Category: Race Central

At the end of Sprint Cup Series qualifying at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Jeff Gordon would score the pole award for the Kobalt 400. It marks his 79th career, and his second pole in three races thus far this season. Gordon’s lap of 27.738 seconds is a track record, and his first pole at Las Vegas.

“I didn’t come off the throttle, if much,” Gordon commented. “I knew I had to flip it the tiniest bit. The lap before in the previous session, I was a little conservative. Hearing the lap times, I knew that I had to be fully committed if I wanted to run for the pole. That was fun. What an awesome 3M Chevrolet. What a turnaround from last week. I’m just so proud of this team for keeping their heads up, and this is a great way to start off Las Vegas.”

Daytona 500 winner Joey Logano kept his solid season rolling as he will start second on Sunday.

“This Ford has a lot of speed,” Logano said. “It didn’t in race trim, then we switched to qualifying trim and it just came to life. I didn’t lift a lot and Jeff just laid down a really good lap. I don’t know if there’s a way that I could beat that lap.”

Hendrick Motorsports teammates Kasey Kahne and Dale Earnhardt Jr. were third and fourth, respectively, followed by Kyle Larson.

“It got a whole lot better so happy about that,” Earnhardt commented. “We had a challenge getting through the bumps in practice. Greg and Kevin got together and made some adjustments, and man, that was fun to drive. Hopefully it marks a turn in our qualifying as it makes it a whole lot easier starting near the front.”

Matt Kenseth was sixth quickest, followed by Ryan Newman, Martin Truex Jr., Jimmie Johnson, Jamie McMurray, Brad Keselowski and Tony Stewart.

“It’s really fun to be able to run that quick around here and almost run wide open,” McMurray said. “Through one and two, I held it down there – pulling on the wheel to keep it held down wide open. I thought because it was tight in one and two that it’d be tight at the other end, but it was actually loose. I’m disappointed that we’ll start 10th, but glad that we have a car. This organization has come so far in the past year. We ended off last year strong and you never know going into a new year whether you’ll have that speed so it’s good to be quick still.”

David Ragan was 13th, followed by Carl Edwards, Aric Almirola, Greg Biffle, Casey Mears, Kevin Harvick, Denny Hamlin, Clint Bowyer, Danica Patrick, A.J. Allmendinger, Brian Scott and Paul Menard. Austin Dillon just missed the cut of making the top 24, followed by Justin Allgaier, Alex Bowman, Brian Vickers, Sam Hornish Jr., Ryan Blaney, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Michael McDowell.

“It was alright. Just got tight the second one,” Dillon commented. “Speeds picked up a lot from practice and I wasn’t expecting that. If I would’ve known that, I would’ve gotten more out of it the first run.”

Reed Sorenson, Mike Bliss, Travis Kvapil, Mike Wallace and Matt Benedetto failed to qualify.

The big story at Atlanta Motor Speedway was the issues with technical inspection. That seems to be the story again at Las Vegas as teams are once again running into issues. All of the drivers were through qualifying inspection before the session started, except for J.J. Yeley. However, Yeley was able to get through as the session started.

Brad Keselowski had gotten through inspection, though was pulled back to inspection as the session got started. Matt Yocum reported on FOX Sports 1 that Kerry Tharp, NASCAR’s Communications Officer, told him an official saw a crew member off of the No. 2 Miller Lite Ford team messing with a fender. Keselowski would go back through qualifying, getting back out to the track and set to qualify with about nine minutes left on the clock for round one.

Last weekend, technical inspection issues at Atlanta Motor Speedway caused 13 drivers – highlighted by Jeff Gordon, Matt Kenseth, Jimmie Johnson, Regan Smith, Tony Stewart – to miss qualifying as a result of not getting through pre-qualifying technical inspection in time. When it came to race time, the race scheduled to start at 1:16 pm EST, would start at 2:13 pm EST due to rain.If the race had started on time, though, there would have been drivers that would’ve missed the start of the race. AJ Allmendinger, Jeff Gordon, Greg Biffle, JJ Yeley, Josh Wise and Kevin Harvick were still going through inspection. By the time the race started, though, all of the drivers were through inspection.

As a result, NASCAR announced on Thursday, March 5th an adjustment to the opening day schedules for Las Vegas, Phoenix and Auto Club Speedway as a result of issues with pre-qualifying inspection a week ago. Sprint Cup Series practice was scheduled to last an hour and 25 minutes, but now will last an hour and 15 minutes, while qualifying for the three events will take place five minutes later. As a result, it would allow 15 more minutes of time for teams to get ready for inspection and for officials to get the cars through inspection.

Based on how Friday afternoon went at Las Vegas, the change looks to have paid off.

Following a restart with 19 laps to go, Joey Logano was able to put himself in position to challenge for the lead in the Daytona 500. He would then take charge of the top lane, bringing it to the front, taking the lead with nine laps to go. The caution would fly five laps later for an incident between Justin Allgaier and Ty Dillon. Logano would then hold off the field in the final charge to the flag, leading the field into turn three as the caution waved for a big wreck on the backstretch.

“I can’t believe it,” Logano commented in victory lane. “This is absolutely amazing. This is awesome. This is Daytona 500 – oh my god! Are you kidding? I was so nervous the whole race pretty much, and man Tad my spotter, the whole team – they worked so hard over the off-season. This is our weakest track last year and hard work equals results everytime.”

For Logano, it marks his first career Daytona 500 victory as he enters his third season with Penske Racing.

Kevin Harvick would make his way up to second after restarting sixth with four to go and was poised to make a run at Logano before the caution came out.

“I really thought everything on our Chevrolet was lined up pretty well coming back down the backstretch,” he commented. “I was really trying to back up to Earnhardt and get the right run to get around him in turn three.”

Dale Earnhardt Jr. would finish third after showing his strength as one of the strongest cars in the field throughout the day, though he found himself fighting back to the front late in the race after getting shuffled out of line with 15 laps to go.

“I just made a bad decision on that restart,” Earnhardt Jr. commented. “I thought the 48 (Johnson) was my quarter panel and wanted to go up, but got stuck in the sucker hole and got pulled back. I made a bad decision. We had a great car, one of the best here. It gave me a lot of confidence to fight back and get some of those spots back.”

Denny Hamlin and Jimmie Johnson would round out the top-five, followed by Casey Mears, Clint Bowyer, Martin Truex Jr., Kasey Kahne and Greg Biffle.

For the most part, the race was clean throughout the day with three-wide action throughout the pack. However, coming down the backstretch on the last lap, Austin Dillon would get into Jeff Gordon, turning him into Kyle Larson and taking out the back half of the field. Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Paul Menard, Reed Sorenson, Matt Crafton and Danica Patrick were among the drivers caught up in the wreck. For Gordon, this marks his last Daytona 500 as the four-time champion has repeatedly said he will not enter another 500 for the rest of his career.

“For some reason, I’m still smiling and enjoying every moment,” he commented. “Obviously, I enjoyed the first half more than the second half. What an amazing car we had in being out front, controlling the lines. Just one restart where we got caught up on the outside and got shuffled back and played catch up from there. I’m upset that we didn’t have a good shot at winning the 500.”

Brad Keselowski and Tony Stewart were among the drivers that did not see the finish as Keselowski blew a motor with 40 laps to go, while Tony Stewart got loose and into the outside wall on lap 41.

“When it got three wide that particular lap it got away from me, and I got out of the gas and couldn’t even get the front end caught up when I got out of the gas,” Stewart shared. “I’m not sure if Ryan (Blaney) wasn’t there, I still was going to hit the fence.”

Following a wreck during the NASCAR XFINITY race at Daytona International Speedway, Kyle Busch will miss the Daytona 500.

Joe Gibbs Racing released a statement around 9:30 p.m. EST, stating Busch’s injuries.

Kyle Busch, driver of the No. 54 Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR), sustained a compound fracture of the right lower leg in an accident during Saturday’s NASCAR XFINITY Series race at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway. Additionally, Busch suffered a mid-foot fracture of his left foot in the accident.
Busch was transported to a local hospital for treatment immediately following the accident and is currently undergoing surgery on his right leg.

Joe Gibbs Racing then followed that statement up at 11:30 p.m. EST, stating that the surgery was successful on Busch’s right leg.

Kyle Busch, driver of the No. 18 Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR), underwent successful surgery tonight to repair a compound fracture to his lower right leg suffered earlier today during the NASCAR XFINITY Series race at Daytona International Speedway.

Busch is resting comfortable and will remain hospitalized for observation.

There will be no additional updates tonight.

The amount of time that Busch will be out of the car has yet to be determined.

Joe Gibbs Racing announced that Matt Crafton will serve as the interim driver for Sunday’s 57th Daytona 500. Crafton is a two-time Camping World Truck Series Champion and the Daytona 500 will mark his NASCAR Sprint Cup Series debut. Crafton attempted to qualify for the Brickyard 400, but would fail to qualify. He also ran the final Sprint Cup Series practice in place of Paul Menard last year at Las Vegas.

JGR added, “An interim driver has not been determined for the following race March 1 at Atlanta Motor Speedway in Hampton, Georgia, or for any future races.”

Team owner Joe Gibbs is scheduled to address the media at Daytona International Speedway at 9:20 a.m. EST.

With nine laps to go when Kyle Busch would give Erik Jones a shot, resulting in Jones coming down across the field. Busch would then bounce off of another car before sliding through the infield grass and making heavy contact with a non-SAFER barrier wall. Busch was awake and alert as he was loaded into the ambulance before being taken to the infield care center, followed by the Halifax Medical Center.