NASCAR TOYOTA ALL-STAR SHOWDOWN: YOUTH TRUMPS EXPERIENCE ICKLER TAKES LEAD WITH 70 LAPS TO GO.

Byline: TIM HADDOCK

Staff Writer

IRWINDALE -- Experience dueled potential in the NASCAR Toyota All-Star Showdown at Irwindale Speedway on Saturday night.

With 70 laps to go, it was Joey Logano, who was making his first Showdown appearance, who led the race, but veterans Mike Duncan and Matt Kobyluck, with eight combined Showdowns between them, were in the top five.

Duncan and Kobyluck, veterans from the two Grand National Divisions, outraced some of the rising stars of NASCAR in the all-star stock car race. But Logano and Brian Ickler, another first-time Showdown competitor, stayed in the top five and challenged the leaders throughout the race.

Duncan led from lap 75 to 154. Ickler took the lead on lap 155, his first of the night, when Duncan got caught behind a group of lapped cars.

Moses Smith crashed into the outside wall in turn 1 on lap 157. Ickler was in the lead at the time, followed by Logano, Duncan and Kobyluck.

Duncan was the leader of the Showdown when the race was stopped for mandatory pit stops at lap 100. Ickler was second, followed by Kobyluck, Peyton Sellers and Logano.

Duncan was the highest qualifying driver from the West Series in the Showdown. He started the race in third and was counting on experience rather than equipment to get him through the 250-lap race. He is one eight drivers who have competed in the four previous Showdowns and he has raced the same car in every one of them.

"We run it just about everywhere," said Duncan, a driver from Bakersfield who was second in the West Series standings. "We don't really have any new equipment. This is stuff we've been running for four or five years. Hopefully the technology isn't going to outweigh that."

Duncan finished second in the West Series race at Irwindale Speedway in July. His team brought the same car to the Showdown.

"We have a setup that is very similar to what we had here in July," Duncan said. "We didn't want to veer too far away from that. That's the first time we had anything decent as far as the setup goes."

Forty cars started the Showdown, a race that pits drivers from the two NASCAR Grand National Divisions: the Busch East Series and the West Series.

Three of the drivers in the top five at the 100-lap pit stop were from the West Series. Kobyluck, the winner of last year's Grand National Division Showdown, and Logano, a driver in the developmental system for Joe Gibbs, are Busch East Series drivers.

Sean Caisse, the pole winner and a driver from the Busch East Series, was punted into the turn 1 infield wall on lap 74 by Smith, who was getting lapped. Duncan took over the lead. Caisse led the first 74 laps of the race.

[e-mail]

[phone]