Just three Sprint Cup Series races remain in the regular season and four spots are still open on The Chase Grid for non-race winners to fill heading into Sunday’s Pure Michigan 400. Twelve drivers have been victorious thus far in 2016: Matt Kenseth, Kyle and Kurt Busch, Carl Edwards, Jimmie Johnson, Brad Keselowski, Joey Logano, Kevin Harvick, Martin Truex Junior, Denny Hamlin, Tony Stewart and Chris Buescher. All are within the requisite top thirty of the standings, which currently leaves a maximum of four post-season spots available based on the point standings. Ryan Newman holds a thirty-five-point lead over Trevor Bayne in the fight for what would be the final “playoff” spot. In this year’s first race at Michigan on June 12th, Newman finished eleventh and Bayne placed fifteenth … If the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup began today, Austin Dillon, rookie Chase Elliott and Jamie McMurray would hold the three other spots. Any driver who hasn’t yet won but reaches Victory Lane in one of the next three races would qualify for the post-season, provided that driver was among the top thirty in points, and would reduce the number of spots available based on the regular-season standings.
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Next Stop Bristol Motor Speedway
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Next stop Bristol Motor Speedway for Saturday’s Bass Pro Shops N-R-A Night Race, which kicks off the final month of the regular season. Five spots on The Chase Grid are still open. Twelve drivers have been victorious thus far in 2016: Matt Kenseth, Kyle and Kurt Busch, Carl Edwards, Jimmie Johnson, Brad Keselowski, Joey Logano, Kevin Harvick, Martin Truex Junior, Denny Hamlin, Tony Stewart and Chris Buescher. All are within the requisite top thirty of the standings with the exception of Buescher, currently just three points below the cutoff … Assuming he will climb into the top thirty over the next four weeks, that leaves a maximum of four post-season spots available based on the point standings. Jamie McMurray holds a thirty-point lead over Kyle Larson, his Chip Ganassi Racing teammate, in the fight for what would be the final “playoff” spot. In this year’s first race at Bristol on April 17th, neither McMurray nor Larson cracked the top ten, but McMurray had the better of it – finishing thirteenth, twenty-two spots ahead of his teammate.
Race To The Chase Resumes At Bristol Motor Speedway
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Four Sprint Cup Series races remain in the regular season and five spots on The Chase Grid are still open heading into Saturday’s Bass Pro Shops
N-R-A Night Race in Bristol, Tennessee. Twelve drivers have been victorious thus far in 2016: Matt Kenseth, Kyle and Kurt Busch, Carl Edwards, Jimmie Johnson, Brad Keselowski, Joey Logano, Kevin Harvick, Martin Truex Junior, Denny Hamlin, Tony Stewart and Chris Buescher. All are within the requisite top thirty of the standings with the exception of Buescher, currently just three points below the cutoff … Assuming he will climb into the top thirty over the next four weeks, that leaves a maximum of four post-season spots available based on the point standings. Jamie McMurray holds a thirty-point lead over Kyle Larson, his Chip Ganassi Racing teammate, in the fight for what would be the final “playoff” spot. In this year’s first race at Bristol on April 17th, neither McMurray nor Larson cracked the top ten, but McMurray had the better of it – finishing thirteenth, twenty-two spots ahead of his teammate … If the Chase began today, Ryan Newman, Austin Dillon and rookie Chase Elliott would hold the three other spots. Any driver who hasn’t yet won but reaches Victory Lane in one of the next four races would qualify for the post-season, provided that driver was among the top thirty in points, and would reduce the number of spots available based on the regular-season standings.
Next Stop Is Watkins Glen International For The Cheez-It 355 At The Glen
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Next Stop Is Watkins Glen International for Sunday’s Cheez-It 355 at The Glen. With just five races remaining in the regular season, it appears that twelve of the sixteen spots on The Chase Grid will be filled by race-winning drivers: Matt Kenseth, Kyle and Kurt Busch, Carl Edwards, Jimmie Johnson, Brad Keselowski, Joey Logano, Kevin Harvick, Martin Truex Junior, Denny Hamlin, Tony Stewart and Chris Buescher. That would leave four post-season spots available based on the point standings. Jamie McMurray currently holds a nine-point lead over Kyle Larson, his Chip Ganassi Racing teammate, in the fight for what would be the final “playoff” spot … Six drivers are presently in the mix for those final four spots: Austin Dillon, Ryan Newman, rookie Chase Elliott, McMurray, Larson and Kasey Kahne … Jeff Gordon will make the eight hundredth start of his career at the Glen and his third in the Number-88 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, still subbing for Dale Earnhardt Junior who remains sidelined while recovering from a concussion.
Forty For The Glen
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There are forty drivers on the preliminary entry list for Sunday’s Cheez-It 355 at The Glen Sprint Cup Series race led by defending winner Joey Logano and regular-season points leader Kevin Harvick. With just five races remaining in the regular season, five drivers have clinched spots on The Chase Grid – Matt Kenseth, Kyle Busch, Carl Edwards, Jimmie Johnson and Brad Keselowski. Those five account for fourteen wins through the first twenty-one races of the year … Logano, Harvick, Kurt Busch, Martin Truex Junior, Denny Hamlin, Tony Stewart and Chris Buescher have one win apiece – leaving four post-season spots that will be available based on the point standings. Jamie McMurray currently holds a nine-point lead over Kyle Larson, his Chip Ganassi Racing teammate, in the fight for what would be the final “playoff” spot.
Matt Kenseth Takes The New Hampshire 301
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Matt Kenseth saved his best for last Sunday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, snatching the lead from teammate Denny Hamlin thirty-one laps from the finish and keeping the Number-20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota in front the rest of the way in posting his second win of the season and the thirty-eighth of his career. The margin of victory was two seconds over runner-up Tony Stewart. Joey Logano came home in third place with Kevin Harvick and Greg Biffle completing the top five. Pole sitter Jimmie Johnson led only the first lap and finished twelfth. Sunday’s race was a day of domination for Toyota. The manufacturer led all but two of the 301 laps contested on the one-mile Loudon oval including a race-high 133 by Kyle Busch on the way to an eighth-place finish. He was seeking a weekend sweep after winning Saturday’s X-FINITY Series race. Busch dominated the early stages Sunday, leading all but fourteen of the first hundred laps. Martin Truex Junior was strong, running out front for 123 laps before a broken shifter and clutch problems forced him off the pace. He came out of New England with a sixteenth-place finish … The only non-Toyota drivers to lead Sunday’s race were Johnson and Brad Keselowski – who each led one lap on the way to finishes of twelfth and fifteenth, respectively … 23-year-old Alex Bowman placed twenty-sixth in the Number-88 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet. He was subbing for Dale Earnhardt Junior, who sat out Sunday’s race with concussion-like symptoms after recent crashes at Michigan and Daytona. Earnhardt’s status for next weekend’s race at Indianapolis is uncertain … Sunday’s race included thirteen lead changes among six drivers.
Sprint Cup Teams Test At Indianapolis
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A number of NASCAR Sprint Cup teams took part in a two-day organizational test at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Tuesday and Wednesday. The test was in advance of the Crown Royal presents the Wounded Warrior Coalition 400 to be held on July 24. Jimmie Johnson, Kyle Larson, and Kevin Harvick were among those at the test that were consistently fast in each of the sessions. Two sessions were held on Tuesday, with teams working through the lunch break Wednesday due to a threat of weather in the area. Matt Kenseth who was second quickest in the opening session on Tuesday noted that the tire fall off was significant with the new lower downforce package being used this season and expected that fall off to translate to good racing. Others taking part in the test included Paul Menard, Joey Logano, Brian Scott, Chris Buescher, Trevor Bayne, Ryan Blaney and Martin Truex Jr. AJ Allmendinger and his No. 47 JTG Daugherty Racing team were originally scheduled to attend the test, but following two incidents on Saturday night in Kentucky that injured Allmendinger’s hand, the team passed on attending the test. Allmendinger has been cleared to return to NASCAR competition following an X-ray on Monday.
6th Running Of The Quaker State 400 Sprint Cup Series Race At Sparta, Kentucky
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Recap of Last Year’s Race: Kyle Busch’s climb toward the top thirty – and a berth in the Chase – continued with his second win of the season in just seven starts. Busch led a race-high 163 laps, including the final twenty trips around the mile-and-a-half oval. The victory lifted him from thirty-seventh to thirty-fifth in the standings with eight races left in the regular season. After missing the first eleven races of the year while recovering from injuries suffered in February at Daytona, Busch’s average finish in seven starts was seventeenth. He led a parade of Joe Gibbs Racing cars into the top five at Kentucky. Denny Hamlin finished third, Carl Edwards fourth and Matt Kenseth fifth. Team Penske’s Joey Logano ran second, one-point-five seconds behind Busch at the checkered flag .With an eighth-place finish, regular-season points leader Kevin Harvick became the first driver to officially clinch his spot on the 2015 Chase Grid.
Track Position in Kentucky: Winners of the first five Sprint Cup Series races run have started first and ninth (Busch), first and eighth (Brad Keselowski), and sixteenth (Kenseth) …
Track Qualifying Record: Keselowski (Ford) … 188.791 miles per hour … 28.603 seconds … June 2014
Track Record, Race Speed: Keselowski (Dodge) … 145.607 mph … 2 hours, 45 minutes, 2 seconds … June 2012
Friday’s Practice Schedule: From 11 a.m. to 12:25 p.m. and 1:30 to 2:50 p.m. (ET) … Qualifying: TODAY at 6:45 p.m. (ET).
Three Crew Chiefs Suspended
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Three NASCAR Sprint Cup Series crew chiefs were fined and suspended with Brian Pattie getting hit the hardest with a two-race suspension and a $50,000 fine.
Pattie, crew chief for Greg Biffle and the No. 16 team, which was also assessed with the loss of 15 championship owner and 15 championship driver points, was issued a P3 penalty after violating sections 12-1; 20.4.1; 20.4.2 a,b,c; 12.5.3.4.1 c of the NASCAR Rule Book – illegal body measurements.
With the penalty, Biffle drops from 23rd to 24th in the standings.
Randall Burnett (crew chief for AJ Allmendinger) and Tony Gibson (crew chief for Kurt Busch) were each suspended one race (P3) and fined $20,000 after violating 10.11.3.4 a of the Rule Book, which states: “All tires, and wheels, and all five lug nuts must be installed in a safe and secure manner at all times during the Event.”
All three crew chiefs were placed on NASCAR probation through Dec. 31, including Tony Stewart’s crew chief Mike Bugarewicz after he was issued a P2 penalty for violating sections 20.4 b; 20. 4.2 a; 12.1; 12.5.3.3.2 d of the Rule Book in pre-race inspection – body design and surface conformance.
NASCAR also issued written warnings in Wednesday’s Penalty Report to the team’s of Paul Menard, Matt Kenseth, Aric Almirola, Jimmie Johnson and Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Menard will lose 15 minutes of practice time at Pocono Raceway after the team failed template inspection three times in pre-qualifying.
Matt Kenseth takes the AAA 400 Drive For Autism
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Matt Kenseth held off a late charge from Kyle Larson on Sunday afternoon at Dover International Speedway to claim his first victory of the season, capping Toyota’s weekend sweep of all three races at “The Monster Mile.” Matt Crafton won Friday’s Camping World Truck Series race and Erik Jones followed with a victory in Saturday’s X-FINITY Series event. Kenseth led the final forty-seven laps on Sunday, nipping Larson at the checkered flag by eighteen one-hundredths of a second. It’s his thirty-seventh career victory and third at Dover. Kenseth’s last Cup Series win had come in New Hampshire last fall, twenty races ago. He started tenth on Sunday and led briefly during the first half of the race before taking control down the stretch.
The race was red-flagged for more than eleven minutes after Jimmie Johnson’s transmission failure triggered an eighteen-car accident along the frontstretch less than fifty laps from the finish. Johnson, at the front of the field on a restart, could not get his car into third gear and up to speed. Martin Truex Junior drove into the rear of Johnson’s Chevrolet and the contact sent cars spinning across the track. Attrition left just fourteen cars running on the lead lap at the finish, a season low in the Sprint Cup Series. Larson led eighty-five laps en route to his second-place finish.
Rookie Chase Elliott ran third with Kasey Kahne and Kurt Busch completing the top five. Pole sitter Kevin Harvick led a race-high 117 laps, all in the first half, before fading to fifteenth place – enough to keep him atop the regular-season point standings.
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