Matt Kenseth was the winner of FedEx 400 at Dover International Speedway, following a 2-tyre pitstop strategy and doubled his 2011 Sprint Cup victories.
Although Mark Martin decided not to pit in the tyre-consuming concrete track during race's last restart taking the lead, it was 2-tyre Kenseth who quickly overtook him and maintained a comfortable lead to the finish, as most drivers who had taken four tires under caution, couldn't find enough grip in order to stay competitive.
In fact, the decision to put two tires on Kenseth's car wasn't made until the No. 17 Ford reached its pit box for the final stop on Lap 363, and it was a gamble suggestion from Kenseth to crew chief Jimmy Fennig, as Kenseth revealed later:
"Honestly, I was sitting on the track and thinking that we should stay out and get clean air and try it, because I knew we wouldn't win if we took four. Jimmy wanted four, but as I was driving down pit road, I thought maybe we could compromise. While I was on the jack, I asked if he was sure we didn't want to try two, and he said to put on two. It was really Jimmy's call and just a suggestion by me. It was tough to pass on top of that rubber out there [that continued to build up on the track]."
Martin finished second, followed by Marcos Ambrose, Kyle Busch and Brian Vickers, as tyre strategies prevailed of what had been earlier a heated duel between Jimmie Johnson and Carl Edwards -- and later, Clint Bowyer.
Bowyer finished sixth, Edwards seventh, Martin Truex Jr. eighth and Johnson only ninth. Kevin Harvick completed the top 10.
Edwards who was among those that decided a 4-tyre change strategy didn't blame crew chief Bob Osborne for their choice that left him ninth for the restart on Lap 367.
"That's too tough of a choice to make right there, and I don't blame Bob Osborne one bit. I thought we would be able to march up through there, and I thought the race would be between Clint and I. I did see a couple cars go fast early on two tires, but I really felt we were going to have something. If we had had a caution, who knows what would have happened... You can't look back, you have to look forward. We still have the points lead and the fastest car here [Sunday]."
Johnson dominated the early stages of the race, leading 135 of the first 142 laps before Edwards passed him through Turns 3 and 4 on Lap 143. Johnson beat Edwards off pit road on Lap 165, under caution for a brief rain shower, and regained the lead a lap later, when front-row starter A.J. Allmendinger, who had stayed out to lead a lap, took his car to the garage with a blown engine.
Johnson remained out front until Lap 189, when Edwards overtook him again, and he led all but one of the next 96 laps. Their duel for victory continued once more time during a cycle of green-flag pit stops, with Johnson passing Juan Montoya for the lead on Lap 288. Montoya, who was off sequence on pit stops, had stayed on the track while the rest of the lead-lap cars came to pit road under green.
Johnson had a 1.5-second lead after the exchange of pit stops, but Edwards chopped that down to nothing by Lap 313, when he passed for the lead, albeit briefly.
Johnson regained the top spot on Lap 314 and held it under extreme pressure from Edwards and Bowyer until Kasey Kahne's engine failure on Lap 332 caused the fifth caution of the race.
Yet, it was Bowyer who took the lead on on Lap 338, after an excellent pit work, holding the lead -- with Edwards gaining ground -- until Montoya's spin in Turn 3 bthat rought out the sixth and final caution on Lap 362.
Martin's crew chief McGrew tried to explained he was feeling good to leave his driver on track:
"We lost track position one time because we had a miscue in the pits and we lost track position another time when we slid through the pit box. And with 19 cars [on the lead lap] your car is just not good back there -- I don't care how fast it is. So even with 25 laps on the tires, [Kenseth] was the only car that was better than us, at the end.
With the way the rubber laid down on the race track, you could catch the guy in front of you, but you couldn't go anywhere to pass him."
Kenseth confirmed Martin's reason for optimism after he stayed out.
"It was difficult [to pass]. The hardest thing, for me, was that they wouldn't, or couldn't get the rubber cleaned up for a restart, and if you were stuck on the bottom, the leader could get going and you had to run in that stuff for two laps and it was so much slower.
I was really concerned about that, because Mark took the top [lane for the restart] and he really likes to run the bottom and I would have felt a little bit better. But I got behind him, was able to run up on him and with the new tires and being able to get the gas down that early we were able to get a pretty good run on him."
