Racebeat (03/03/03)
by Rich Romer

NASCAR Winston Cup: A Roush Racing car came into Las Vegas as the favorite to reach Victory Lane. One did, just not the driver the oddsmakers predicted.

Matt Kenseth -- not Las Vegas native Kurt Busch -- carried the banner for Roush Racing on Sunday by winning the UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 and solidifying his team's dominance at the desert speedway. Roush Racing cars have won four times in the track's six-year Winston Cup history. Since NASCAR's Winston Cup Series began racing in Vegas in 1998, Roush drivers Mark Martin, Jeff Burton and Kenseth have all made it to Victory Lane. Burton did it back-to-back in 1999 and 2000. Kenseth, who won a Winston Cup-best five races last season, got incredible help in the pits -- his crew gave his Ford four tires in 13 seconds on their final stop -- to jump out to a huge lead and beat Dale Earnhardt Jr. to the finish line by 9.104 seconds. Kenseth's crew has won the annual pit crew challenge the past two seasons.

Daytona 500 winner Michael Waltrip finished third in a Chevrolet and took over the Winston Cup points lead. He was followed by Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Bobby Labonte and Tony Stewart. Burton was sixth and Ryan Newman came back from falling two laps down early in the race to finish seventh in a Dodge. Defending race winner Sterling Marlin, Joe Nemechek and Steve Park rounded out the Top 10. Chevrolets took six of the Top 10 spots, leading to early season grumblings from the Fords and Dodges that the new version of the MonteCarlo has an advantage. Chevrolets won every race during Daytona's Speed Weeks. Only 11 cars finished on the lead lap, and the front five were all running individually at the end of the race with huge gaps between them on the 1.5-mile oval. It meant the best racing was actually for sixth, seventh and eighth place, and led to late-race contact between Marlin and Jimmie Johnson. The two were running side-by-side when Marlin wiggled just a bit coming out of Turn 4 on the final lap and tapped Johnson, sending him spinning through the infield grass. Johnson wound up 11th, the last car on the lead lap. It was a strange weekend for the Roush Racing cars, starting Friday when rookie Greg Biffle failed to qualify for the race. Then on Sunday, a Roush car won the race while another -- Martin -- finished last..