2008 Sharpie 500

The 2008 Sharpie 500 was the twenty-fourth race of the 2008 NASCAR Sprint Cup season and was raced on Saturday night, August 23 at Bristol Motor Speedway in Bristol, Tennessee. The event has been considered one of the toughest tickets in all of sports, tougher than the Super Bowl or the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics, and is annually a sellout, of which this was the 53^rd in a row for NSCS racing at the convert|.533|mi|km track. ESPN telecast the race beginning at 7 PM US EDT and Performance Racing Network along with Sirius Satellite Radio will had radio coverage starting at that same time.

Pre-race News

* The 2009 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series schedule was formally announced on Tuesday (8/19). The biggest change is a three-way swap of dates between Auto Club Speedway, Talladega Superspeedway and Atlanta Motor Speedway, with California becoming part of the 2009 Sprint Cup Chase and Atlanta becoming a Sunday night Labor Day weekend event.
* Tony Stewart announced a change in number for his new Hoosier teammmate Ryan Newman at Stewart Haas Racing for the 2009 season. Reports said that the car would carry #4, but Morgan McClure Motorsports, which has not been running this year, objected and are hoping for a comeback next year. Newman will now carry the #39 next year.
* The 2008 economic crisis has swallowed up another major sponsor. Texaco's Havoline brand motor oil, owned by Chevron, has announced that they will not return to NASCAR. The current sponsor of the #42 Chip Ganassi Racing Dodge driven by Juan Pablo Montoya was best known for years as the sponsor of the #28 Robert Yates Racing Ford first driven by Davey Allison and then Ernie Irvan before moving a few years ago to Ganassi.
* Donnie Wingo, the crew chief for the #41 Reed Sorenson Dodge for Chip Ganassi Racing was docked $25,000 for a violation of an improperly attached weight at last week's 3M Performance 400.
* Ken Schrader will drive the #96 Hall of Fame Racing Texas Instruments DLP Toyota this week in place of Brad Coleman.
* Four drivers in the second through fifth positions can clinch spots in the 2008 Chase for the Sprint Cup this week. Carl Edwards, Jeff Burton, Jimmie Johnson and Dale Earnhardt Jr. can lock up positions by finishing this week's race.
* Casey Mears will take over the wheel of the #07 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet for 2009, and Clint Bowyer will move to the #33 car, to be sponsored by General Mills.

Qualifying

Carl Edwards won the pole for the race.

Failed to qualify: Jeff Green (#34), Johnny Sauter (#34), Patrick Carpentier (#10), Stanton Barrett (#50)

Race Recap

Since the addition of the Car of Tomorrow and the repaving of the track, many fans thought that the old days of Bristol were over. These thoughts however were blown away in the closing laps of the race when Carl Edwards used the "Bump and Run" technique to get past Kyle Busch for the win, causing a post race confrontation where Busch rammed into the side of Edwards car during the cool down lap. Edwards responded by spinning Busch out as Busch turned to enter pit road. It should be noted though that Busch used the same technique to take the lead from Carl Edwards on lap 55. Kyle Busch was called to the NASCAR Hauler after his post-race interview for the incident, and on August 27, both Edwards and Kyle Busch were put on probation for the next six Sprint Cup Races. The race was also red-flagged at Lap 210 after an accident commonly called "The Big One" saw nine cars - including Chase contender Kasey Kahne - pile up in Turn 2.