale Earnhardt, Jr.

Denny Hamlin suffered an engine failure and did not finish. It was the first such occurrence in 53 races.

Owing largely to the new, wider racing surface, there were only nine cautions at a track which typically sees 15 or more in a 500-lap Cup race. The first of those did not come until lap 127.

Jeff Gordon left with a 359-point lead over Stewart on top of the championship standings. Kurt Busch retained a 158-point lead over Earnhardt Jr. for the 12th and final position in the Chase. Gordon, Hamlin, Edwards, Matt Kenseth, and Stewart have assured themselves of participation in the NASCAR "playoff."

Top 10 results
Pos. No. Driver Car Team
1. 99 Carl Edwards Ford Roush Fenway Racing
2. 9 Kasey Kahne Dodge Gillett Evernham Motorsports
3. 07 Clint Bowyer Chevrolet Richard Childress Racing
4. 20 Tony Stewart Chevrolet Joe Gibbs Racing
5. 8 Dale Earnhardt Jr. Chevrolet Dale Earnhardt Incorporated
6. 2 Kurt Busch Dodge Penske Racing
7. 12 Ryan Newman Dodge Penske Racing
8. 43 Bobby Labonte Dodge Petty Enterprises
9. 5 Kyle Busch Chevrolet Hendrick Motorsports
10. 16 Greg Biffle Ford Roush Fenway Racing

References
  1. "Weather History for Bristol, Tennessee on August 25, 2007". The Old Farmer's Almanac. Retrieved 23 March 2014.
Previous race:
2007 3M Performance 400		 Nextel Cup Series
2007 season		 Next race:
2007 Sharp AQUOS 500
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