Kenseth manages to spin his way to a Busch Series victory

Matt Kenseth made the save first, then he picked up the victory. That might sound a little backward for baseball fans, but it made perfect sense Saturday in the NASCAR Busch Series O’Reilly 300 at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth.

Kenseth ended Carl Edwards’ two-race Busch Series winning streak by pulling his Ford out of a spin without hitting the wall early in the race, then overtaking Denny Hamlin with nine laps left.

Hamlin’s efforts to pass over the final five laps failed in the closest margin for a Busch Series race in Texas at 0.128 of a second. Edwards finished third.

Kenseth, who was running second when a tire popped and caused the spin on Lap 55, got his second Busch Series win of the season.

Edwards still has a huge lead in the series standings. He has 1,370 points and a 403-point lead over Dave Blaney.

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The Car of Tomorrow takes its first timeout today in the Samsung 500 at Texas Motor Speedway.

NASCAR Nextel Cup drivers are back in their “old” cars after the first two races in the NASCAR-developed template that’s supposed to be the full-time ride by 2009, if not sooner.

The COT made its debut in a pair of short-track races at Bristol and Martinsville, but now drivers are back at Texas Motor Speedway, a 1 1/2 -mile, high-banked track where speeds usually exceed 180 mph.

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John Force failed to qualify for eliminations for the first time in 395 races and nearly 20 years, leaving the 14-time funny car champion on the sideline in the NHRA SummitRacing.com Nationals at Las Vegas.

Force, who last missed the cut in 1987 at Pomona, missed the 16-car field by one spot, finishing 17th with a best of 4.852 seconds at 311.41 mph. Jack Beckman took the last spot at 4.837 at 321.73 mph.

The Las Vegas event was the first for Force’s Yorba Linda-based team since the death last month of team driver Eric Medlen from injuries in a practice crash.

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Felipe Massa won the pole position for today’s Formula One Bahrain Grand Prix at Sakhir. He was timed at 1 minute 32.652 seconds in a Ferrari. Lewis Hamilton of McLaren was second in 1:32.935, ahead of Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen at 1:33.131.

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Scott Dodd, a rookie making only his third start in the ACDelco Super Late Model Division, started second and took the lead from pole-sitter Kevin Thompson during the first lap to win the 50-lap feature at Irwindale Speedway.

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Times staff writer Jim Peltz contributed to this report.