Matt Kenseth, driver of the #20 Dollar General Toyota, celebrates in victory lane after winning the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Geico 400 at Chicagoland Speedway on September 15, 2013
Photo – John Harrelson/Getty Images
After two rain delays, totaling six hours, thirty minutes, and 157-laps left to run, the restart of the 2013 Sprint Cup Series Geico 400 at Chicagoland Speedway was finally underway after 10:00pm ET on Sunday night.
With end of the night’s event at a little after midnight, Kyle Busch, who won Friday night’s Camping World Truck race and Saturday’s Nationwide race, had hopes of sweeping the weekend, but his fellow Joe Gibbs Racing teammate, Matt Kenseth won instead, denying Busch a sweep at Chicagoland Speedway.
“Oh yeah, I watched it slip right away,” Busch said. “Nothing you can do about it. Certainly, it would be nice if we could have won tonight and brought home a trifecta. I didn’t think we had a chance after yesterday’s practice. In the race today, the car was totally different. I could drive the heck out of it.
“It was going to be cool, (but) there’s always those cautions.”
Kenseth led the most laps – 89 of 267 – and leaves Chicagoland with an 8-point advantage over Busch. This was Kenseth’s sixth series victory of the season, his 30th career win and his first series win at Chicagoland Speedway.
With a strong push from Kevin Harvick on the lap 245 restart, Kenseth pulled away to out run Busch to the checkered flag by .749-seconds.
“Man, he gave me a big push on that restart, where he could have tried to squeeze it in on the apron, (but he gave) me a big push and got me out front,” said Kenseth. “I owe him one for that, for sure.”
Harvick thought his best option was to push Kenseth versus taking the two cars on the front row three-wide into turn one.
“They were evenly matched,” Harvick said of Kenseth and Busch. “I was hoping they would get side by side, you have one of them slide up, able to get three-wide or something happen.”
“I figured that was better than going to the bottom and getting three-wide and being pinned on the bottom and getting passed by two or three cars on the top. I figured that was my best option.”
Harvick came home third, with Kurt Busch, rallying from a lap down after a pit road speeding penalty earlier in the race, finished fourth.
Hendrick Motorsports teammates Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon also overcame adversity to finish fifth and sixth, with Chase drivers claiming the top-six finishing spots and ten of the top-12.
For other Chase contenders, it was long night of less productive results. Pole winner Joey Logano came to pit road under caution with engine issues on lap 149. After returning to the track, his engine blew after lap 175 and Logano left the race finishing in 37th-place.
NASCAR’s most popular diver, Dale Earnhardt Jr, had the nose of his car punctured during a pit road accident on lap 169, and on lap 226, his heavily taped car was overheating and ultimately erupted in a geyser of steam and smoke, suffering an engine failure. Earnhardt dropped out of the race finishing 35th.
“We had a car we were pretty happy with and you know just thought we were going to have a pretty good night,” Earnhardt ruefully said after taking his car to the garage. “I don’t know what was going on on pit road there, but we knocked the front end off of it on pit road. Those guys all stopped on pit road in front of us.
“We were trying to get that fixed. We still had a chance to get that fixed and get the downforce back in the front. We cut the grill all up and the downforce was gone and we lost a lap there. We were going to get that patched up and maybe be able to make something out of it, but something broke there in the motor. It’s tough. It’s going to be really hard to win a championship this far behind.”
Jimmie Johnson’s string of adversity continued to plague his efforts as it has over the past two months – with one major difference. This time he overcame it and raced his way back to the front. Johnson was leading after a two-tire pit stop under the competition caution on lap 32. He held a three-second advantage when confusion during a green-flag stop on lap 75 cost him four spots.
Johnson’s rear tire changer, replaced a dropped lug nut on the right rear tire, but the NASCAR official responsible for overseeing the action in the No. 48 pit thought there were only four lugs on the tire, versus the required five. The official ordered the tire changer back to the right rear, at the price of precious seconds, before realizing that all five lug nuts were in place.
“One (lug nut) had fallen off during the hand-in (of the tire), so it was kind of hanging there, but the tire changer had taken the time,” said crew chief Chad Knaus. “He did his job. He did a great job of getting the other lug nut on there and making sure it was tight.
“The official thought there were only four on there. We all make mistakes. That happens from time to time.”
Johnson however, rebounded from the mishap and was running fourth when a sudden cloudburst coincided with Cole Whitt’s spin off turn four, bringing out the second caution of the day. A bit later, NASCAR brought the cars to pit road and stopped the race. When the race resumed, a broken jack dropped Johnson to 22nd in the running order, but the speed of his car helped him return toward the front of the field.
Gordon, the 13th Chase contender in an 11th-hour addition on Friday, brought his car to pit road with a flat left rear after leading the field to a restart on lap 173. But on lap 173, an inopportune caution at the end of a pit stop cycle kept him on the lead lap in the race. Gordon worked his way through traffic and was battling Johnson for the fifth spot when the race finished with Kenseth crossing the finish line first.
For Kenseth, winning the first race of the Chase held special significance.
“I’ve always wanted to win here at Chicago,” an elated Kenseth said in victory lane. “It’s only a couple hours from where I grew up – up in Wisconsin. So it feels great to finally get the win here. We’ve been close a lot.”
The next Sprint Cup Series race is the 17th annual Sylvania 300 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway on Sunday, September 22nd with a start time of 2:20pm ET. Television coverage by ESPN begins at 1:00pm ET with their NASCAR Countdown pre-race show.
