The weather dawned cloudy and cold for the 48th running of the "Great American Race", when Jeff Burton led the field to the green at 2:45 pm, which at the time was the latest scheduled start in the history of the race (the reason for this was that NBC chose it as its lead-in program to the primetime portion of its day's coverage of the Winter Olympic Games from Turin). There were several lead changes in the early part of the race going, with a race record of 32. The first caution flew on lap 18 when Martin Truex Jr. hit the wall. During this caution, Burton was passed by Elliott Sadler for the lead a lap later. The race restarted on lap 20 and 4 laps later, Jeff Gordon took the led away from Sadler. Carl Edwards, a popular "dark horse candidate" for the Nextel Cup championship, had his day end early, as he was involved in a five-car pileup on lap 80 that collected Dale Jarrett, Kyle Petty, Jeff Green, J. J. Yeley and Joe Nemechek. This was the biggest crash of the day, since the "Big One" never occurred. This would also bring out the third caution flag. Because of this, Edwards finished 43rd. Tony Stewart was a "magnet for controversy", tangling with Jeff Gordon on lap 48 and Matt Kenseth on lap 106. The first incident (which left debris on the track) brought out the second caution, which ended when the race restarted four laps later, and the second one would bring out the fifth caution. Stewart was penalized for aggressive driving after the incident with Kenseth, in which he blocked the No.17 car into the grass, causing it to spin and hit the wall in turn 3. Kenseth took matters into his own hands and was black flagged for hitting Stewart's car in retaliation on pit road. The three drivers involved in these two incidents would repair their cars and get back into contention. Kenseth at first failed to answer the black flag, which resulted in NASCAR no longer continuing to score the 17 car for 1 lap. Kenseth would make up the lost lap and catch up to lead lap traffic.