BUSCH

• Bowyer conquers Dover in Nationwide race

  
  

  Dover, DE (Sports Network) - Clint Bowyer grabbed the lead from Kyle Busch with 83 laps remaining and then held off Mike Bliss and Brad Keselowski in a seven-lap shootout to the finish to win Saturday's Dover 200 Nationwide Series race at Dover International Speedway.

  Busch, who won at Dover one year ago, had the dominant car for the first half of the 200-lap race but Bowyer came on strong shortly after the midway point and took over from there.

  Bowyer, the 2008 Nationwide champion, recorded his second win in his ninth start this season. The Richard Childress Racing driver also posted his eighth career victory, including a win here in September 2006.

  "This hasn't been the best year for our Nationwide team," Bowyer said. "[Crew chief] Doug Randolph and the guys on this No.29 team dug deep. This is a new race car." Bliss, driving the No.11 Toyota CJM Racing Toyota for the first time this season, finished second, while Keselowski came in third. Keselowski bumped Denny Hamlin from behind, sending Hamlin into the inside wall after he was running in the fourth spot. The incident set up the seven-lap sprint to the finish.

  "[Denny] left a hole to pass him, and at this level, it's different than other levels because we have spotters, and I know for sure, my guys told me, that his spotter told him I was down there, and he just tried to take advantage of me," Keselowski said. "I'm not going to be pushed around." At the conclusion of the race, which was threatened by incoming rain, Hamlin waited for Keselowski on pit road, but both teams prevented any post-race altercations that might have occurred.

  "[Brad] has no idea how to race," said Hamlin, who finished 27th. "He'll get a ride and hang around for a couple of years. Then people will realize that he's not really that good." Keselowski will move over to the Sprint Cup Series next year, driving the No.12 Penske Racing Dodge, which is currently occupied by David Stremme.

  Busch encountered radio issues and had difficulty communicating to his team throughout the race. He also dealt with a loose car in the late stages before he wound up with a fourth-place finish.

  "We had a great car in the beginning," said Busch, who started on the pole and led a race-high 109 laps. "We might have started off a little bit tighter than everybody else, but the more the race went on the looser we got for some reason." Busch became the second driver in NASCAR's second-tier series to lead more than 2,000 laps for the season. Sam Ard led a total of 2,099 laps during his 28-race championship season in 1984. Busch also padded his lead to 211 points over Carl Edwards, who finished fifth.

  Jason Leffler, Reed Sorenson, Scott Speed, David Reutimann and Jason Keller completed the top-10.

  09/26 18:24:54 ET