Stenhouse steals Nationwide race at Kansas

KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Ricky Stenhouse Jr. rallied from two laps down at Kansas Speedway to salvage his points day.

Then he stole a win, as well.

Stenhouse, the defending Nationwide Series champion, lucked into his sixth win of the season Saturday when leader Kyle Busch ran out gas heading into the final turn. A late caution extended the race by six laps, and it ran the fuel tanks dry of several cars at the front of the field.

Not Stenhouse, though. Because he ran into Joey Logano early into the race, dropping him two laps down during his stops for repairs, he was on a different pit sequence and had plenty of gas to make it to the end.

So he liked his chances when he lined up fifth on the final restart.

As the field prepared to take the green, Sam Hornish Jr. ran out of gas and NASCAR called off the start. It tacked on yet another lap, and that cost Paul Menard, who led a race-high 110 laps but ran out of gas as the field took the green.

Busch, who was seeking his first Nationwide win of the season and first in his Kyle Busch Motorsports entry, was the leader on the restart and jumped out to a comfortable lead. But his tank ran dry as he exited the third turn, and Stenhouse cruised past for the improbable victory.

“I saw Kyle and he was really shaking it down the back straightaway trying to make sure it had a lot of fuel and I thought it was good to go,” Stenhouse said. “But right in the center it ran out and I was able to sneak by him on the outside and get the win. That was exciting.”

The win tightened up the Nationwide championship race, too. Stenhouse was 13 points behind leader Elliott Sadler at the start of the race, but cut it to six points with three races remaining.

Sadler was fourth, and like teammate Dillon had to made a late pit stop for gas to avoid running out of fuel.

Big changes from

last year for Bowyer

and Edwards

Carl Edwards and Clint Bowyer returned to home track Kansas Speedway a year ago at very different points in their careers.

Edwards had claimed the top spot in the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship a week earlier and was locked into a tense title race. Bowyer used the venue to announce his next career move after a nerve-racking summer scouring a limited free agent market.

Things couldn’t be any more different a year later as they’ve returned for Sunday’s race.

It’s Bowyer, in his first year with Michael Waltrip Racing, who is now a title contender. Edwards, who lost the championship to Tony Stewart on a tiebreaker, is stuck in neutral after a steep drop-off.

“Man this thing is so competitive,” Edwards said. “I cannot express to you guys how quickly everyone leapfrogs in the garage.”

There is no better example than Bowyer and Edwards of how fast the landscape can change in the Sprint Cup Series.

Edwards, who still lives two hours away in his hometown, Columbia, Mo., goes into today’s race ranked 15th in the standings.

He’s not in the 12-driver Chase field and is stuck in a 64-race winless streak dating back to Phoenix in February 2011. It’s the longest drought of his nine-year Sprint Cup career.

Bob Osborne, his longtime crew chief, stepped down midway through this season for health reasons, and Edwards has been adapting since to Chad Norris.

This wasn’t what anyone had in mind after last year’s finale, which ended in a tie between Edwards and Stewart. The championship went to Stewart based on his five Chase victories, and Edwards sat down with the Roush Fenway Racing management group to figure out where they could have found that one difference-making point.

“Well, that didn’t work very well, did it?” he asked.

While teammates Greg Biffle and Matt Kenseth have won races and made the Chase, Edwards has struggled to match the consistency and repeat the dominance of last season. But he’s seen improvement, and has four top-10 finishes in the 12 races he’s been paired with Norris.

The contrast is Bowyer, from 90 minutes away in Emporia. He’s having the best season of his career with a team he wasn’t even sure he wanted to join.