NASCAR - SUB-WAY

Two past champions, one popular veteran and one promising rookie, Greg Biffle was certainly not the guy under the spotlight in the Roush camp before the 2005 season. His stock, however, went up substantially with his three victories entering the MBNA RacePoints 400 at the Monster-Mile in Dover. On Sunday, the Washington State native earned some more RacePoints by taking his series-high fourth victory of the season, and positioned himself just 46 points behind series points leader Jimmie Johnson.

Despite his fourth victory and a post race wreck during his celebration, Biffle still didn’t put himself over the top.

Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart -- two past champions who came to the series with similar racing backgrounds, clashed again during the early laps at Dover International. Stewart, who tapped Gordon from the back and sent the “Rainbow Warrior” into the wall on lap 41, stirred up another controversy during his post race interview.

The wreck took Gordon out of the race and cost him serious points in the Nextel Cup chase. The four-time champion complained Stewart’s on track behavior soon after his race retirement, and vowed that he’s going to do the same to the 2002 champ in the future. "I just think it was uncalled for that early on and I guarantee the next time Tony Stewart's in my way, it won't take but about a half lap before he's outta the way."

It was Gordon’s third 30th or worse finish in a row, and put him 350 points behind series leader and his protégé Johnson in the standings.

Meanwhile, Stewart didn’t agree that Gordon has his own special rules on the track, and called him a whiner after the race. He asked Gordon to “Bring it on.”

"Jeff's always whining like that," Stewart said. "If somebody does something to Jeff it's always their fault. That's just Jeff Gordon. That's the way he's been ever since he's been down here. So that's fine. We can get into a car crash."

The Gordon-Stewart on track problem has long been brewing, and we shall see if the road rage continues between the two prominent drivers in the Nextel Cup.

Biffle would care less about the Gordon-Stewart rivalry, as long as he is not a part of it. The #16 driver led twice for 150 laps, and held off rookie Kyle Busch, his teammate Mark Martin and Johnson after a quick pitstop for four new Goodyears from his Roush Racing crew.

Roush Racing and Hendrick Motorsports swept the top 4. With Brian Vickers, Matt Kenseth and Kurt Busch finished sixth, seventh and ninth respectively, the two teams put seven cars in the top 10. Penske duo Rusty Wallace (5th) and Ryan Newman (8th) was sandwiched in between the Roush-Hendrick drivers, while Elliott Sadler, who led a career high 128 laps in the race, finished 10th. The M&M’s driver faded in the end after contenting for most of the race.

Raging Stewart finished 14th in the race. After a good early showing in his Chevrolet, the ‘other’ Gordon – Robby, finished 29th. The once off-road driver returned to his root and competed in the Baja 500 before the Dover race. He scored an overall 4-wheel and SCORE Trophy-Truck victory in the 37th Tecate SCORE Baja 500 in Ensenada, Mexico. - Kevin Ma

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