Matt Kenseth overcame a double whammy to post an unlikely third-place finish in Sunday’s Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
On a green-flag pit stop on lap 36, Kenseth was flagged for speeding while entering pit road. Under caution at the end of Stage 1 on lap 89, NASCAR nailed him again for going too fast while exiting pit lane and kept him a lap down. Continue reading →
Thanks to the unintentional generosity of the dominant driver in Sunday’s Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500, opportunistic Brad Keselowski won the second Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race of the season.
Kevin Harvick led 292 of the 325 laps at the 1.54-mile track, but a pit road speeding penalty under caution on lap 311 sent him to the back of the field for the final restart.
That gave Keselowski the chance he needed, and on lap 319 he surged past Kyle Larson for the top spot and pulled away to win by 0.564 seconds. Continue reading →
Given his running position with two laps left in Sunday’s Daytona 500, Ryan Blaney was pleasantly surprised with his runner-up finish in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series’ most prestigious race.
On the other hand, there was a tinge of disappointment at coming so close to a victory and falling 0.228 seconds short.
“We all got single-file with 15 (laps) to go, something like that,” Blaney said. “I tried to make a move with 10 to go to see what would happen. No one really went with me. The 22 (Joey Logano) tried too. It really wasn’t happening. I was kind of worried it was just going to end that way.
“Luckily, I got Joey behind me there down the frontstretch, and we were able to lay back to him and get a huge run into (turn) one. At the same moment, the 41 (race winner Kurt Busch) went to go pass the 42 (Kyle Larson), and it kept my run going, all the way up to second.”
But second was also where the run stopped.
“It was a good way to start off the year,” Blaney said. “Stinks to be so close. But I think that’s good momentum for our team, to be good at the beginning of the day, get some damage and be able to rally for a good finish.”
Roughly 30 minutes after Chevrolet unveiled the Camaro ZL 1 that will pace Sunday’s Daytona 500 and announced four-time Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series champion Jeff Gordon as its driver, Chevy brass and team owners gathered in the Daytona International Speedway media center to field questions from reporters.
Owners Richard Childress, Chip Ganassi and Rick Hendrick joined Jim Campbell, Chevy’s U.S. vice president of performance vehicles and motorsports, at the press session. One of the first topics to arise was the prospect of Jimmie Johnson winning a record-breaking eighth championship at NASCAR’s highest level.
Johnson won his seventh title last year to tie Richard Petty and the late Dale Earnhardt for most championships in the history of the series. Continue reading →
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