It was a hot day at Iowa Speedway for the American Ethanol E15 250, but one driver was hotter than the track. Justin Allgaier driving his No.7 JR Motorsports Chevrolet didn’t feel anything but elation as he wheeled into victory lane.
Allgaier swept all three stages of the race claiming his second NASCAR Xfinity Series victory of the year. Today’s win also marked his seventh career victory. He dominated today’s race leading 182 of 250 laps.
In Victory Lane Allgaier commented, “We had a great car today, these guys did a fantastic job I can’t thank everyone at JR Motorsports enough. We’re in the middle of a cornfield, how can you not enjoy this? Man is it cool to win one especially at Iowa.”
In Stage 1 Austin Cindric, starting from the pole position, appeared to be the car to beat. There was only one caution for Garrett Smithley who had a tire go down. It seemed like Cindric would lead every lap of this stage. However, with two laps remaining, Allgaier made his move and took the stage win.
Stage 2 would run caution free with Allgaier in the lead. Although others were jockeying for positions Allgaier proved dominant leading every lap and winning the stage.
The final stage would bring the best battles of the day. There were two minor cautions, one for Chad Finchum tagging the wall and the other for the spinning car of Brandon Hightower. The battle for the lead would get intense, even going three wide at points. Christopher Bell, in his No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, did everything he could to get the lead from Allgaier. On the last lap, Bell would try one final time but would come up short taking second place.
After the race, Bell commented,” We had a very good Rheem Camry, just not good enough to get him (Allgaier).”
Coming home in third place was Daniel Hemric in his No.21 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet. Cole Custer and Brandon Jones would round out the top five. Riley Herbst finished sixth in his first ever NASCAR Xfinity Series start. Ty Majeski, Tyler Reddick, Matt Tifft, and Kaz Grala finished seventh through 10th, respectively.
Elliott Sadler leads the Xfinity Series standing with 504 points over Cole Custer who has 500 points. Hemric is in third with 497 points, Reddick is in fourth with 473 points and Bell with 471 points rounds out the top five.
The Xfinity Series is off next week but will be heading to Chicagoland Speedway on Saturday, June 30.
Up and coming NASCAR star, Christian Eckes made his NASCAR Camping World Truck Series debut Saturday night driving the No. 46 Kyle Busch Motorsports Mobil 1 Toyota Tundra at Iowa Speedway.
On Lap 32, the second caution of the night was brought out due to an incident on the backstretch involving Austin Hill, Grant Enfinger, and Christian Eckes. The Mobil 1 driver had slight damage from the wreckage, but that didn’t stop the talented breakout star from making his way forward.
In the last thirty laps in Stage 1, he managed to fight his way to the 10th position after the early incident. Some pit strategy was played by the 46 team and others. Eckes was on older tires than the rest of the field but salvaged a 14th place finishing position in the second stage.
With some track position and strategy that continued to play out, he fought his way up as high as fifth in the final stage. At the end of the night, he brought home the KBM machine in the eighth position for his first ever top-10 finish in the series. Not bad for the 17-year-old rookie who made his national series debut.
“It started out a little rough,” Eckes said. “Not sure what happened on the backstretch there but we got in a wreck and had to fight back all day. Everybody on this 46 Mobil 1 team did a great job today getting me where I needed to be. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the finish that I really wanted at the end, but a top-10 finish in my debut is definitely a positive.”
Hometown hero Brett Moffitt was able to collect win number two of the 2018 season after a last lap thriller Saturday night at Iowa Speedway.
“We had to fight all day,” Moffitt said after the race. “Qualified where we didn’t want to and first stop, we had a lug nut get caught between the wheel and the hub. And so we went all the way back there. The guys worked hard. They executed at the end and to have this Destiny Homes Toyota in victory lane is unreal. You know, it was certainly faster at the end and I was just fortunate enough to hold them off.”
Harrison Burton and Matt Crafton set the front row early on in the day after qualifying for the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series M&M’s 200. Sixty laps in Stages 1 and 2 and 80 laps in the final stage made up the 200 lap running of the event.
Burton started off Stage 1 strong leading most of the way. The very first caution slowed the race on Lap 24, where Todd Gilliland scrapped the wall in Turn 2. After the restart on Lap 30, another caution came out when Grant Enfinger, Christian Eckes, Austin Hill and Ben Rhodes were involved in a melee on the backstretch slowing the pace once more.
As the stage was winding down, there was a five-way battle for the lead which included Crafton, John Hunter Nemechek, Stewart Friesen, Burton, and Johnny Sauter. However, Nemechek was able to take the lead and held on to win the first stage.
Stage 2 began on Lap 68 and went to Lap 120. Kansas race winner, Noah Gragson, took the lead on the restart and held on for a short while as there was once again multiple battles for the lead. The fourth caution came out just past the halfway mark for Gilliland, who once again bounced off the wall ultimately ending his day.
“A mistake by me,” Gilliland said. “We were really free and just got into (Turn) 1 a little too deep and I was running up, and got a little too free and wrecked. We blew a right front. Something was messed up. I don’t know, I’m not sure if I just hit something, caught a part or what, but just hate it. That was my fault, should have been running top five right now and I guess there’s nothing else you can do, except learn from it.”
This was the only incident in Stage 2 and Friesen ran away with the stage win.
The final stage went back to green with 71 laps to go and Atlanta race winner, Brett Moffitt took the lead. One caution slowed the final stage, as Matt Crafton’s left front tire went down and was unable to turn going into the Turn 1, taking out several others. Crafton and Nemechek’s night was done as they suffered the most damage from the wreck.
A restart came with 56 laps to go and Moffitt was able to take off like a rocket ship leading almost of the stage. With less than 30 to go, Gragson was starting to reel in the race leader.
As the race came to an end with less than five laps to go, a three-way battle for the win heated up with Moffitt, Gragson, and Burton. On the last lap, Gragson tried making a dive bomb move on Moffitt and took the lead for a split second but ended up bouncing off the wall coming to the line, allowing Moffitt to collect his second win of the season in a last-lap thriller.
There were six cautions for 44 laps and eight leaders among eight lead changes. Moffitt led once for 76 laps for the third win of his career.
The NASCAR Camping World Truck Series continues their mid-west swing by visiting Gateway Motorsports Park next Saturday night.
On Lap 135, Matt Crafton’s left front tire cut down going into Turn 1 causing a multi-vehicle incident during Stage 3 of the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series M&M’s 200 at Iowa Speedway. Drivers involved in the accident included Stewart Friesen, Ben Rhodes, previous race winner John Hunter Nemechek, and Dalton Sargeant.
Prior to the incident taking place, Crafton’s No. 88 Menards Ford and the No. 52 Halmar Racing machine made slight contact with each other, thus giving Crafton a left front tire rub. Laps later, the tire finally let go causing a major accident.
“I blew a left front tire,” Crafton said. “Just got caught back with the 52 (Friesen) and blew a left front tire.”
John Hunter Nemechek was also taken out of the race after leading the race twice for 15 laps.
“I don’t know how Crafton ended up with a left front rub,” Nemechek said. “I had no idea. We could tell who was rubbing to the outside getting in to (turn) 1, put us four wide and I tried backing out of the situation and it just wasn’t enough. I hate it for all my guys. He (Crafton) came up and blew a left front, kept coming up and put us in the fence. So overall, disappointed. But have another shot at tomorrow. We were fast and I was driving my butt off. That was a lot of fun.”
A miscommunication to the pace car sent half the field down pit road while the other half remained on track. As a result, race leader Clint Bowyer came down pit road with the pace car, while Kyle Busch went around another lap. Although timing and scoring displayed Busch as the race leader, Bowyer was declared the winner of the FireKeepers Casino 400 at Michigan International Speedway.
NASCAR Executive Vice-President and Chief Racing Development Officer Steve O’Donnell took to Twitter after the race to explain the miscommunication.
Bowyer gambled for track position and took just right-side tires under the second stage break caution to take the lead on the ensuing restart. Harvick ran alongside him for the first lap on the restart, but got loose exiting Turn 4 and Bowyer drove away to his 10th career victory in 447 career Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series starts.
“It took something crazy on a restart to be able to get Kevin (Harvick). That was a gutsy call,” Bowyer said. “When we went out there on two tires I looked in the mirror and I was so far ahead of everybody else I was like, ‘Oh man, we are in trouble!’ The rain came just in enough time. I was trying to hold him off. I was cutting him off and taking his line away pretty bad. If it wasn’t for a win you wouldn’t be doing that. He was so much faster than me in one and two. I got down in three and just had to take his line because that bear was coming.”
It was his first career victory at Michigan.
Kevin Harvick led a race high of 49 laps and won the second stage, on his way to a runner-up finish.
“It was a good day for us,” Harvick said. “Our pit crew was solid. Rodney made a good call there in the middle of the second stage to keep the track position and be able to drive away and get the stage win. They had a good pit stop to close out there, and the 14 just gambled, rolled the dice that the rain must have been going to come, and he was able to keep me on the bottom there just by a little bit on the restart. Then it was just going to take me a few laps to work back by. But he did a good job hanging onto his car and the gamble paid off for him.”
Kurt Busch led 46 laps, on his way to a third-place finish.
“We had an excellent day all the way through,” Busch said. “No big mistakes, no rough moments. Pit stops were solid, adjustments were solid. Restarts, I’d say three quarters of the time I was on the inside lane, so that might have been a little bit where we were pinned down. But you have to make do with what you have, how the chips fall. I’m happy with our effort today. To finish third, rain shortened, of course you always want to go back racing again, but to see the two cars in front of me at the end, the 4 and the 14, that’s a big day for Stewart‑Haas Racing. It’s very special to finish 1‑2‑3. Tried to get to your outside when we were on the track, maybe get a picture with the 14, 4 and 41 to symbolize such a special day at Michigan. To win at Stewart‑Haas for Ford 1‑2‑3, it’s a huge day.”
Kyle Busch and Paul Menard rounded out the Top-five.
Brad Keselowski, Joey Logano, Ryan Blaney, Chase Elliott and Jamie McMurray rounded out the Top-10.
RACE SUMMARY
Scheduled to go green at 2:14 p.m., the start was delayed for two hours by rain. The field rolled onto the race track half-past the hour and went green at 4:44 p.m. Up until the final 15 laps of the first stage, Kurt Busch led un-challeneged. Blaney posed Busch his first challenge of the day, however, exiting Turn 4 on Lap 46 and drove on to win the first stage.
Darrell Wallace Jr., who opted not to pit under the stage break caution, led the field back to green on Lap 65. Exiting Turn 2, however, Kevin Harvick drove around him to take the lead and won the second stage.
Clint Bowyer exited pit road with the race lead and led the field back to green on Lap 126.
“Being at the same tires on a restart against Kevin Harvick, you know what you’re up against. He was so much faster than me in (Turns) 1 and 2. I got down in 3, and 4 and I had to chop him off, take his line away. He got loose a couple of times. I’m like, ‘Man it better rain quick, because one more lap, he’s gonna get me.’”
Caution flew three laps later for a one-car (Ricky Stenhouse Jr.) wreck in Turn 2, but rain forced NASCAR to throw the red flag.
NUTS & BOLTS
The race lasted two hours and 15 seconds, at an average speed of 132.723 mph. There were nine lead changes among seven drivers, and eight cautions for 30 laps.
Kyle Busch leaves Michigan with a 75-point lead over Joey Logano.
Austin Dillon held off his Richard Childress Racing teammate Daniel Hemric to bring home the checkered flag in Saturday’s Xfinity Series LTi Printing 250 at Michigan International Speedway.
It was his first Xfinity Series victory win since August 2016 at Bristol, ending a 26-race winless streak in the series. Dillon took over the lead on Lap 72 and led the last 18 laps of the rain-shortened event which ended under caution after Lap 91 of 125 scheduled laps. The race start was delayed three hours due to the inclement weather.
It was Dillon’s first win at Michigan and his ninth Xfinity Series career victory.
“It’s always amazing to get back to Victory Lane. We’ve been working really hard at Richard Childress Racing to get back into the Winner’s Circle and as an organization, we really thought that if we could put Nick Harrison and myself together we could get there. It worked because this is only our second race together this year and here we are.”
Hemric’s second place tied his career-best finish but he was disappointed in the result.
“I am proud of the effort and the strides our team made throughout the weekend in practice to make sure we had a really good-driving race car today. I’m proud of everyone on this No. 21 South Point Hotel & Casino team for giving me the opportunity to drive a fast race car. I just didn’t quite execute on my end to put this team in Victory Lane today.”
Cole Custer finished third, and said, “Today we were just in the right place at the right time and had great strategy. I think my crew chief had a great strategy and got us track position at the end. Our Code 3 Ford Mustang was pretty solid. It was hard to pass. You don’t want to be on the bottom. We had some things go our way and ended up P3 there.”
Ryan Reed placed fourth followed by Paul Menard in fifth. Kyle Busch, Tyler Reddick, Kevin Harvick, Justin Allgaier and Ryan Truex rounded out the top 10.
This was the second straight week that the Xfinity Series ran a high-downforce restrictor-plate package. The result was closer racing action which produced nine cautions during the race.
Dillon gave the package his stamp of approval, saying, “The new package we ran this weekend worked. The fans had to love how tight we were all running together. It was definitely difficult to pass that lead guy. I thought it was fun. It reminded me of Go Kart racing back in the day.”
Elliott Sadler, the series point leader, finished 30th after scraping the outside wall on Lap 73 due to contact with Alex Bowman. He retains the lead by 41 points over Custer in second.
The Xfinity Series heads to Iowa Speedway next Sunday for the Iowa 250 presented by Enogen.
Follow @angiecampbell_ for the latest NASCAR news and feature stories.
Martin Truex Jr. didn’t have the strongest car in the race, though he won a stage, and didn’t pitch one of his signature clinic performances. But his team gambled in the closing laps by staying out under caution, and he held off drivers with fresher tires to win at Pocono.
He, along with Kevin Harvick, Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson, chose to stay out during a caution with 21 laps to go. He held off Larson on two consecutive restarts to score his 17th career victory in 455 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series starts.
“You’re always concerned on restarts. You just never know. So much can happen on those things, but we were luckily able to get a good one. Just can’t say enough about everyone on this team. Everybody, Cole (Pearn, crew chief) and all the guys really did a good job last night. We had a good practice yesterday. Really, it’s been a good weekend, overall. Just kind of been a sane weekend. I feel like we’re getting back to what we were doing last year.”
It’s his second career victory at Pocono Raceway.
“It’s always fun to win, but especially when you beat the best guys out there. Those two guys (Larson and Harvick) were so fast today. Honestly, we were all really equal. It was a matter of who could get out front. The 4 (Harvick) and I stayed (out) on tires. We felt like in practice, we were really fast on scuffs. So Cole made a good call there to stay out. Once we got out in clean air, this thing was like a rocket ship.”
Larson, Kyle Busch, Harvick and Brad Keselowski rounded out the Top-five.
“We weren’t quite as fast as what I thought we’d be after practice,” Larson said. “I ran probably sixth or seventh all day long and finished second. Was happy about that because I felt like obviously we were at a little bit of a disadvantage on tires there, but the track position overcame that. But I felt like if I didn’t have a good restart on any one of those, I would have fell back outside the top 5 from those guys on fresher tires. Happy we finished second but needed a lot more to kind of compete with the three guys that ran up front all day.”
“Just real unfortunate there that once we all thought we had that caution that brought us all down pit road for what we thought was the final stop of the day, we got tires, we beat everybody off pit road and was in control of the restart and then in control of the race when we were leading there, and all of a sudden about 10, 11 laps into that run, there was a caution in Turn 1 for what looked to me to be a shoe booty,” Busch said. “Somebody took their booty off, I guess, and chucked it out their window. That was kind of weird that we saw a caution for that, but safety comes first, so that just kind of derailed our strategy, if you will, and we lost this race last year on not pitting in that situation and getting beat by tires, and so we pitted this year for tires and got beat by those that didn’t pit.”
“We had a good car all day, just came down to really losing control of the race on the last pit stop,” Harvick said. “Really not pitting or pitting didn’t really seem to matter. We lost control to the 18 (Kyle Busch) and wound up losing a couple more spots on the restart starting on the inside, and that was the end of the day. Car was fast and everybody did a great job, it just didn’t work out.”
Ryan Blaney, Aric Almirola, Jimmie Johnson, Joey Logano and Chase Elliott rounded out the Top-10.
“My guys kept fighting all day long,” Johnson said. “That was a hard-fought eighth place finish. We just need to keep improving, but we’re slowly chipping away at it.”
RACE SUMMARY
LONG POND, Pa. – JUNE 03: Ryan Blaney, driver of the #12 Menards/Duracell Ford, and Kevin Harvick, driver of the #4 Busch Beer Ford, lead the field to green for the start of the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Pocono 400 at Pocono Raceway on June 3, 2018 in Long Pond, Pennsylvania. Photo: Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images
Ryan Blaney led the field to green at 2:15 p.m. He led the first 11 laps, before Kevin Harvick used a run off Turn 3 to pass him down the frontstretch for the top spot. Blaney opted to pit early in the run and work the race like a road course race (fuel window was roughly 35 laps). While he was among a few drivers that pitted early in the fuel run, most of the field pitted 10 laps after Blaney, with Harvick pitting on Lap 26. Jimmie Johnson — who’d led a career total of 169,291 laps, entering this race — led his first lap of the 2018 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season on Lap 27. When he pitted on Lap 29, Brad Keselowski took over the top spot. After he pitted from the lead on Lap 33, Harvick — who passed Kyle Busch exiting Turn 3 two laps prior — cycled back to the lead.
Martin Truex Jr. got a run down the short-chute to pass Harvick through Turn 3 to take the lead on Lap 43, and drove on to win the first stage on Lap 50. Keselowski took only two tires under the caution and exited pit road with the lead.
Back to green on Lap 57, Harvick got a run going into Turn 1 and took the lead back from Keselowski. Running third, Keselowski pitted on Lap 67 to short-pit the second stage. The rest of the leaders followed suite on Lap 78, with Harvick pitting from the lead the following lap, and handing the lead to Darrell Wallace Jr. Harvick ran him down and passed him to retake the lead on Lap 84, and drove on to win the second stage.
For most of the final stage, Harvick ran unchallenged. But after Derrike Cope got turned by Kyle Larson in Turn 3 with 36 laps to go, he lost the lead on pit road to Kyle Busch.
LONG POND, Pa. – JUNE 03: Kyle Busch, driver of the #18 M&M’s Red White & Blue Toyota, pits during the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Pocono 400 at Pocono Raceway on June 3, 2018 in Long Pond, Pennsylvania. Photo: Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images
Back to green with 31 to go, Busch shot ahead of Harvick going into Turn 1. A crush panel in the middle of Turn 1 brought out the caution with 21 to go. Truex, Harvick, Chase Elliott and Larson opted to stay out, Blaney, Aric Almirola and Austin Dillon exited pits first by taking just two tires and Kyle Busch, Hamlin and Keselowski, the first cars on four new tires, rounded out the Top-10.
“…clean air is always super important here,” Larson said after the race. “He and the 4 (Harvick) were way better than I was at the end, but I was just able to kind of stay just low enough on exit I felt like to keep them tight behind me, so yeah, clean air is just important everywhere, but especially I feel like when you get to these fast tracks that are pretty flat.”
Martin Truex Jr. does celebratory burnouts on the front stretch at Pocono Raceway, to celebrate his victory in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Pocono 400 at Pocono Raceway. Photo: Kirk Schroll/SpeedwayMedia.com
Restarting with 17 to go, Truex shot out to a lead of over a second, while Harvick was usurped for second by Larson.
“…when you’re on the outside, the leader typically chooses the outside for the launch and to get going, and so he can control the guy on his inside and not get in a bad aero spot so that just makes that lane accelerate just that instant sooner, and that momentum just kind of rolls,” Busch said. “But I thought Larson and I had a pretty good run there on that final restart where I pushed him back up to the back of the 78, and he didn’t hit him enough in order to get him up the track a little farther so I could squeak on under there and have a three‑wide battle and probably a whole bunch of fire and flames and parts on the outside of the racetrack in Turn 2, but maybe next time.”
Rounding Turn 1 with 15 to go, Hamlin got loose in Turn 1 and made contact with Alex Bowman, sending him into the wall, while he slid down and hit the inside wall.
Restarting with 10 to go, Erik Jones got turned when he jumped out of line with Joey Logano, who was pushing him on the restart, spun down the track and hit the inside wall with his left-rear corner panel.
Back to green with seven to go, Truex swung down and back up the frontstretch to block Larson’s advance and drove on to victory.
NUTS & BOLTS
The race lasted two hours and 52 minutes, at an average speed of 139.535 mph. There were 11 lead changes among seven different drivers, and six cautions for 23 laps.
