Lead changes appear rare at Lowe's
CONCORD, N.C. -- Saturday's Nextel All-Star Challenge at Lowe's Motor Speedway produced an event-record smallest margin of victory with Kevin Harvick beating Jimmie Johnson by just 0.141. But the race also was short on excitement at the front, with just three lead changes among three drivers, leading some to predict that next week's Coca-Cola 600 on the same track will produce similar results.
"When we were in front, we could drive away or hang in there with those guys," Matt Kenseth said. "(Jeff Gordon) was a little better on long runs and so was (Kyle Busch), but we could really run with them. When we got behind, even in second or third place, you just couldn't do anything. You'd just get so tight, and you couldn't really get anything to work for some reason.
"So it was just real important to be in front."
Mark Martin, who finished third, said he believes he'll be in better position to win next week.
"My specialty is a little bit longer than 20 laps," he said, referring to the comparatively short segments of the all-star race. "We feel great. We also know that there are 15 cars that can really get it done and showed a lot of speed (on Saturday) and another four or five that'll show speed next week that didn't this week."
Kasey Kahne, who won both races at Lowe's last year but hasn't been much of a factor this season, finished 14th in the all-star race. Nevertheless, he's optimistic.
"We will get things worked out, we will," he told reporters. "We're making progress. ...We're confident we will get our performance level where we expected it to be, and that's running with the leaders each week."
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