A victory at Phoenix—and a dominating one at that—was exactly what Kevin Harvick needed to keep his hopes for a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship alive.
But a second-place finish in Sunday’s Quicken Loans Race for Heroes 500 did Jeff Gordon no good, thanks to a final-lap banzai run by Ryan Newman, who passed rookie Kyle Parson for the 11th position on the final lap to eliminate Gordon from the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup by a single point. Continue reading
It happens every fall, at least in recent years.
Jimmie Johnson won the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Texas Motor Speedway for the third straight year, holding off runner-up Kevin Harvick and third-place Brad Keselowski after Sunday’s AAA Texas 500 went to two overtimes.
The action in the second race of the Chase’s Eliminator Round was scintillating enough, but it couldn’t match the intensity of a post-race brawl on pit road that left Keselowski and Jeff Gordon bruised and bloodied.
Johnson, who was eliminated from the Chase two weeks ago at Talladega, led the field to the green flag on Lap 340, the second attempt at a green-white-checkered-flag finish, with Keselowski to his outside. As both drivers rolled through the first two corners wide open, Johnson inched ahead, ultimately clearing Keselowski’s Ford and pulling away.
Harvick passed Keselowski for second place but couldn’t catch Johnson’s No. 48 Chevrolet, which crossed the finish line .513 seconds ahead of Harvick’s No. 4 car.
But it was the first attempt at a green-white-checkered finish that caused all the controversy and helped to scramble the Chase standings with only next Sunday’s event at Phoenix International Raceway (3 p.m. ET on ESPN) left to determine which four drivers race for the series championship Nov. 16 at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Gordon was the race leader at the time and picked the outside lane for a restart on Lap 335 with Johnson to his inside. Keselowski restarted third and tried to split the two Hendrick Motorsports drivers—in what Harvick would later call “bulldoze mode”—and ran out of room.
Contact from Keselowski’s car cut Gordon’s left rear tire, causing Gordon to spin on the backstretch, which in turn brought out the record 13th caution of the race. Gordon finished 29th and dropped from first to fourth in the Chase standings, just one point clear of 25th-place finisher and Coors Light Polesitter Matt Kenseth in fifth.
“We drove down into Turn 1, and he just decided to body-slam us and cut our left-rear tire,” an irate Gordon said after wading through a mass of crewmen to get to Keselowski. “It ruined our night. It ruined our chances, ruined our night, might have even ruined our Chase hopes.
“It’s just uncalled for. I had to show my displeasure. It got ugly down there, obviously, and you know that’s alright. A lot of things are going to happen in the next couple of weeks.”
If Gordon had issues with the way Keselowski raced him, the driver of the No. 2 Team Penske Ford was unapologetic.
“I’m not trying to dish out something that I couldn’t take myself,” Keselowski said. “But these guys have their own code, and they race differently than that. That’s their right. We’ll go through these battles. I’ve gone through them before and come out stronger. I’ll go through them again and come out stronger, a better race car driver.
“But what I’m not going to do is back down. I’m not going to get in the spot where I was in 2013 where, you know, I tried to be exactly what they all wanted me to be, because what they want me to be is a loser, and I’m not here to lose. I’m here to win. That means I’m going to have to drive my car, harder, stronger, faster than everybody out there. That’s what I feel like I did today.”
In Victory Lane, savoring his fourth win of the season, his record fourth victory at Texas and the 70th of his career, Johnson could only shake his head at the unplanned fireworks after the race.
“I saw a little bit on the big screen going down the back straightaway,” said Johnson. “I would definitely have to go to the tape and watch and see what happened there. I know that second-to-last restart, I got hit from behind and I know Brad got to my outside, and I guess in the process of running into me and getting to the outside lane he ruffled some feathers.
“Just an exciting night for us. We had a very fast race car, led a lot of laps (191 of 341). Those cautions at the end, one restart would help me, the other would hurt me—and in the end we got it done.”
The wild action at Texas, which saw 12 of the 13 cautions occur after the halfway point, left the Chase wide open, with all eight eligible drivers within an 18-point range.
Joey Logano recovered from a spin to finish 12th and shares the Chase lead with Denny Hamlin, who ran 10th. Ryan Newman is third in points, two behind Logano and Hamlin, after a 15th-place finish that could have been better, but for a tire rub resulting from contact on a late restart.
Gordon is fourth, 12 out of the lead and one point ahead of Kenseth and Carl Edwards, who rallied from two laps down, avoided the bumping and banging on the track and finished an unlikely ninth. Keselowski heads to Phoenix seventh in the standings, 17 points out of first place and one point ahead of Harvick in eighth.
With at least three of the four championship-eligible positions in the final race to be determined on points, none of the eight drivers goes to Phoenix with any degree of security.
Notes: Kyle Busch’s bid for a Texas weekend sweep of NASCAR’s top three series fizzled early. The winner of Friday’s NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race and Saturday’s Nationwide Series event was lapped by Johnson on Lap 125, but he recovered to finish fourth…
Kenseth became the all-time lap leader at Texas Motor Speedway during the opening run, leading the first 53 laps and 59 all told to bring his career total at Texas to 834, surpassing Tony Stewart’s 801.
*NASCAR Wire Service
Texas Motor Speedway President Eddie Gossage may need a broom as well as a pair of six-guns in Victory Lane on Sunday, after Kyle Busch completed the second leg of a possible sweep by winning Saturday’s O’Reilly Auto Parts Challenge.
In winning his seventh NASCAR Nationwide Series race of the season, his seventh in 18 starts at Texas, the 70th of his career and the 100th NNS event for Joe Gibbs Racing, Busch led 116 of 200 laps in completing the second leg of a possible weekend sweep at the 1.5-mile speedway.
On Friday night, Busch took the checkered flag in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, and on Sunday he’ll try to record the second weekend trifecta of his career in the AAA Texas 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race (3 p.m. ET on ESPN), the second event in the Eliminator Round of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.
Busch beat polesitter Joey Logano to the finish line by 1.561 seconds in the 300-mile event. Logano could keep up with Busch in the short runs but began to lose ground as each fuel run progressed.
The combination of Busch’s long-run car and his migration to the high line at the high-banked speedway was too much for Logano to overcome. Busch saw his own Kyle Busch Motorsports driver Darrell Wallace Jr. run the top successfully in the Truck race on Friday and took the lesson to heart.
“That was just something we found today—actually (Friday) night a little, to be honest with you,” Busch said. “Bubba Wallace went up there and he was really fast as well, too, up there. I took a little bit from that and also what I learned in that race as well.
“I never got as high as Bubba did, but I got somewhat up there. Just put that to today and was able to use it to our advantage. It felt really good to run up there and be fast like that and have good speed. Hopefully, some of that comes in (on Sunday).”
Busch will be trying to duplicate the feat he accomplished in August 2010 at Bristol, where he won races in Trucks, Nationwide and Cup.
“The opportunity for that tomorrow would be something special,” Busch said. “I’d cherish it as much as the first one… You don’t’ get very many opportunities to capitalize on all three.”
Ryan Blaney, Logano’s Team Penske teammate, finished third, followed by series leader Chase Elliott, who extended his margin in the standings to 48 points over 11th-place finisher Regan Smith. If he maintains that advantage after next Saturday’s race at Phoenix, Elliott will clinch the series championship in the next-to-last race of his rookie season.
Matt Kenseth came home fifth, with Brian Scott, Austin Dillon and Kevin Harvick behind him. Elliott Sadler got credit for a ninth-place finish after turning his No. 11 Toyota over to relief driver Clint Bowyer under caution on Lap 9.
Bowyer had qualified the car, but Sadler started the race despite suffering from a severe bout of intestinal flu and accompanying nausea that had sidelined him for time trials.
With all the back-and-forth between Busch’s No. 54 Toyota and Logano’s No. 22 Ford, Logano was hoping for a late-race caution to set up a short run, but the race stayed green for the final 63 laps.
“Kyle and I had a heck of a race, that’s for sure,” Logano said. “We were able to catch up to him and pass him, but then after about 20 laps or so, it was like a light switch.
“The car would just switch to loose, and he would go by me and drive away. That’s what ultimately beat us, having a long run like that at the end.”
Hard luck continued to haunt Trevor Bayne, who had passed Logano for the lead on Lap 34, only to slam the Turn 2 wall 15 laps later.
As Bayne was rolling through the center of Turns 1 and 2, he cut to the inside to pass a lapped car. At that instant, the car apparently hit a piece of debris on the track, deflating the right front tire and sending Bayne’s No. 6 Ford rocketing into the outside wall.
The car burst into flames and continued through Turn 2 trailing a plume of fire behind it. Bayne escaped the inferno unhurt, but the car—one of his best of the year—was destroyed.
“It is never good to pop a right front tire, or whatever we did there,” Bayne said after leaving the infield care center. “Whether it was a line or tire—I think it was a tire—it’s never a good time, but especially not when you have the best car you have ever had in your career. That thing was on a rail. I have never had a car so dominant, especially at the Nationwide level.
“It was easy today for the time we were on the race track. The first couple laps I was really loose and needed a small adjustment, but, man, I think we had a great shot to win this race today. My guys have worked so hard all season long and they deserve a win and some cowboy hats here. I don’t even know what to say about it. It just blows your mind that something like that can happen on such a great day.”
*NASCAR Wire Service
On a day that saw two of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup favorites suffer potentially catastrophic problems, Dale Earnhardt Jr. stole a victory from the title contenders on Sunday, passing Tony Stewart for the lead with less than four laps left in the Goody’s Headache Relief Shot 500 at Martinsville Speedway and pulling away for his fourth victory of the season. Continue reading
In a must-win situation at Talladega Superspeedway, Brad Keselowski did exactly that, preserving his NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship hopes with a victory in Sunday’s GEICO 500.
With the right side of his car damaged in the wreck that brought out the first caution flag of the afternoon, Keselowski persevered, taking the lead during the first attempt at a green-white-checkered-flag finish and winning the race in the second overtime—after a wreck that ended the title run of Keselowski’s former boss, Dale Earnhardt Jr.