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  • Hamlin breaks through with win at Michigan

    Hamlin breaks through with win at Michigan

    By Reid Spencer
    Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service
    BROOKLYN, Mich.—With great work in the pits when it counted most, opportunistic Denny Hamlin held off charging Matt Kenseth to win Sunday’s Heluva Good 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Michigan International Speedway.

    CIA Stock Photo

    Hamlin beat Kenseth to the finish line by .281 seconds, with Kyle Busch following in third. Paul Menard finished fourth, and series points leader Carl Edwards was fifth.

     

    The victory was Hamlin’s first of the season and the 17th of his career.

    Hamlin won the race off pit road when the lead-lap cars stopped on Lap 192 of 200, after Dale Earnhardt Jr. slammed the outside wall to bring out the fifth caution of the race.

    A caution on Lap 158—the result of an accident involving Juan Pablo Montoya and Andy Lally in Turn 4—interrupted a cycle of green-flag pit stops and scrambled the running order for a restart on Lap 164.

    Edwards passed Kenseth and Busch for the lead on the restart lap, with Hamlin in pursuit.

    Jimmie Johnson continued to have problems with Michigan, one of four active Cup tracks where the five-time defending champion hasn’t won a race. Johnson spun off Turn 2 just eight laps into the race, flattened three of his four tires and broke the sway bar on the No. 48 Chevrolet.

    Ultimately, Johnson lost two laps as his crew repaired the car. He salvaged a 27th-place finish but lost most of the ground he had gained on Edwards last week at Pocono.

  • Jeff Gordon Improves Chase Chances With Second Win of the Season

    Jeff Gordon Improves Chase Chances With Second Win of the Season

    [media-credit name=”Kirk Schroll” align=”alignright” width=”240″][/media-credit]Jeff Gordon, sporting the familiar No. 24 Dupont Chevrolet colors, scored his second win of the 2011 season, moving ever closer to Chase contention. This is Gordon’s fifth top-10 finish in 2011 and his fifth victory in 37 races at Pocono Raceway.

    Gordon also reached another significant milestone with his win in the 5-Hour Energy 500. The victory ties Gordon with Bobby Allison and Darrell Waltrip for third on the all-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series win list.

    “It certainly helps us,” Gordon said of his Chase chances. “Our focus has to be the same all the time, try to win races, to lock ourselves in.”

    “I’m just more excited about the momentum coming toward us,” Gordon continued. “The things that we believe in are starting to come true.”

    “You question that at times,” Gordon said. “Days like today show how serious we are. At this point in the season, to get our program turned around, the timing couldn’t be better and hopefully we can keep that going.”

    “This is a tough place to win.”

    Gordon’s crew chief, Alan Gustafson, could not agree more with his driver.

    “There are a lot of things at a track like this that are so difficult,” Gustafson said. “We were a little nervous. To win in this sport, you have to have everything on the edge.”

    The Busch brothers, Kurt and Kyle, gave Gordon a run for his money, scoring second and third respectively. Kurt Busch posted his 11th top-10 finish in 21 races and Kyle Busch posted his fourth top-10 finish in 13 races at the ‘Tricky Triangle.’

    “It was a great, hard fought battle for us on the No. 22 car today,” pole sitter and second place finisher Kurt Busch. “It was a nice, steady run and we were able to have smooth pit stops and we had a great handling car.”

    “It was a great genuine day for our team to run in the top five all day,” Busch continued. “It’s pleasing to see that result.”

    “I was giving it all I had and I just couldn’t quite close the gap.”

    Busch admitted that there were many things to balance in the race, especially as he engaged in the heated battle with race winner Gordon.

    “It was an interesting day with shifting,” Busch said. “We shifted quite a bit today and had to keep track of the temperatures and the revs on the engine and fuel mileage as well. There was a lot to balance inside the car today.”

    Baby brother Kyle Busch, driver of the No. 18 M&Ms Toyota, was also pleased with his third place finish.

    “For us, we had a long way to come from since we started deep in the field,” Busch said. “We worked our way towards the front steadily and methodically for most of the race.”

    “We had good pit stops all day and the guys did a good job giving me the right adjustments,” Busch continued. “The restarts played in our favor and we passed a few cars there. That last restart is where we got most of our track position.”

    “Kurt was so much faster than I was that last run of the race that it wasn’t going to do me much to hold him up,” Busch said “So, I tried to let him go and see if he couldn’t catch the 24 and make a race out of it.”

    “We just tried to bring home a solid third.”

    Unfortunately, Kyle Busch’s car failed post-race inspection due to a height issue, too high on the left. “Being a parent, it means more to experience that with them,” Gordon said of having daughter Ella in Victory Lane. His car is being transported back to NASCAR’s R&D center for a more-in-depth look.

    In contrast to Gordon and the Busch boys, the point’s leader coming into the race, Carl Edwards had a miserable day. The driver of the No. 99 Kellogg/Cheez-It Ford finished 37th after he broke a valve in the engine.

    Even with that bad finish, Edwards did, however, maintain the points lead with the narrowest of margins. He is now just six points ahead of Jimmie Johnson, who finished the race in the fourth spot.

    In a somewhat bizarre turn of events, Edwards joined the broadcast booth to provide commentary while his team worked furiously on his car in the garage. He was able to turn one last lap to avoid the DNF.

    “I was very careful not to overdrive,” Edwards said. “One of the valves got in an argument with something in the engine and lost.”

    Kevin Harvick, driver of the No. 29 Okuma Chevrolet, had an eventful day but still managed to finish fifth in the 5-Hour Energy 500. Harvick survived problems early when his crew did not get all the fuel in and he then got off the sequence of pit stops.

    Dale Earnhardt, Jr., in the No. 88 National Guard/AMP Energy Chevrolet, Juan Pablo Montoya, piloting the No. 42 Target Chevrolet, Matt Kenseth, driver of the No. 17 Affliction Clothing Live Fast Ford, Ryan Newman, behind the wheel of the of the Haas Automation Chevrolet, and Martin Truex, Jr., in his No. 56 NAPA Auto Parts Toyota, rounded out the top ten.

    Unofficial Race Results
    5-Hour Energy 500, Pocono Raceway
    http://www.speedwaymedia.com/Cup/race.php?race=14
    =========================================
    Pos. No. Driver Make Points
    =========================================
    1 3 24 Jeff Gordon Chevrolet 47
    2 1 22 Kurt Busch Dodge 43
    3 34 18 Kyle Busch Toyota 42
    4 14 48 Jimmie Johnson Chevrolet 41
    5 32 29 Kevin Harvick Chevrolet 39
    6 21 88 Dale Earnhardt Jr. Chevrolet 38
    7 16 42 Juan Montoya Chevrolet 38
    8 27 17 Matt Kenseth Ford 36
    9 8 39 Ryan Newman Chevrolet 35
    10 31 56 Martin Truex Jr. Toyota 34
    11 19 20 Joey Logano Toyota 33
    12 17 4 Kasey Kahne Toyota 32
    13 9 0 David Reutimann Toyota 31
    14 2 27 Paul Menard Chevrolet 30
    15 5 78 Regan Smith Chevrolet 29
    16 12 33 Clint Bowyer Chevrolet 28
    17 11 6 David Ragan Ford 27
    18 10 5 Mark Martin Chevrolet 26
    19 4 11 Denny Hamlin Toyota 27
    20 33 31 Jeff Burton Chevrolet 24
    21 15 14 Tony Stewart Chevrolet 24
    22 23 83 Brian Vickers Toyota 22
    23 20 2 Brad Keselowski Dodge 21
    24 25 51 Landon Cassill Chevrolet 0
    25 28 43 A.J. Allmendinger Ford 19
    26 40 36 Dave Blaney Chevrolet 18
    27 37 16 Greg Biffle Ford 17
    28 18 47 Bobby Labonte Toyota 16
    29 30 34 David Gilliland Ford 15
    30 35 13 Casey Mears Toyota 14
    31 41 32 Mike Bliss Ford 0
    32 24 71 Andy Lally * Ford 12
    33 13 1 Jamie McMurray Chevrolet 11
    34 7 9 Marcos Ambrose Ford 10
    35 26 38 Sam Hornish Jr. Ford 0
    36 38 37 Tony Raines Ford 8
    37 6 99 Carl Edwards Ford 7
    38 42 7 Scott Wimmer Dodge 0
    39 43 150 T.J. Bell * Toyota 0
    40 29 87 Joe Nemechek Toyota 0
    41 36 66 Michael McDowell Toyota 4
    42 22 46 J.J. Yeley Chevrolet 2
    43 39 181 Scott Riggs Chevrolet 0
  • Finally First: Carl Edwards Takes Home One of NASCAR’s Biggest Races

    Finally First: Carl Edwards Takes Home One of NASCAR’s Biggest Races

    Prior to Saturday night’s Sprint All-Star race, Carl Edwards had finished second in NASCAR’s two biggest races. At Daytona his furious charge on the final lap was only good enough to follow Cinderella story Trevor Bayne across the finish line. In Darlington two weeks ago Edwards again followed another first time winner across the line in the Southern 500, Regan Smith.

    [media-credit name=”Brad Keppel” align=”alignright” width=”238″][/media-credit]At Charlotte, the No. 99 Aflac team was not about to let another big one slip through their fingers. Right from the green flag it was clear that the man to beat would be Edwards as he quickly marched to the top three were he would remain the rest of the night. Kyle Busch, who finished second, knew that once Edwards got out front there was no catching him.

    “We got beat tonight on speed and unfortunately were second best,” he said. “When he [Edwards] passed me for the lead there in the third segment, he just drove it five car lengths further than I could drive it into turn three. It stuck. His car would turn and roll the bottom. He slid up off the bottom maybe a foot. If I would have done that, it would have been a lot more than a foot, it would have been a few lanes. His car just had a lot of front grip in it tonight. They did a good job with it.”

    Edwards took home a $1.2 million dollar payday. It was his first All-Star win but he became the third driver to win the All-Star race for team owner Jack Roush. It came after what will be described as domination. Edwards won the second and third segments and then went on to lead all 10 laps in the fourth and final segment.

    “I don’t think it’s sunk in yet,” said Edwards who then went on to thank his crew for winning the race off pit road. “My pit crew stepped up tonight, they did an unreal job on that last stop. If we wouldn’t have come off pit road first it would have been a very difficult race. It took me about 10 laps to get around Kyle [Busch] and those guys, so it would have been a very tough race. Those guys get a lot of credit for this win.”

    After the third segment all teams came down pit road for a mandatory four tire stop. The race off pit road would determine the restart order for the final segment. The Aflac team beat Busch’s team and his teammates of Greg Biffle and Matt Kenseth off pit road. From there it was about a clean restart and clear sailing as Busch never mounted a challenge and held off David Reutimann as Edwards drove away.

    “The restart was good. Man, that thing really runs,” said Edwards of the final segment and his car. “That was a great restart and it could have gone either way. Kyle could have really hung in there and it would have been really tough race, so I’m glad we were able to get him.”

    Edwards made it look easy as he won and didn’t make a mistake all night. Until it came time to do a victory celebration where he spun the car into the infield and the front end dug down into the grass. In doing so it got ripped apart as he went airborne but it didn’t put a damper on the team’s celebration.

    “You never know what comes from misfortunes,” he said. “It was definitely unfortunate that I tore up that racecar. Like Bob [Osborne] said, we got another one at the shop. It might be the difference in winning the race at the Coke 600. I’m going to have confidence that something good will come out of it.

    Edwards would continue to explain later, “I usually pull down there, do a back flip. I thought, ‘Hey, I’m going to do a slide to the grass. This will be great.’ As soon as I turned to the grass, I found the drainage cover there, I guess. It just dug in the splitter. I didn’t expect that.”

    What Edwards does expect is another repeat performance in one week. He’ll enter the Coca-Cola 600 next weekend looking to do the double. Last season Kurt Busch won the All-Star race and backed it up by winning the 600 the following week. The race is another NASCAR crown jewel that Edwards has never won.

    “We really have struggled at this racetrack,” said Edwards. “Jack has had a ton of success here. It’s fair to say that we have been not very good here and sometimes terrible. I think that we figured some things out. Bob and the guys have done a really good job. I think it bodes well for the 600, for sure. I would hope we can come back here next week with as good or better a car and definitely a lot more confidence than we had before we got here this weekend.”

    While Edwards did acknowledged he learned a few things that could be applied later in the season, “This is the first time I’ve come here and run like this, so it’s huge for me. If you look at our whole season, we’ve run really well at almost every racetrack. It’s been a really good season. That’s because of Jack, Robbie Reiser, all the guys at the shop working to get everything in order.”

    In order to make sure that like Saturday, he’s no longer the man finishing second on NASCAR’s biggest nights.