Kansas gives NASCAR a spin

KANSAS CITY, Kan. -- The Chase turned chaotic in Kansas.

Greg Biffle won a wild NASCAR Nextel Cup race Sunday at Kansas Speedway that was twice stopped by rain, twice shortened for darkness and marred by wrecks that collected most of the 12 drivers vying for the series’ Chase for the Cup championship.

Even the win by Biffle, who isn’t in the Chase, sparked controversy when he coasted across the finish line under a yellow flag -- behind second-place Clint Bowyer.

“Man, what a crazy race,” said Jeff Gordon, who finished fifth to stay second in the Chase, six points behind Johnson, his teammate at Hendrick Motorsports and the reigning Cup champion.

Bowyer, the hometown favorite from Emporia, Kan., climbed to third in the Chase, 14 points back. But then the Chase contenders drop off sharply -- from fourth-place Tony Stewart, 117 points behind, to 12th-place Denny Hamlin, 248 back.

That’s because they and five other Chase drivers finished 29th or lower in the 43-car field after the barrage of accidents.

And the Chase could get jumped again next Sunday at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway, where big crashes and wild finishes are routine.

Biffle’s victory in the LifeLock 400 was his first since the Roush Fenway Racing driver won the season finale last year at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

“It’s just exciting being in Victory Lane again,” Biffle said. “Once we got into clean air [in the lead] this car was so good.”

But Biffle also was forced to defend his victory after Johnson, Gordon and others noted his No. 16 Ford crossed the finish line behind Bowyer and Johnson.

The race ended under caution after Juan Pablo Montoya blew a tire with three laps remaining. Typically, that would have set up a two-lap overtime finish once the track was cleared.

But NASCAR ended the race then because of impending darkness and the field is frozen when a yellow caution flag is thrown.

As Biffle slowly led the cars around behind the pace car, his car began sputtering. So he shut off the engine and coasted across the finish line, although Bowyer and Johnson got there first.

“The race was over, the caution was out, we were declared the winner,” Biffle said. “I can go start the car up and do some burnouts in the garage over here, do some doughnuts if that’ll make you feel better,” he said in the post-race news conference.

It was a bizarre conclusion to a race that ended 6 hours 15 minutes after it started in front of 110,000 because of two fast-moving thunderstorms that swept over the 1.5-mile Kansas tri-oval and caused the two delays totaling three hours.

After the second delay, NASCAR shortened the race to 225 laps from its originally scheduled 267 because darkness was approaching.

But on the first lap of the restart, Stewart hit the back of Martin Truex Jr., shoving him into Biffle teammate Matt Kenseth and causing both to crash.

Stewart’s Chevrolet escaped major damage but had a dented front left fender, and on the next restart the fender started rubbing the tire. But Stewart chose to keep racing rather than pit.

Several laps later his tire blew. Stewart slowed sharply and he was hit in the back by Kurt Busch, triggering another crash and prompting NASCAR to shorten the race again, to 210 laps. The crash also collected Carl Edwards, another Chase driver and Biffle teammate. Edwards finished 37th and Stewart was 39th.

“The craziness on track came when we went back to green,” said Johnson, who started the race in the back after crashing his main car in practice Saturday. “Everybody just started driving really aggressively.”

Before the race resumed after the second rain delay, it appeared Stewart might win after he successfully gambled on fuel strategy.

The race had just passed the halfway point -- which would make it official if it were rained out -- as the second storm approached. Most of leaders simultaneously had to pit for fuel.

But Stewart, running second behind Busch, stayed out and had the lead when the rain arrived. Many others in the Chase -- including Busch, Kenseth, Johnson and Gordon -- were shuffled deep into the field after pitting.

“We didn’t have much [fuel] left, but we had enough,” said Stewart, the two-time Cup champion and Joe Gibbs Racing driver. Stewart also won here a year ago with fuel strategy that left him coasting across the finish line with an empty tank.

Kyle Busch -- who was only 10 points behind Gordon in the Chase when the race started -- spun and hit the wall after being bumped from behind by Dale Earnhardt Jr., who will replace Busch at Hendrick Motorsports next year. Busch was irate after climbing from his mangled No. 5 Chevrolet, saying Earnhardt -- who did not qualify for the Chase -- “ran over me for no reason whatsoever.”

Earnhardt accepted the blame. “I want to apologize to his fans and their team and Kyle,” he said. “That was a bad mistake on my part.”

Busch returned after repairs but finished 41st.

Kyle Busch’s NASCAR Busch Series car failed post-race inspection after he won the series race here Saturday, NASCAR officials said.

james.peltz@latimes.com

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

The Chase

Nextel Cup standings through 29 out of 36 races.

*--* Driver Points Behind 1 Jimmie Johnson 5,506 -- 2 Jeff Gordon 5,500 -6 3 Clint Bowyer 5,492 -14 4 Tony Stewart 5,389 -117 5 Kevin Harvick 5,380 -126 6 Kyle Busch 5,370 -136 7 Carl Edwards 5,364 -142 8 Martin Truex Jr. 5,348 -158 9 Kurt Busch 5,329 -177 10 Jeff Burton 5,320 -186 11 Matt Kenseth 5,287 -219 12 Denny Hamlin 5,258 -248 *--*

Next race: Sunday, UAW-Ford 500, Talladega, Ala.