Jeff Burton Takes Checkered Flag At Lowe’s CONCORD, N.C. — As Jeff Burton raised a glass of champagne to toast Saturday night’s Sprint Cup victory at Lowe’s Motor Speedway, he reminded the crowd that the Chase was only halfway over.”There’s a lot that’s going to happen between now and then,” said the 41-year-old driver, who is seeking his first title. “I mean, I know everybody keeps saying this, everybody wants to give somebody a trophy right now. Just hold on for a little while.”Yes, hold on.What we’ve learned five races into NASCAR’s 10-race playoff is that no lead is safe. Just ask Kyle Busch, who entered the Chase with a 30-point lead but is 326 back and out of contention after mechanical failures sidelined him in the first three events.Just ask Carl Edwards, who in the blink of an eye at LMS went from being a serious threat to a long shot, falling to 168 points back in the time it took ignition problems to leave him 33rd.Just ask points leader Jimmie Johnson, who after the race sounded like he trailed Burton by 69 points instead of leading him by that margin after a sixth-place finish at one of Johnson’s favorite tracks. “Right now I’m pissed about tonight,” the two-time defending Cup champion said. “But, you know, tomorrow, Tuesday, whatever it is, [I’ll] be ready for Martinsville.”Like Burton, Johnson reminded us that the Chase is far from over. He believes from experience that even Edwards still has a chance.[+] EnlargeAP Photo/Chuck BurtonDale Earnhardt Jr. is 354 points off the Chase lead after a blown tire sent him into the wall at Lowe’s Motor Speedway. “Heck, I was [down] more than that after Talladega,” he said, recalling the 2006 Chase.Well, almost. Johnson trailed by 156 points before his unbelievable run of a win and four seconds in five straight races. But he had seven people ahead of him, compared to the three — Johnson, Burton and Greg Biffle — now in front of Edwards. So anything can happen.”Everybody understands that you can lose a ton of points — 200 or 300 in a space of a few weeks,” said Edwards, trying to remain positive. “We all know that can happen. This thing is far from over.”Burton certainly understands. In ‘06 he left Charlotte with a 45-point lead over second-place Matt Kenseth and 146-point advantage over Johnson. By the time Burton reached the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway, he was in seventh, 247 back.”There’s going to be some things that happen to every team that you can’t control,” Burton said.But Johnson is definitely in the driver’s seat to become the first three-peat champion since Cale Yarborough (1976-78), despite how uncomfortable Johnson looked sitting between Kurt Busch and Kasey Kahne during the postrace press conference.Johnson is heading to a Martinsville track where he had won three straight before Denny Hamlin captured the spring race and where he has won four times since 2004 and has finished no worse than fourth in nine of the past 10 races. “They’ve been incredible at Martinsville,” Burton said. “I mean, Hendrick in general, between Jeff [Gordon] and Jimmie, they’ve been … I mean, give them the clock.” Burton was referring to the grandfather clock given to the winner at the half-mile track in the Virginia mountains. Johnson and Gordon have eight of the past 10.Johnson also is strong at the four other remaining tracks, particularly Atlanta and Phoenix. But Burton knew coming into the Chase that Johnson was going to be a contender, just as he knew Johnson was favored to win Saturday.

Everybody understands that you can lose a ton of points — 200 or 300 in a space of a few weeks. We all know that can happen. This thing is far from over.

— Carl Edwards That doesn’t mean he or anybody will stop trying.”We understand that we’ve got to beat them,” Burton said. “But the only way we can beat them is for us to pay attention to what we’re doing.”Burton rightfully laughed when it was suggested he’s in a better position to win the Chase now than he was in ‘06 when he had the lead. “The only reason you wouldn’t want the lead is because you’re messing yourself up in your head,” he said. “If somebody gives us a hundred points a day, I’d take ‘em.” No, the Chase isn’t over. Johnson’s lead isn’t as safe as a 3-0 advantage in the World Series or NBA playoffs.Not one driver has gotten through the entire Chase since it started in 2004 without at least one hiccup. That means Johnson and Burton — the only Chase drivers with top-10s in each of the first five races — likely will face some adversity.As Johnson pointed out, he didn’t get back in contention in ‘06 without a lot of people having problems. That’s why he was so upset with the way he faded on Saturday. He knows the 30 points he lost over the final 25 laps, when he appeared headed to a pass for the lead, could be vital before this is over. “Took a lot of risks trying to get as many points as I could on [Biffle] and trying to hang with [Burton],” Johnson said. “Damn near threw it away a couple of times.”At least 11 guys trailing him in points were hoping he would. NASCAR’s top brass, hoping for a close Chase at a time of the year when the ratings typically slide to the NFL and college football, might wish him some ill fortune as well.Bottom line, as Burton said with champagne glass in hand: We’re only halfway home.”Anything can happen,” he said. “And, by the way, it probably will happen.”David Newton covers NASCAR for ESPN.com. He can be reached at dnewtonespn@aol.com.

TOLEDO, Ohio — Justin Allgaier won the ARCA RE/MAX Series season title Sunday, beating Matt Carter by 0.579 seconds in the Hantz Group 200 at Toledo Speedway for his third straight victory and sixth of the year.The 22-year-old Allgaier, coming off wins at New Jersey and Talladega, entered the week third in the standings behind Scott Speed and Ricky Stenhouse Jr.Speed finished 34th Sunday after being parked for intentionally wrecking Stenhouse in retaliation for another wreck. Stenhouse ended up 25th, 69 laps behind.”This is unbelievable,” Allgaier said. “We came in hoping to protect our third-place position in points — we had Frank [Kimmel] right behind us. We came in with nothing to lose, so we did what we do every week, we raced as hard as we could and went for the win. As things turned out, it also brought our team the championship.”I’m so proud of all these guys on this crew. They’re the reason I’m up here tonight. I’m so relieved this is over. Now we can really focus on the Nationwide races at Texas and Homestead. This really helps with the confidence.”Allgaier, driving his family’s No. 16 Hoosier Tire Midwest-AG Tech-Auto Xpress Chevrolet, got underneath Carter 12 laps from the finish and drove away for his eighth career victory in the series.On Lap 27, Stenhouse, running third right behind Speed, got into the back of Speed heading into the third turn. Speed drifted up the track and hit the wall, causing extensive damage to the right side of the car.”He [Stenhouse] was on my bumper and he pushed me flat out until I hit the wall,” Speed said. “And then the car was completely undrivable. It wasn’t even close. It was so bad from hitting the wall. I couldn’t do anything with it.”Stenhouse started it and he isn’t going to win this championship with that attitude. That was ridiculous. That was the most blatant thing I ever saw in my life.”After losing a lap on pit road, Speed returned to the track. Then, as the leaders, including Stenhouse, drove to the high side of Speed to put him another lap down, Speed turned right as Stenhouse was going by, sending Stenhouse hard into the wall.”I didn’t really expect him to come after me after that, but when I saw him slowing down on the track, I knew that I was in trouble,” Stenhouse said.ARCA officials parked Speed for rough driving for the remainder of the race.Kimmel finished third in the race, followed by Patrick Sheltra, Tom Hessert III, John Wes Townley, Bryan Silas, Tayler Malsam, Parker Kligerman and Todd Bowsher.NASCAR Sprint Cup driver David Ragan was 15th, three laps down, in the race slowed by 12 caution periods that consumed 83 laps.Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press

CONCORD, N.C. — Make it 20 wins this season for Kyle Busch, NASCAR’s dominant workhorse.Overcoming his recent bad luck that has virtually ended his chances at a Sprint Cup championship, Busch returned to his familiar spot in the Nationwide Series on Friday night, cruising to a win in the soggy, wreck-filled Dollar General 300.The victory was the ninth for the 23-year-old Busch in NASCAR’s second-tier series. He has won eight Cup races and three more in the Craftsman Truck Series.The busy Busch’s 70th race of the season followed a familiar script for Joe Gibbs Racing, whose teams have won 18 of the 31 Nationwide races.Busch started 16th, but his superior No. 18 Toyota was on display early. He quickly moved to the front and led 137 of the 200 laps.”This year has been one of those phenomenal seasons for us on the Nationwide side,” Busch said. “You cherish them when you can.”Busch pulled away from Jeff Burton on a restart with three laps to go, despite taking just two tires on his final pit stop. Burton held on to finish second and Brian Vickers was third.Points leader Clint Bowyer finished fourth and maintained his 196-point lead over Carl Edwards, who was fifth.The race, which included 14 Sprint Cup drivers and six in the Chase for the championship, never got into a flow thanks to rain and wrecks.There were two rain delays totaling more than an hour, and 13 cautions for 58 laps.”This is when you question your Nationwide involvement,” Burton said. “We’ve got a Cup race tomorrow and it’s 12:30. NASCAR did all they could do to get the race going, and they did the right thing. It’s a late night.”But a finish well after midnight didn’t affect Busch, who completed a Nationwide sweep at Lowe’s Motor Speedway, and softened some of his disappointment from his recent weeks in the Sprint Cup.Busch hasn’t finished better than 15th since the season-ending Chase began, dropping him to 11th in the standings behind leader Jimmie Johnson.But in a field that included several Cup veterans and inexperienced drivers, nobody could challenge Busch.It didn’t mean the volatile driver didn’t upset some folks. Several drivers complained that Busch was brake checking on restarts. There were several mishaps with cars running in the back of others as the green flag waved.”I didn’t think it was necessary. He far and away had the fastest car,” Vickers said. “I don’t think there was a need to wreck the field on multiple restarts.”Busch said he was waiting for Burton to get closer to his rear bumper so he wouldn’t gain momentum by hanging back.”As far as I’m concerned I don’t think I did anything wrong,” Busch said. “I might have been doing Jeff Burton a favor because NASCAR rules state that if you hang back more than a car length you may be black-flagged. … I just waited for him to get to my rear bumper and he had to check up or run into the back of me.”While Vickers said he’d bring up the restart concerns before Saturday’s race, the story line of the soggy race week here has been the running feud between Edwards and Kevin Harvick.But it produced no further fodder in Friday’s race.A day after they were involved in an argument in the garage and had to be separated by their crew members, the two played nice on the track despite running side-by-side much of the night.The two have been at odds since Edwards caused a 12-car accident that collected Harvick in Sunday’s Sprint Cup race at Talladega. Harvick then criticized Edwards’ driving style and called him “a pansy” in a television interview.But few were able to avoid the myriad of wrecks.Joey Logano, the 18-year-old prodigy making his Lowe’s Motor Speedway debut, got loose and hit the wall on the 106th lap. He returned to the track and got back on the lead lap, finishing 14th.Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press

Jeff Burton Takes Checkered Flag At Lowe’s CONCORD, N.C. — Carl Edwards began the weekend with his hand around Kevin Harvick’s throat.He ended it with his championship hopes all but choked away.No, it hasn’t been a good three days for the backflipping driver sponsored by a duck at Lowe’s Motor Speedway. It hasn’t been a good week, period.From starting a multicar crash at Talladega Superspeedway on Sunday to getting in a physical confrontation with Harvick on Thursday to an electrical ignition problem early on Saturday night, he has gone from Chase contender to Chase pretender in less than seven days.The 33rd-place finish dropped Edwards from second place, 72 points behind Jimmie Johnson, to 168 back in fourth with five races remaining in the Sprint Cup season.”I can guarantee you that if I had the week to do over again, the last seven days would be a lot different,” Edwards said in a soft-spoken, humble tone. “But you just have to do what you think is right at the time and move on after that.”I truly believe that the only place I failed this week real big was to let things get to me. What’s the saying? You can’t control anything but your attitude. That’s something I let myself down a little bit on this week. I’ve got to work on that. Tonight was another good test.”Edwards has run the gamut of emotions since Lap 174 at Talladega, where he took out himself, Harvick, Roush Fenway Racing teammates Greg Biffle and Matt Kenseth, and a host of others while trying to push Biffle to the front with an ill-planned bump-draft in the corner.Saturday night was a microcosm of the week. [+] EnlargeAP Photo/Gerry BroomeCarl Edwards sat on pit road for 16 laps while his crew worked on the 99’s ignition.It began when Edwards was forced to pit on Lap 52 with a loose wheel. He appeared to have gotten a break when AJ Allmendinger crashed, bringing out a caution.But before he got to the end of pit road — at least according to NASCAR — leader Johnson passed him on the track to put him a lap down. Edwards and crew chief Bob Osborne argued feverishly with NASCAR that they got out ahead of Johnson and later that they deserved the free pass, but the governing body didn’t agree.”This is a joke,” Osborne radioed. “This is unbelievable.” It got more unbelievable as Edwards attempted to pit again under caution. As he pulled from his stall the crew radioed, “Back up! Back up!” so they could tighten a loose lug nut.But the real trouble didn’t begin until Lap 67, when Edwards’ car began having ignition troubles. Stalled on the track, he needed a push from a tow truck to get back to pit road.He sat there 16 laps as crew members scrambled to fix the problem that didn’t get corrected until both ignition boxes were replaced. By then Edwards was headed for consecutive finishes outside the top 16 for the first time this season in a car he thought was good enough to win.”That’s the frustrating part,” Edwards said. “There’s nothing wrong with the car now. It’s real fast. It just took too long to fix that.”Edwards entered the Chase on a roll with three wins and seven top-10s in seven races. His worst finish during that stretch was a 13th at Richmond.He began the Chase with a bang as well, finishing third at New Hampshire and Dover and second at Kansas after a last-lap pass of Johnson left him against the wall.

I can guarantee you that if I had the week to do over again, the last seven days would be a lot different.

— Carl Edwards He appeared poised for a solid finish at Talladega until causing the crash that apparently didn’t sit well with Harvick, who referred to him as a “pansy” for hanging around the back of the field much of the day.Edwards, upset about the comment and a 29th-place finish, left a note on the seat of Harvick’s airplane that, after a few expletives, said, “I was really trying to screw up everyone’s day. Love, Carl.”Then the real fun started. Edwards, passing by Harvick’s stall in the Nationwide Series garage on Thursday, asked the Richard Childress Racing driver if he’d found the note. When Harvick turned to walk away, witnesses said Edwards grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around. That led to a shoving and choking match that sent Edwards onto the hood of Harvick’s No. 33 Nationwide car.Harvick said he simply was “protecting our turf.”"You’ve just got to be careful who you want to pick a fight with,” Harvick said. “If you want to pick a fight with the wrong person sometimes it turns around and bites you, no matter how big and tough you think you are.”On Saturday, a mechanical issue took a big bite out of Edwards’ Chase hopes.But the fire Edwards showed during the confrontation with Harvick was replaced by a calm voice resigned to a bad day.”I just didn’t have much to say,” Edwards said. “It seems the more I do or say this week, the worse off I am, so I just wanted to get to the end of the race and go do some testing and go race at Martinsville. I’ve never been so excited to race at Martinsville in my life.”Osborne said the last week has been a learning experience for his driver, who finished tied for second in the 2005 Chase. “He’s growing as a person, growing as a driver, we’re growing as a team,” he said. “We’re all learning from all the situations that we’re involved in. Next week we’ll be a better team because of it.”Team owner Jack Roush, who a few months ago said Edwards was in the best position of his career to win a title, agreed.”We’ve got to endure times like this,” he said. “This a very contentious, very problematic business. Things quite often don’t work out the way you like. Depending on how you deal with adversity during tough times is what your likelihood of winning championship is.”Edwards dealt with adversity better than most on Saturday. Instead of parking his car and rushing for the helipad, he faced the questions he knew were coming.”The last six or seven days have not been good,” he said. “Not good. From causing a wreck that takes out a bunch of my teammates to letting what people say bother me to going and making a bad decision about that to this race, it’s not a good seven days. “But if these are the worst seven days this year that’s great. I’ve got a lot of good things going for me.”David Newton covers NASCAR for ESPN.com. He can be reached at dnewtonespn@aol.com.

CONCORD, N.C. — One by one the title contenders dropped out Saturday night, giving Jimmie Johnson a clear shot at widening his lead in the Chase for the championship.

Lowe’s Results

Jeff Burton took the checkered flag at Lowe’s, jumping from fourth to second in Chase standings along the way. This was Burton’s second win of the season but first since March 16 at Bristol. 1. Jeff Burton, Chevrolet 2. Kasey Kahne, Dodge 3. Kurt Busch, Dodge 4. Kyle Busch, Toyota 5. Jamie McMurray, Ford 6. Jimmie Johnson, Chevrolet 7. Greg Biffle, Ford 8. Jeff Gordon, Chevrolet 9. Mark Martin, Chevrolet 10. David Ragan, Ford

Complete results Not so fast, thought Jeff Burton, who used three gas-only pit stops to pull off a victory that catapulted him into championship contention.Burton culminated savvy pit strategy on a final stop, going into the pits with the lead and taking fuel only to make sure he was still out front on the restart with 34 laps to go at Lowe’s Motor Speedway. Johnson staged a brief battle for the lead, but Burton held steady to snap a 25-race winless streak.The victory, his second of the season, pushed Burton from fourth to second in the standings with five races to go to decide the title. He trails Johnson by 69 points.”We’re halfway. It’s a long way and a lot of stuff is going to happen,” Burton said. “Everybody wants to give somebody the trophy right now. It’s way too early. It’s our job to put ourselves in position to give ourselves a chance.”Kasey Kahne, who swept the May races at the track, finished second and was followed by Kurt Busch.Kyle Busch, the regular season points winner, was fourth for his best finish since the Chase began five weeks ago. Jamie McMurray was fifth, and Johnson faded over the final few laps to finish sixth.Greg Biffle, Jeff Gordon, Mark Martin and David Ragan rounded out the top 10.The night was a disaster for several Chase contenders, including Carl Edwards, who entered the race second in the standings. He lost power in his Ford early and finished 33rd to likely lose his shot at his first Sprint Cup title.

Staying On Track

You can call Jeff Burton Mr. Consistent. With Saturday’s win, Burton has finished in the top 10 of all five Chase races this year. Burton In 2008 Chase Date Track Result Oct. 11 Lowe’s 1st Oct. 5 Talladega 4th Sept. 28 Kansas 7th Sept. 21 Dover 9th Sept. 14 New Hampshire 4th It ended a drama-filled week for Edwards, who caused a 12-car accident last Sunday in Talladega then scuffled with Kevin Harvick in the garage area at Lowe’s.He left fourth in the standings, 168 behind Johnson.”It’s not good,” Edwards said. “I think we’re still fourth, though, so there are only three guys in front of us. There’s no other way to put it. It’s just a bad week. That’s all there is to it.”Johnson, who was 146 points out after this race in 2006, said he’s not ready to call Edwards out of it just yet.”If us top three guys have problems, they’re right back in it,” Johnson said. “It’s a decent margin, but we’re only halfway through it. If we go clean, that’s going to be really tough for [Edwards] to overcome. But if we have trouble, he’s going to be right back in it.”Dale Earnhardt Jr. fared worse than Edwards, finishing 36th after his tire exploded a lap before he planned to head to pit road to have them changed. He’s 10th in the standings.Matt Kenseth was caught in a mid-race accident and finished 41st to drop to 11th in the standings.Gordon seemed poised to end his yearlong losing streak, leading several times for 47 laps despite two hard bounces off the wall very early in the race. He had to pit just 10 laps into the race to change tires after hitting the wall, but still managed to make his way back to the front.He gave up the lead for an off-sequence pit stop and never made it back to the front. He took four tires on the final pit stop, which mired him too far back into the field to make a run at the leaders over the final sprint to the finish.”I’m so bummed I got in the wall early,” said Gordon, who has not won since a victory at the track last October. “We had to come back from that and lead this race. I knew we were out of sequence — it’s amazing how great the car is out front and how terrible when you get six cars back.”We just got the best thing we could out of it there at the end and I’m very happy.”Johnson was not.He thought he had a shot at winning the race, but his late fade had him aggravated after the finish.”We were junk at the end,” he said. “I tried to get up there. Took a lot of risk tonight, tried to get as many points as I could. Tried to hang with [Burton] and get by him, damn near threw it away a couple of times. The last third of the race we got out in left field and couldn’t get it back.”Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press

NASCAR Now Minute: Edwards And Harvick Scuffle CONCORD, N.C. — Carl Edwards and Kevin Harvick were warned before Saturday night’s Sprint Cup race at Lowe’s Motor Speedway not to let the physical confrontation they had on Thursday spill over onto the track.Edwards and Harvick met with NASCAR president Mike Helton, vice president of competition Robin Pemberton and series director John Darby following the drivers’ meeting.There will be no fines and neither was placed on probation.”NASCAR wants to make sure everything is fine, that it is behind them,” NASCAR spokesman Jim Hunter said. “And it is.”Edwards and Harvick left NASCAR’s hauler together, chatting as though they were long-time friends.That wasn’t the case in the Nationwide Series garage on Thursday when the two were involved in a confrontation that photos show including shoving and choking.[+] EnlargeAP PhotoSprint Cup drivers Kevin Harvick and Carl Edwards, right, scuffle Thursday in the Nationwide series garage area during practice in Concord, N.C.Edwards stopped by Harvick’s garage stall to discuss what he considered unnecessary comments that Harvick made after he triggered a multi-car accident in Sunday’s Sprint Cup race at Talladega Superspeedway.When Harvick turned to walk away witnesses said Edwards grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around. That led to a shoving match that sent Edwards onto the hood of Harvick’s No. 33 Nationwide car.Harvick said he simply was “protecting our turf.””You’ve just got to be careful who you want to pick a fight with,” Harvick said after qualifying for Friday night’s Nationwide Race. “If you want to pick a fight with the wrong person sometimes it turns around and bites you, no matter how big and tough you think you are.”Reminded that Edwards is in the thick of the Cup race, trailing two-time defending Cup champion Jimmie Johnson by 72 points, Harvick responded, “So are we.”After a brief pause, Harvick, who is 171 points out of first, added, “I could give two s—- about who Carl Edwards is and what he’s in the race for.”Edwards, who pulled up behind Harvick on pit road after knocking Harvick out of the top three in qualifying, refused to get into the war of words.”It doesn’t matter,” he said. “The truth, it just doesn’t matter. I am what I am, he is what he is. If those things are different, that’s fine. It doesn’t bother me.”Edwards said he’s not concerned about racing around Harvick in any series, and the two had no trouble racing side by side in the Nationwide race.”No matter what we think of each other personally, one of the best races I ever had in my life was Phoenix [2005] with him,” Edwards said. “It was one of the neatest races I’ve ever been a part of. He’s always been like that, one of those guys you can race literally an inch from, and it’s awesome. I hope that doesn’t change.”Neither wanted to be around the other at Talladega after Edwards triggered a crash on lap 174 of 188 that took out Roush Fenway Racing teammate Greg Biffle, Harvick and several other Chase contenders.”I know that his fans won’t be very proud of him sitting back there riding around like a pansy,” Harvick said of Edwards after the incident. “If he had been racing all day, maybe he would have known how long the front of his car was.”Edwards then left a note on the seat of Harvick’s airplane that reportedly said, “I was really trying to screw up everyone’s day. Love, Carl.”Harvick said the whole situation could have been handled differently, adding he hadn’t been a part of such a situation since the fifth grade.Reminded that Edwards got into a physical confrontation with teammate Matt Kenseth after a race last season, he said, “Obviously, there’s a common denominator.”Jack Roush, Edwards’ team owner, understood Harvick’s frustration.”The wreck at Talladega we feel very, very bad about,” he said. “Carl was certainly not trying to do something to take Greg out. He made a mistake and people that didn’t have any equity in that had to pay the price. For Kevin to be upset about it is not unreasonable at all.”Roush was in Washington, D.C., on Thursday when he learned of the confrontation.”I believe it was to the point of being a very bad deal,” he said.Roush met with Edwards after returning to Charlotte. He was glad NASCAR had a meeting with both drivers.”I don’t know what was said between them, but I would hope based on my conversations [with Carl] that he was holding out a hand of friendship,” Roush said.David Newton covers NASCAR for ESPN.com. He can be reached at dnewtonespn@aol.com.

NASCAR Now Minute: Edwards And Harvick Get Into Altercation CONCORD, N.C. — Photographs of the scuffle between Carl Edwards and Kevin Harvick show a more physical confrontation than witnesses described, with Edwards at one point grabbing Harvick by the throat.The two NASCAR stars argued during Thursday’s practice when Edwards confronted Harvick in his garage stall at Lowe’s Motor Speedway. The photographs, obtained Saturday by The Associated Press, show the two drivers clutching each other as their conversation grew heated.In the five different frames, Edwards is shown grabbing Harvick by the throat, and Harvick pushing him off him and onto the hood of Harvick’s car.Witness accounts said the two argued, Harvick turned to walk away from Edwards, and Edwards grabbed his shoulder to turn him back around. Witnesses said Harvick responded by shoving Edwards onto the car, and crew members rushing in to separate the two.Edwards allegedly was put in a headlock by a Harvick team member as the drivers were separated.”It’s pretty well-documented everything that happened,” Harvick said Friday. “Best thing I can tell you is we were in our pit stall and just protected our turf.”The two have been squabbling since last Sunday, when Edwards triggered a 12-car crash that took out several championship contenders at Talladega Superspeedway. Edwards immediately accepted blame for the accident.Harvick was among the drivers most critical of Edwards and his strategy, which had been to run in the back of the field during the early part of the race to avoid danger, then charge to the front when the win was on the line.At the time of the accident, Edwards and his Roush Fenway Racing teammates Greg Biffle and Matt Kenseth were racing for the lead. All three wrecked, as did Harvick, who called Edwards “a pansy” for his race strategy.Edwards then delivered a sarcastic thank-you note to Harvick’s plane after the race.There was no willingness to forgive and forget by the time they rolled into Lowe’s, where both need strong runs Saturday night to stay in the championship hunt. Edwards is second in the standings, 72 points behind leader Jimmie Johnson, and Harvick is in sixth, 171 out.Edwards said Saturday he wants to concentrate on racing, saying he hopes that can still be done cleanly with Harvick.”No matter what we think of each other personally, one of the best races I ever had in my life was at Phoenix with him,” Edwards said. “It was one of the neatest races I’ve ever been a part of. He’s always been like that. One of those guys you can race literally an inch from and it’s awesome. I hope that doesn’t change.”Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press

For years I rode a yellow bus to school every morning. I always took for granted that it would be there, and I never really thought about how I’d get to school if it wasn’t. I was too busy getting beat up to worry about that. But as a looming recession puts pressure on budgets and fuel prices remain stubbornly high, many school districts find themselves having to cut their bus programs– eliminating stops, consolidating routes and in some cases ending service altogether. That’s limiting school choice options for many students, which critics say has the unintended effect of lowering students’ performance in some areas. In Pinellas County, Florida, rising transportation costs have resulted in a phase-out of a school-choice program that was a byproduct of school desegregation. In Milwaukee, a need for $20 million in budget cuts has compelled the city to stop bussing high-school students outside their home neighborhoods. And in Alabama, the Department of Education has replaced a program that buses students to better schools with extra tutoring at the ones they’re at now. Critics of these cuts say they’re a step backward for education in the United States. While the Supreme Court has in recent years restricted school integration efforts, school buses are critically important to magnet schools, school choice, open enrollment and other programs designed to improve student performance. Proponents of those programs say that they work to enforce the No Child Left Behind law by giving students in low-performing schools the option to go elsewhere. When a school district receives low performance grades for two years in a row, No Child Left Behind gives students living in that district the option to enroll in another. But cut bus programs, and many students don’t have the mobility to take advantage of this opportunity. "This is kind of closing the last door for urgently needed opportunities for kids who are in schools that are really dysfunctional and inadequate," says Gary Orfield, co-director of the Civil Rights Project, a UCLA research group. Many parents agree, and have pushed back against transportation cuts. In DeKalb County near Atlanta, the school superintendent reversed a decision to cut transportation to all choice schools, and in Birmingham, Alabama, a group called Citizens for Better Schools is keeping pressure on the department of education to insure that transfer rights are protected. If one thing is certain, it’s that cuts in student transportation will continue to be an issue. It’s almost guaranteed that in the short term, cities and states will face more revenue shortfalls. That means they’re going to need to cut somewhere. Yellow buses and the people who depend on them may take the hit. Photo by Flickr user Svadilfari

On the 15th anniversary of Nelson Mandela receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, South Africa is gaining attention for another world-friendly achievement. This time, it’s an electric car from Cape Town-based Optimal Energy that’s grabbing headlines. The Joule has been the darling of the Paris Auto Show, and it’s easy to see why. The six-passenger car has a purported range of 250 miles, a 0-60 time of 4.8 seconds, and an out-of-nowhere backstory worthy of a Greg Gumble voiceover. Edmunds Inside Line reports that cost estimates are between $22,000 and $28,000 with an all-too-familiar release date of "somewhere in 2010." Production will take place in South Africa and the finished product will consist of about 50 percent local content. A strong addition to the 70-strong staff at Optimal Energy is Keith Helfet. Helfet is most famous for his designs of Jaguar’s F-type concept and XK220 and brings his expertise to South Africa’s nascent domestic car industry. Optimal says the car has "simple, elegant lines and [a] self assured stance." We think it looks like a cross between a Nissan Murano and a guppy, and it’s C-pillar is more of a C-wall, but we still want one. Video and more pictures after the jump. We’re sure that the phrase "South African motoring" brings to mind mustached men in pith helmets crossing the Transvaal in their dusty beige Defenders. That will all change if Joule is a success and South Africa gains a reputation as a home for carbon-friendly car manufacturing. Optimal takes pride in their home-grown creation, which was partially funded by a $6 million grant from South Africa’s National Research Foundation’s innovation fund. According to Optimal, the Joule has a number of options including two potential drivetrains: an electric motor turning the front wheels, or individual electric motors turning the rear or all four wheels. Additionally, the car can be configured with either one or two removable lithium-ion battery packs for either a 125 or 250 mile range. Standard equipment includes regenerative brakes and "all modern safety features such as side impact protection, ABS and airbags." So far, the reaction in Paris has been quite favorable, even though the car will be unavailable for media drives until "sometime in 2009." Words like "practical," "stylish," and "real winner" appear in most reviews — probably due to the car’s relatively long range and six-passenger capacity. The hometown press loves it. We can only foresee a few problems with Optimal’s effort. First, we wonder whether all those options will drive up the cost. Joule says that the battery packs have seven year life spans and will be leased rather than sold, but we don’t know whether that cost is included in the price of the car. Also, the car’s top speed is only 83 mph. That’s more than adequate for most commuters, but we imagine these won’t fly off the lots in Big Sky Country. We also worry about any startup in the current credit climate, and hope the Joule is completed sooner than Cape Town’s infamous highway system. Photos courtesy Optimal Energy, video courtesy YouTube user MotorCities.

CONCORD, N.C. — Just because deep remorse is eating on Carl Edwards doesn’t mean he’s about to ease up, back off, or in any way slow the show he has so singularly been putting on in NASCAR lately.”Not a chance,” he said Friday. “This is me. This is how I do things and how I race, and that’s the way it is.”If anything, his monstrous mistake at Talladega last Sunday — detonating a 12-car wreck that wiped out six Chasers, including all three on his own team — has left him even more eager to go all-out in Saturday night’s Bank of America 500.”I wish we could have started this race as fast as we could get here to race,” he said. “When it’s not going well — man, you just want to race and go get back on top.”Exuberance, though, was the problem at Talladega, said his primary victim there, teammate Greg Biffle. Edwards bump-drafted Biffle too hard, and hit his rear bumper off-center, in a turn. Biffle didn’t know what happened until he studied the video.”It’s obvious that he was just overanxious or excited,” said Biffle. That was very costly. Edwards and Biffle arrived at Talladega only 10 and 20 points, respectively, behind Chase leader Jimmie Johnson. They left 73 and 75 behind.”I thought Carl knew better,” said Matt Kenseth, the other Roush Chaser knocked out in the wreck. “He’s been preaching the stuff about being careful and working together and teammates and all this stuff, so I was disappointed it happened. But yet it was an accident, and that stuff will happen.”Edwards has talked this week with Biffle, Kenseth and team owner Jack Roush. Roush “wanted to make sure I understood, and I do now more than ever, how bad that was for everyone,” Edwards said. “I’ve thought about it a lot this week,” Edwards continued. “I hope those aren’t the points that cost everybody real big [that is, the margin by which a championship might be lost]. I hope we can make them up, but I also appreciate Greg telling me that he understands it was a mistake and not an intentional deal.”Biffle looks at the whole thing, including the points dip, about the way you view the dwindling of your 401(k) lately — little can be done about it now.”I know he didn’t mean to do it,” Biffle said. “Certainly he didn’t want to wreck himself. And that’s what he did, he wrecked himself.”[+] EnlargeAP Photo/Carolyn KasterGreg Biffle, Matt Kenseth and Carl Edwards enjoyed happier times earlier in the Chase, finishing 1-2-3 at Dover.The Roush cars are strong on intermediate tracks, so a dogfight a la Dover could develop among the teammates again Saturday night at 1.5-mile Lowe’s Motor Speedway.”There’s nothing I’m going to do about it now,” Biffle said, a vague indication he intends no retaliation against Edwards. “I’ve lost the points. We’ve wrecked the cars, and it’s going to do no good to point fingers …”Not everyone understood. Edwards got into a heated altercation with Kevin Harvick, another Chaser caught up in the Talladega melee, in the garage area at Lowe’s Motor Speedway Friday. But Edwards refused to comment on that run-in.Kyle Busch, also caught in the wreck — although he was pretty much hopeless in the Chase anyway — said that if he were Biffle, “I’d be mad. If it was Denny [Hamlin, Busch’s own teammate] doing that behind me, then I’d be pretty upset because he was a little overaggressive in trying to bump-draft.”Edwards’ on-track enthusiasm has put most of the pizzazz in NASCAR in the last two months. He outdueled Busch at Michigan … he knocked Busch out of the way to win at Bristol after Busch had dominated … he engaged in a late-race dogfight with Biffle and Kenseth at Dover, but lost to Biffle … he darted underneath Johnson on the last lap at Kansas and tried to pull a dirt-track-style “slide job,” but wound up hitting the wall harder than he’d planned, and lost to Johnson.Busch might appear to have an axe to grind in all this, following a feud that flared between him and Edwards in the Bristol aftermath. Yet he maintained objectivity toward his rival.Even before Talladega, Biffle had been critical of Edwards’ spectacular move at the end at Kansas.”I think his move at Kansas was fine,” Busch said. “There’s nothing wrong with that. He didn’t hurt anybody but himself. If he’d taken Jimmie into the fence with him, we’d be a little bit more critical.”But, “Last week he may have stepped over the line,” said Busch, the driver who himself is so aggressive he has two nicknames: “Wild Thing” and “Rowdy.”Does even Busch think Edwards is getting too aggressive? He shrugged, pondered … “It just seems like he’s done a couple of things in the past few weeks that people noticed,” Busch said. “I’ve had six weeks in a row, at times, where I’ve done just a little something that people noticed …”Mainly, Busch appreciates somebody taking the heat off him for a change.”Always,” Busch said. “It’s always good not to be in the limelight.”Regardless of the heat, Edwards steadfastly intends to do nothing but turn up the burners Saturday night and beyond.”Let me explain,” he said. “I go out there and race as hard as I can, just like all these guys, and sometimes it doesn’t work out the best. Really, there are going to be people who have opinions, or feel a certain way, and that’s just the way it is. “And that’s OK.”Ed Hinton is a senior writer for ESPN.com. He can be reached at edward.t.hinton@espn3.com.