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Brad Keselowski takes the Quacker State 400

Brad Keselowski stretched his final fuel load right to the finish line to notch his third career Kentucky win and second straight victory of the season. The closing laps saw several teams try to stretch the final fuel run hoping for a caution, only to be forced to pit. Kevin Harvick and Martin Truex Jr. dominated the race leading a combined 174 laps but were among those who needed to pit for fuel finishing ninth and tenth respectively. Carl Edwards was also working fuel strategy and was able to run down Keselowski in the closing laps, but was not able to pass him and was forced to settle for second. Ryan Newman, Kurt Busch and Tony Stewart rounded out the top-five. The newly repaved and reconfigured surface of Kentucky Speedway proved to be a challenge to many drivers over the course of the evening. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. was the first driver to struggle with the new lower downforce aero package at the speedway, wrecking on lap nine. He was not the last, as a total of nine drivers would eventually be involved in accidents that brought about a track-record tying eleven cautions for fifty-three laps on the evening. Jimmie Johnson, who crashed his primary car in practice, saw a repeat performance in the race, spinning in turn-4 and making contact with the wall.

Joey Logano, Ryan Blaney and Chase Elliott also were involved in accidents throughout the evening. By virtue of his early departure, Ryan Blaney has now dropped out of the top-sixteen in Championship points which will place a great deal of pressure on the rookie driver in the final eight races of the regular season. Jeffery Earnhardt, who finished twenty-eighth, was the highest finishing rookie, on a night when many drivers struggled with the new track conditions.

Joey Logano takes FireKeepers Casino 400

Joey Logano started fast and closed strong Sunday at Michigan International Speedway, dominating the day in marching to his first points-paying win of the season. The Team Penske driver started from the pole, led thirty of the first forty laps and sealed the deal by keeping his Number-22 Ford in front over the final forty-eight trips around the two-mile Irish Hills oval. Logano led 138 of the two hundred laps run Sunday, backing up last month’s victory in the Sprint All-Star Race with his fifteenth career Cup Series win.

The margin of victory was eighty-eight one-hundredths of a second over rookie runner-up Chase Elliott. Kyle Larson came home in third place with Michigan native Brad Keselowski running fourth and regular-season points leader Kevin Harvick completing the top five. With team owner Roger Penske celebrating fifty years in motor sports this season, Sunday’s victory by Logano was the team’s fiftieth with Ford Motor Company … Youth was served on Sunday with the average age of the top three finishers – Logano, Elliott and Larson – just 23 years old, the youngest average age for the top three finishers in a Sprint Cup race in NASCAR’s sixty-eight- year history.

Kurt Busch finished tenth, not only bidding for his second straight win of this season but his second consecutive victory in Michigan’s June race. Although he missed another trip to Victory Lane, Busch did hold onto second place in the regular-season standings and now trails leader Harvick by thirty points heading into an off-weekend. The Sprint Cup Series will then resume June 26 th in Sonoma, California.

Kurt Busch Takes Pocono Raceway

Kurt Busch kept one eye on his fuel gauge and the other on a fast-closing Dale Earnhardt Junior down the stretch Monday afternoon, winning the rain-delayed event at Pocono Raceway. Busch got the jump on "Junior" on the day’s final restart and kept the Number-41 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet in front the rest of the way, stretching his fuel mileage through the final thirty-two laps to notch his first win of 2016. Busch’s margin of victory was one second over Earnhardt with pole sitter Brad Keselowski, rookie Chase Elliott and Joey Logano completing the top five. It’s Busch’s twenty-eighth career victory and third at The Tricky Triangle. The race was originally scheduled for Sunday afternoon but persistent rain moved it to Monday.

Logano and Matt Kenseth showed power during the first third of the race, combining to lead forty-eight of the first sixty-five laps. Elliott took over from there and went on to lead fifty-one laps through the middle portion of the race before yielding to Earnhardt – who then fell victim to Busch on the final, pivotal restart … The race pace was slowed by ten cautions, just three shy of the track record. Busch won with an average speed of 125.490 miles per hour, some twenty miles per hour slower than Jeff Gordon’s track record set in 2011 … Speaking of Gordon, he’s the last driver to win back-to- back June races at Pocono – in 1996 and 1997. Martin Truex Junior had his sights set on matching that achievement but was involved in pit-road contact with Matt DiBenedetto early in Monday’s race and never fully recovered, finishing nineteenth … Kevin Harvick’s ninth-place finish was enough to keep him atop the regular-season point standings.

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