Next Stop Indianapolis Motor Speedway for Sunday’s Crown Royal 400 at The Brickyard, the twentieth round of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series regular season. All eyes will be on the Hendrick Motorsports No. 88 which will be driven by Jeff Gordon, who comes out of retirement to fill in for Dale Earnhardt Jr. who is still dealing with concussion symptoms that forced him to sit out last week at New Hampshire. Sunday will also mark the last start at the Indiana track for Columbus, Indiana native Tony Stewart, who will retire at the end of the season. Stewart is a two-time winner at the speedway and is coming off back to back top-five finishes the last two weeks. The new driver of the No. 24 car, rookie Chase Elliott will look to rebound after three finishes outside the top thirty at a track that saw the No. 24 go to victory lane five times.
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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.
8th Running of the New Hampshire 301 Sprint Cup Series Race
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Last Year’s Race: Kyle Busch’s mid-season march toward a post-season berth continued with his third victory in four races. The win lifted him from thirty-fifth to thirty-third in the point standings with seven races left in the regular season that would ultimately lead to a championship for the Joe Gibbs Racing driver. Busch led ninety-five laps, including the final forty-nine trips around the one-mile oval. The race ended under caution for Alex Bowman’s single-car accident that took place in Turn-2 after Busch took the white flag. Brad Keselowski led a race-high 101 laps and finished second with Kevin Harvick, Joey Logano (Keselowski’s Team Penske teammate) and Dale Earnhardt Junior completing the top five … Pole sitter Carl Edwards led just nineteen laps and finished seventh … Busch was the ninth different winner in the last nine summertime races contested in New Hampshire dating back to 2007 … Denny Hamlin was going for a weekend sweep after winning the X-FINITY Series race twenty-four hours earlier but finished fourteenth on the Cup side. He was one of twenty drivers running on the lead lap with Busch at the checkered flag.
Track Position at Loudon: Twenty-three of the forty-two Sprint Cup Series races run have been won from a starting position of tenth or better. Ten winners have come from a starting position of twentieth or worse … Winning From the Pole in Loudon: Just five of forty-two Cup Series races have been won from the pole position, most recently by Ryan Newman in 2011 … Track Qualifying Record: Keselowski (Ford) … 140.598 miles per hour … 27.090 seconds … September 2014 … Track Record, Race Speed: Jeff Burton (Ford) … 117.134 mph … 2 hours, 42 minutes, 35 seconds … July 1997.
Practice Schedule: Friday from 11:30 a.m. to 12:55 p.m. (ET) … Saturday from 10 to 10:55 a.m. and 12:30 to 1:25 p.m. (ET) … Qualifying: TODAY at 4:45 p.m. (ET).
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.
Brad Keselowski takes the Quacker State 400
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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.
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).
Brad Keselowski Claims His Twentieth Career Victory And Third This Season
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Brad Keselowski led a race-high 115 laps on Saturday night at Daytona International Speedway, including the final seventeen, to claim his twentieth career victory and third this season. The final caution period forced the race one lap past its scheduled distance. On the restart, Keselowski darted away from the field and beat runner-up Kyle Busch to the checkered flag by fifteen one-hundredths of a second. Trevor Bayne finished third with Joey Logano fourth and Ricky Stenhouse Junior fifth. Fords claimed four of the five top finishing positions with Busch’s Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota the only “outsider” among them. Pole sitter Greg Biffle led just one lap and finished eighth in the forty-car field.
Keselowski started fifth in his Number-2 Team Penske Ford, took his first lead nine laps into the race and ran steadily in the top five throughout the night. His three wins tie Busch for the series lead as drivers start thinking about seeding for the post-season Chase that begins in two-and-a-half months … Saturday’s race included five cautions, most notably for a massive crash that gobbled up half the field early in the second half of the race.
The twenty-two-car melee was triggered when Jamie McMurray brushed teammate Kyle Larson and then went up the track across the nose of Jimmie Johnson’s Chevrolet. Dale Earnhardt Junior and Kevin Harvick were among those victimized. Earnhardt was able to complete the race and finished twenty-first. Harvick could not and he placed thirty-ninth, watching his regular-season points lead shrink to fourteen over Keselowski – who advanced from fourth to second in the standings with nine races remaining before the Chase opens.
Next Stop Daytona International Speedway
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Next stop Daytona International Speedway for Saturday night’s Coke Zero 400 Powered by Coca-Cola, the seventeenth round of the 2016 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. Although there were two practice sessions scheduled for Thursday, thunderstorms moved into the area which red flagged the first session and canceled the second. Only eight cars were able to make it on track before the rain fell. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. posted the fastest lap of the eight drivers, with a speed of 191.014 miles per hour. Kurt Busch (6th) was the only driver to record more than one lap on the speedway before the weather moved over the track. Following a long battle of drying the track and waiting for lightning to clear the area, NASCAR was forced to postpone Sprint Cup Series final practice until today at 8:30 am.
Stewart’s Sonoma Victory Bumps Cup Series Win List To Eleven
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With Tony Stewart’s victory Sunday in Sonoma, California, the list of Sprint Cup Series winners this season grows to eleven. If there are six more drivers who reach Victory Lane over the final ten regular-season races, then there’ll be one driver with a victory to his credit that will not get a spot on the 2016 Chase Grid – which will include only the sixteen top eligible drivers based primarily on race wins.
The lone remaining driver who won last year but is still without a victory in 2016 is Dale Earnhardt Junior … who will arrive at Daytona International Speedway later this week as defending winner of Saturday night’s Coke Zero 400 Powered by Coca-Cola.
Stewart’s the last driver to win back-to-back July races there, in 2005 and 2006.
Tony Stewart Survives Fierce Last-Lap Duel With Denny Hamlin To Take The Toyota/Save Mart 350
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Tony Stewart survived a fierce last-lap duel with former teammate Denny Hamlin, nosing past Hamlin under braking in the next-to-last corner of the final lap at Sonoma Raceway and driving on to his forty-ninth career Cup Series victory. It ended an eighty-four-race winless streak for the three-time champion that dated back to June 2013.
Before Sunday, Stewart’s last trip to Victory Lane had come at Dover International Speedway. He took the white flag yesterday with Hamlin in hot pursuit and briefly lost the lead to his Joe Gibbs Racing rival. But Stewart calmly measured his opponent as they navigated the final turns on the Northern California road course and made his winning pass with the checkered flag in sight. The margin of victory was six-tenths of a second.
Joey Logano, pole sitter Carl Edwards and Martin Truex Junior completed the top five.
Stewart sat out the early weeks of the season while recovering from back surgery after he was injured in late January while driving dune buggies on vacation in California. Despite missing eight races, he’s eligible for the post-season Chase provided he’s among the top thirty in the standings at the end of the regular season.
With Sunday’s victory, Stewart’s nine points shy of that with 10 races left before the sixteen-driver title field is set … Stewart started tenth and led the final twenty-two laps of Sunday’s race in his Number-14 Chevrolet. Runner-up Hamlin led a race-high thirty-three laps around the two-mile natural road course …Sunday’s race included twelve lead changes among eight drivers. There were four cautions for ten laps.
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