THE UAW-DAIMLERCHRYSLER 400 Nascar Nextel Cup Series opened to a crowd of 154,000 race fans on Sunday's race at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. In celebrating their tenth season, the Las Vegas Motor Speedway opened a new grandstand named for seven-time Nascar champion, Richard Petty. That is just the beginning because they are going to raise its infield and raise the bar for all speedways in the process in their new multi-million dollar renovation project which began on Monday of this week. There will be a new fan-friendly garage; additional banking to the speedway and pit row will be relocated closer to the grandstands with a state of the art media center.

During the course of the 270 laps the race started out strong with Greg Biffle in number 16 taking the lead position. In lap 2, Tony Stewart, #20 took the lead from Biffle on turn 3. It was a close race with seven caution flags but no real big accidents. In lap 10 Stewart was still in the lead over Biffle while Kyle Bush, #5 was working on taking second place. Rounding out the top five was Jimmie Johnson in #48, J.J. Yeley in #18, Greg Biffle in number 16 over took Tony Stewart in the middle of the race. In lap 15 the margin was bigger with Tony Stewart having a 2.145 second lead over Biffle. Jimmie Johnson was now in third place and Yeley was in 4th with Kyle Bush back to 5th, and Kenny Wallace, #34 was accessed a pass-through penalty for being too fast on pit row when he came in to change his right side tires. In lap 21 Biffle was falling back which moved Johnson to second and Yeley to third. The first caution flag was on lap 31 with Reed Sorensen #41 hitting the wall on turn two. And in lap three Mark Martin won the race out of the pits. Terry Labonte, #96, stayed out to lead a lap before heading to the pit for service. On lap 47 Martin lead the charge in turn one with Stewart, Johnson, Matt Kenseth; then on lap 48, Kyle Bush moved to the fifth place over Biffle. It wasn't until lap 101 that Matt Kenseth took the lead but Tony Stewart regained his lead. At that point Kenseth lead for a record 146 laps, including 34 of the last 35, but Jimmy Johnson moved past him on the outside on the final turn to win by 0.045 seconds, the closest finish in the nine year history of the race. There wasn't any big accidents, but there were enough fender benders to warrant nine caution flags throughout the race. The last few laps of the race had Matt Kenseth taking the lead with Tony Stewart and Kyle Bush. With three laps to go, after a caution flag Matt Kenseth was in the lead with Jimmie Johnson passing Kyle Bush and thanks to the caution flag overtook Matt Kenseth to win the race. Johnson stated, "It was a good race for us. We were probably going to finish second until the caution flag came out at the end. When that happen, I knew I had a shot at it and drove my butt off and was able to drive outside of Matt Kenseth and beat him to the finish. So I like it when a plan comes together." According to Johnson, the track surface is better racing when a track has aged. This track surface was slick so most drivers welcomed the change in the new banking of the turns.

Kyle Bush, the youngest driver on the Nascar circuit, who took third place seemed happy with his driving. "It was a great race for me, being able to race with these guys. I had a great run with the Kellogg Chevrolet and being able to put it upon the top three again in the second year in Vegas means a lot. I have to give myself a pretty good grade. I was able to keep the car straight all day and there was a few good saves out of it. There was a couple of times I let the car get a bit loose. But it was a great team effort that got us where we were."

The temperature on the track dropped 20 degrees from 80 to 63. It meant the drivers had to readjust. "We had to counter adjust from what we had been doing all day on trying to loosen our car to make it turn better, so it wasn't too bad. The caution flag came out at just the right time," stated Bush. Kyle Bush started racing at the age of 13 in Salt Lake City, Lake Havassu, and Las Vegas. According to him, he likes the Las Vegas Motor Speedway just the way it is, but the revamping of the turns will make the track faster but he hopes that it won't make it a one groove race track. That tends to happen when you put new pavement down on the track. But the young lad says they can adjust.

In reference to the business of racing he states, "The first thing I ever recognized and realized was that once I set my dreams and was able to reach for them, I ended up achieving them. So just keep digging."