Category: Race Central

Marcos Ambrose held off Brad Keselowski and won Monday’s rain delayed Sprint Cup Series Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips at the Glen at Watkins Glen International.

[media-credit name=”CIA Photo Inc” align=”alignright” width=”219″][/media-credit]“I’ve sacrificed so much to get here and to finally win and be here in Victory Lane in the Cup Series is a dream come true. I flew the kids home yesterday. It was the little one’s first day at school. I was desperate to be there for her and this kind of makes up for it. I’ve just got to thank the Richard Petty Motorsports team, Stanley, DeWalt, everybody involved.” Ambrose said.

Kyle Busch was leading on the final green-white-checkers restart, but teammate dove under Busch entering the first turn for the lead. Ambrose bumped Keselowski in the chicane and took the lead.

This was his first victory in 105 starts in NASCAR’s top series and Ford’s first victory on a road course since Geoff Bodine in 1996.

“It was just a really good Dodge Charger today. I’m really proud of my guys for giving me a fast Miller Lite Dodge Charger. I wanted to win, but if I’m going to lose on a road course to someone, Marcos Ambrose is the man.” Keselowski said.

Busch finished third, Martin Truex Jr. fourth and Joey Logano finished fifth.

The race ended under caution when David Reutimann and David Ragan crashed entering the second turn. Reutimann’s bounced hard off of the guardrail and slid upside down across the track.

Polesitter and Sonoma winner, Kurt Busch went for a spin in the inner loop on lap four. He finished 38th.

“I had a big problem getting into the braking zones today, the rear brakes locking up. I had to crank eight rounds of front brake in our Shell/Pennzoil Dodge just to survive. All that does is generate brake heat and I blew out the left-front tire. It was just a bummer of a day and not anything that we expected. It must have been something with the brake package. Whatever (Brad) Keselowski found at Road Atlanta, I had a problem with today.” Busch said.

On lap 67, Denny Hamlin brought out the third caution flag of the race when he slammed head-on into the tire barrier after loosing his brakes.

“I had no brakes,” Hamlin said. “I was trying to do everything I could. Just nothing you can do.”

Brad Keselwoski gingerly climbed from his car as he celebrated his win at the Pocono Raceway late Sunday evening. Kesleowski held off a hard charging Kyle Busch for his second win of the 2011 season making him the first wild card in the chase. Keselowski had injured himself earlier in the week while testing at the road course in Atlanta. During the red flag Keselowski admitted to being sore but he toughed it out.

[media-credit name=”Kirk Schroll” align=”alignright” width=”218″][/media-credit]“It’s not me its good people,” Keselowski said in victory lane. “There’s so many people to thank.” But Keselowski also quickly said, “I’m no hero; the heroes are the guys that died in Afghanistan this week. I just drive race cars for a living.”

When asked about winning the possibility of winning a million dollars he said, “I would throw away the money (for the Sprint challenge) if I could get in the chase”, as Kurt Busch came in to congratulate him.

All the action occurred after a red flag delay that exceeded an hour and a half that saw Joey Logano leading the race.

“The 48 was coming,” Joey Logano said in the television booth during the red flag for rain at the Pocono Raceway. Logano had taken the lead from his team mate Denny Hamlin during a pit stop by taking 2 tires.

Sunday was a busy day at the Pocono Raceway as the Camping World Truck Series completed their race that was postponed due to weather on Saturday. Then the ARCA Series ran their delayed race before the Sprint Cup cars took to the track under the threat of rain.

Joey Logano led the field to the green after winning the pole award. Kasey Kahne started second but by the time the red flag was displayed on lap 124 Kahne was a lap down in 29^th place.

Up to the red flag it was Joe Gibbs Racing who dominated the race leading 110 of the 124 laps run, 65 of those by Logano’s team mate Denny Hamlin. During the red flag when asked if he wanted the race to be called Logano said, “What do you think?”

The June Pocono race winner, Jeff Gordon struggled early on from his starting position of 31^st hanging in the top 25 but his crew went to work and the car was getting better on each stop. By the time the red flag came out Gordon was in 6^th and he said, “I’m kind of hoping we go back racing because I think we can get our car good enough to win”

Jimmie Johnson was the only fly in the ointment for the Joe Gibbs trio chasing down and passing Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin as he was bearing down on Logano for the lead when the rains came. Johnson wanted to get back to racing as did Dale Earnhardt Jr. who was in 5^th.

When the race restarted the leaders all went to the pits and Jeff Burton only took two tires coming out first. Kurt and Kyle Busch led them to the green flag and took off. Earnhardt Jr. had slipped to 15^th but was working his way forward.

It went green flag and with 50 laps left pit stops started. Those went without issue and after Landon Cassill made his pit stop Kurt Busch remained in the lead as rain was close by but was forecasted to miss the track. Jimmie Johnson started having issues with his transmission shifter and had to keep it in high gear.

When Kyle Busch passed his brother Kurt with 38 laps to go for the lead Kurt  said, “Well, at least we won the Pocono 400.” At the same time Jeff Gordon was working on sixth place Joey Logano.

Things stayed green and they started another round of green flag stops with about 28 laps remaining.

Then with 21 laps to go Juan Pablo Montoya and the No. 4 of Kasey Kahne got together coming off turn 1 sending Montoya spinning and Kahne to the pits with damage. Kahen lost a lap and was angry with his crew yelling, “It’s like you guys have never been to a race before!” That erased a sizable lead by Kyle Busch over Brad Keselowski.

Under the caution many cars on the lead lap stopped for tires and fuel as the top 5 stayed out along with a few others who tried to gain track position.

On the restart Jimmie Johnson made a move for the lead going 3-4 wide into turn 1 and Keselowski ended up with the lead as Busch seemed to focus on Johnson who never made the pass. As the laps wound down Busch was tracking Keselowski down and closing in as Kurt Busch was in third and Jimmie Johnson was in fourth.

With 12 laps to go Joey Logano was losing a tire and almost crashed as he was in heavy traffic.

Coming to the checkered flag Kurt Busch and Jimmie Johnson had some high speed antics going on as they slammed doors. Johnson and Busch clearly disagreed as to what happened.

Kyle Busch said that if he to do it over again he would have done that restart the same way on the bottom even though he got bogged down with Johnson.

[media-credit name=”Adam Lovelace” align=”alignright” width=”233″][/media-credit]Paul Menard won his first career NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race in the 18th running of the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway holding off a late race charge from Jeff Gordon. Menard started the race in 15th place and was penalized during the race for a pit road violation. After the penalty, crew chief Slugger Labbe got aggressive with fuel mileage and the gamble paid off.

“You know I’ve been coming here since I was a kid and my Daddy has been trying to win this race for 35 years,so this is for my Dad. A lot of emotions right now. Slugger Labbe (crew chief) and all of these guys just do a hell of a job. I can’t believe we won Indy.” Menard said.

With three laps to go, crew chief Slugger Labbe gave Menard the green-light to go and pass Jamie McMurray for the race lead.  Labbe gave constant updates on Jeff Gordon’s lap times, but Gordon ran out of time.  Menard held off Gordon to win in his 167th career start.

Menard’s win continued the trend of first-time winners this season in NASCAR Sprint Cup Series events.  Trevor Bayne (Daytona 500), Regan Smith (Darlington) and David Ragan (Daytona).

Gordon overcame a 12-second deficit over the final 12 laps to finish .725 seconds behind.

“Oh my goodness what a day. What a day. I am so proud of this Drive to End Hunger Chevrolet team. I mean they were just flawless. What an awesome race car we have had all weekend long and we showed it, just how strong it was, throughout the whole day and I tell you Alan called a perfect race to get me out front of Harvick there……….it was huge.” Gordon said.

“Well I wanted it really bad you know leading up to that but on the last lap I knew I was too tight behind him and if he didn’t run out I wasn’t going to get him. I needed a few laps to work on him, well I guess I needed a few more laps for him to run out of fuel too.” Gordon added.

Menard, Regan Smith, in third, and Jamie McMurray in fourth all gambled on fuel mileage late in the race.

Regan Smith had another good day finishing 3rd after starting the race in the 27th position.

“This is not a great track for me, so I am happy and if I couldn’t win man the guy in victory lane is my best friend on the circuit and I can’t wait to get down there to congratulate him.” Regan said.

David Ragan in the No. 6 car started on the pole and was quickly over taken by the No. 4 car of Kasey Kahne. Kahne would dominate early on leading Gordon by over 8 seconds at one point. Kahne won the bonus point for leading the most laps on the day. Kahne would go on to finish the race in 18th after spinning through the grass late in the race while trying to avoid the No. 51 car of Landon Cassill who had hit the SAFER barrier in turn three.

Several of the top-10 in points suffered from problems during the day and finished outside the top 10 in the race. Points leader Carl Edwards finished the race in 14th. Jimmie Johnson finished 19th. Kevin Harvick finished in 11th. Kyle Busch rebounded from hitting the wall on the back straight away to finish in 10th. Dale Earnhardt Jr. was another victim of the fuel mileage game played at the Brickyard. Earnhardt led 7 laps during the event after starting 22nd and finished the race in 16th place.

The rest of the top 10 were Matt Kenseth, 5th, Tony Stewart, 6th, Greg Biffle, 7th, Mark Martin, 8th, Brad Keselowski, 9th, and Kyle Busch finished 10th.

“We were probably the second-best car most of the day,” Matt Kenseth said. “I think the 24 had the field covered, so I’m happy for Paul Menard being a first-time winner.  It’s kind of a shame that Jeff didn’t win.  I thought we had the fastest two cars and I was hoping we were gonna be able to duke it out on performance to the end and try to race for that thing, but that’s just the way the racing is these days.”

Carl Edwards remains the point leader followed by 5-time champion Jimmie Johnson, Kevin Harvick, Kyle Busch, and Matt Kenseth. Dale Earnhardt Jr. holds onto the 10th place spot in the point standings. Menard’s win moves him closer to a wild card spot in the Chase for 2011. Paul Menard is 14th in the point standings.

The series heads to Pocono Raceway next weekend for the Good Sam RV Insurance 500.