Gateway International Raceway has been counting down to the Nationwide Series Missouri-Illinois Dodge Dealers 250 on Saturday, with a year-by-year review of past series events at the track.

Here’s the 10th installment …

Edwards Scores Hometown Win
By Josh Weinrich

The NASCAR Busch (now Nationwide) Series celebrated its 25th anniversary of Anheuser-Busch’s sponsorship of the series in 2006. The St. Louis-based company celebrated its tenure as title sponsor by sponsoring the NASCAR event in its own backyard, the Busch Silver Celebration 250. That year was also the tenth year the series competed at Gateway International Raceway and the two milestones set the stage for one of the most prestigious events on the 2006 series schedule.

The race threw the race teams a curve ball. Not only did teams have a cooler track to race on due to a later start time than anticipated, but unleaded fuel was used for the first time in NASCAR competition. The 250-miler at Gateway was part of NASCAR’s evaluation period with the unleaded fuel.

By mid-July when the series came to GIR, Kevin Harvick had more than a comfortable margin in the series championship standings. Harvick, a two-time GIR winner, came to the St. Louis area with a 318-point lead over Columbia, Mo.-native, Carl Edwards. Coming off his fourth win of the ‘06 campaign, Harvick saw Gateway as an opportunity to put the championship on ice. With a third-place finish a year prior at GIR, Edwards was one of the pre-race favorites to roll into victory lane and keep pace with Harvick in the series standings.

Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin notched his sixth pole award of 2006. Hamlin’s #20 was not only the dominant car at the beginning of the race, but throughout the entire event. Hamlin’s closest challenger throughout the duration of the 200 laps came from hometown boy Edwards. The Roush Fenway Racing driver looked to be one of the only drivers that could keep pace with Hamlin.

With only two cautions for 11 laps, and the last coming on lap 109, lapped traffic and green flag pit stops were the deciding factor at GIR. Hamlin and Edwards waged an intense battle for the top spot in the closing stages as the two worked their way around lapped cars.

With not enough fuel to reach the checkered flag, the field hit pit road under green with less then 25 laps remaining. Edwards hit pit road for two tires and Hamlin followed several laps later and took four tires. The distance Edwards gained on pit road was enough to score his first GIR win. Hamlin’s strategy backfired and fell to third, relinquishing second position to Clint Boywer on the final lap.

JR Motorsports debuted a second car for the first time in the team’s history. Then-Hooters Pro Cup Series driver, Shane Huffman, drove the #83 Make-A-Wish Chevrolet to a 27th place finish. Huffman drove in 18 races for JR Motorsports the following year. JR Motorsports now has two full-time teams in the Nationwide Series, with both Brad Keselowski and Landon Cassill racing at Gateway this year.

Reed Sorenson, the defending race winner coming into the event, was looking to become the third back-to-back Gateway winner joining the ranks of Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Kevin Harvick. Sorenson, with the same team he won with the year before, was the highest-finishing Dodge driver, but came up just shy with a fourth-place finish. To date, the finish is Sorenson’s lowest finish at Gateway.

Edwards, Sorenson, and the rest of the NASCAR Nationwide Series returns to Gateway International Raceway Saturday for the Missouri-Illinois Dodge Dealers 250. For tickets, call 866-35-SPEED or visit GatewayRaceway.com.

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