Nemechek Holds Off Rudd for NASCAR NexCup Victory

KANSAS CITY, Kan. October 10, 2004; Mike Harris writing for the AP reportred that Joe Nemechek completed a weekend sweep Sunday, holding off a charging Ricky Rudd to win the NASCAR Nextel Cup race at Kansas Speedway.

This one was almost as close as his half car-length victory over Greg Biffle in the Busch Series event Saturday, with Nemechek and Rudd racing side-by-side and bumping once with a lap to go before Nemechek took control again and beat Rudd to the finish by 0.081 seconds - about 1 1/4 car-lengths.

"There at the end I was trying to save gas and here come Ricky Rudd out of nowhere," Nemechek said. "I was like, `Holy Moley.' I had to get back on it. He got beside me one time, but I wasn't going to let it happen."

"The end off the race was pretty neat," said Rudd, who drove onto the apron and nearly spun out on the late restart before breaking out of the pack to chase down Nemechek.

"I got hung up in traffic and Joe had a half-a-straightaway lead on us," Rudd said. "I caught him somehow and I got to his door, but my car was slipping and I had to ease off so I didn't take us both out."

Rudd raced to only his second top-10 finish of the year, both coming since being reunited with crew chief Michael "Fatback" McSwain in August.

Nemechek was among a group of 10 drivers who stayed on track when cars ahead of them pitted during a caution period late in the race, moving from 14th to fourth.

Another yellow flag on the ensuing restart left him in the same spot, but the veteran racer, who started from the pole for the second straight race, charged to the front once the green flag waved for lap 218 of the 267-lap event.

He passed Rudd and Jamie McMurray and dueled with championship contender Elliott Sadler before grabbing the lead on lap 231, staying out front the rest of the way for his fourth career victory and first since May 2003 at Richmond.

Biffle finished third, followed by Sadler, Jeremy Mayfield and Kurt Busch, who came into the race with a 12-point lead over Dale Earnhardt Jr. in the Nextel Cup standings and finished Sunday leading Earnhardt, who finished ninth, by 29 points.

Jeff Gordon, who finished 13th, is third, 79 points behind after four of 10 races in NASCAR's new 10-man championship format.

Busch got a little lucky Sunday, avoiding damage when he spun midway through the race. He came back to finish in the top five for the fourth straight race, the only driver to accomplish that feat in every race since the 10-race playoff began. Earnhardt, coming off a victory in Talladega a week ago, got his fourth straight top-10 finish.

"We avoided a bit pitfall today," Busch said. "Our car was not very good when we were around other cars."

With six races remaining, Sadler is fourth in the standings, trailing Busch by 143 points, followed by Mark Martin, who finished 20th Sunday and is 150 points behind.

Jimmie Johnson and Ryan Newman, the defending Kansas City winner, both had another bad day in the championship. Each hit the wall in separate accidents, with Johnson finishing 32nd and Newman 33rd. They are eighth and ninth in the standings, both more than 200 points behind.

Neither television broadcaster NBC nor radio's Motor Racing Network needed to use delays they announced earlier in the week in the aftermath of Earnhardt using a vulgarity during a victory interview on live TV last weekend. NASCAR fined Earnhardt $10,000 and docked him 25 points, knocking him out of first place in the standings.

NASCAR president warned the drivers during the prerace drivers' meeting that they are still responsible to watch their language and not count on the delay to protect them. There were no reports of inappropriate language during the postrace interviews.