Category: RC XFINITY

Another Zippo 200 for the NASCAR XFINITY Series is in the books, and in traditional form, this afternoon’s edition was nothing less than exciting. When the dust settled, it was Joey Logano overcoming adversity and taking the checkered flag here at Watkins Glen International.

Starting from the pole, Logano quickly jumped out to an early lead ahead of the likes of teammate Brad Keselowski, defending NASCAR XFINITY Series Champion Chase Elliott, Kyle Larson running double duty this weekend, and Chris Buescher.

It only took 23 laps for the fireworks to start when the No. 12 Snap-on Ford hit pit road from the lead. What looked to be a solid pit stop for Logano ended in disaster when the gas can was left in the car as he exited his pit box. The gas can came to rest in the middle of pit road, resulting in the second caution of the day. The mistake gave him a trip to the rear of the field for the restart on lap 26.

Over the next 20 laps, Logano would pick his way through the field from 29th, making his way to the bumper of the race leader and his teammate, Brad Keselowski, by lap 28. The No. 12 would take the lead on the next lap, and never turned back. He was able to weather the storm of two late-race restarts and win the 2015 edition of the Zippo 200 at Watkins Glen International.

Logano talked about Penske’s domination at The Glen and his trip from the front, to the back, and to the front again in Victory Lane, stating, “It’s fun to have a car that is that fast. When you’re out there racing your teammate for the win, it shows a lot about our organization. I was a little bit worried I wasn’t going to get back to the front after that penalty. I was mainly nervous about accidents and crashes that happen here and you get caught up in a lot of times. I felt like my car was fast enough to get to them, but I didn’t know if I was going to get by them all.”

The win today is Logano’s fourth victory of 2015, the 25th of his career, and his first at Watkins Glen International.

The Penske domination wasn’t the only headline of the day. As they generally do, tempers flared once again at Watkins Glen between a few drivers who were jockeying for position on the late-race restarts. Regan Smith, who started eighth and ran toward the front all day, took issue with a few fellow competitors after the race. Smith exited his car on Pit Road immediately following the race with his sights set on Brendan Gaughan and Ty Dillon. After a few words in the cockpit window of the No. 62 South Point Chevrolet, he headed for Dillon who had been finishing up an interview.

Smith’s discussion with Dillon was short, immediately turning into a shoving match. Dillon, who was apologetic about the late-race incident where he dove underneath Smith on the final restart, spinning the No. 7 car as a result. Following the scuffle, Smith, who is in the heat of a points battle with Dillon, had this to say about the incident.

“I got dumped in Turn 1,” Smith said, “and I wasn’t the only one who got dumped today either. I may have lost the championship today, but he did too. There is zero chance that No. 3 car wins this championship. We’re going to make sure of it.”

Chris Buescher remains the NASCAR XFINITY points leader after his third place finish today in the Zippo 200. He leads Chase Elliott by 24 points going into the second of three road course races in a row for the Nascar XFINITY Series. Elliott finished a rocky day in seventh.

Be sure to follow all the action tomorrow as the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series takes the stage for the 30th Annual Cheez-It 355 at The Glen.

Kyle Busch, in the No.54 Monster Energy Toyota, made a last lap pass on Ryan Blaney, driver of the No.22 Discount Tire Ford, to score his 72nd career victory in the NASCAR XFINITY Series and his second win in four starts at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Blaney started 11th and ran in the top-3 most of the day before taking the lead from Busch on lap 75 of the 100 lap race. Blaney would lead the next 24 laps before Busch made the pass on lap 99.

After the race and his second place finish, Blaney was asked if this was his toughest loss in NASCAR.

“Yeah, pretty easy. Not many can say they had a chance to win at the Brickyard and gave it away, but I did just that,” he said. “I think I’m the only one in that category, so I’m leading that category but that’s definitely gonna sting for a long time.”

Busch started on the pole with a qualifying lap of 180.527 mph and led 53 laps.

“I just got close enough to make him mess up and made him get tight off two and then I was able to capitalize underneath him with him losing his momentum off of two and being able to get under him,” said Busch following the race.

Daniel Suarez, driving the Joe Gibbs Racing, No.18 ARRIS Toyota, started second and finished in the third position in his first start at the famed speedway. His second place finish was his 8th top-10 finish in 18 starts this year.

Suarez said, “First of all I want to congratulate my teammate and good friend Kyle (Busch). He’s been doing amazing and I’ve been learning a lot from him. I think thanks to that, we are where we are right now. We have to keep working, keep learning and I’m pretty sure we’re going to get our checkered flag soon.”

Paul Menard finished in the fourth position in his No.33 Menards Chevrolet, followed by fifth place finisher, Elliott Sadler in the No.6 OneMain Financial Ford.

Chris Buescher retains his points lead over Chase Elliott and Ty Dillon. Buescher finished in 16th place, Elliott finished 10th, and last year’s winner, Ty Dillon, finished in the 9th position.

There were eight lead changes among six drivers and three caution flags for 16 laps.

By Reid Spencer

LOUDON, N.H. – To Denny Hamlin, it was just hard short-track racing for the win.

To runner-up Austin Dillon, it was unnecessarily aggressive driving that led to Hamlin’s victory in the Lakes Region 200 NASCAR XFINITY Series race on Saturday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

On Lap 179 of 200 at the Magic Mile, Hamlin drove his No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota to the inside of Dillon’s No. 33 Chevrolet. Hamlin slid up the track into Dillon, broke the No. 33’s momentum and took the lead.

Eventual third- and fourth-place finishers Brad Keselowski and Kyle Busch also passed Dillon, who later regained the positions he lost to Keselowski and Busch but ran out of time in his pursuit of Hamlin.

Earlier in the race Hamlin had two similar incidents with Busch, his teammate. And though Busch didn’t appear particularly annoyed with Hamlin’s tactics, Dillon was incensed.

“He got to me, and I figured he was going to race, but he never even wanted to,” Dillon said. “He wrecked his teammate and then proceeded to try and wreck me, and if I had gotten back to him, it would have happened to him.”

Hamlin wrote off the contact to all-out racing at a one-mile flat track.

“The bottom line is, if you don’t have any air on the outside of you, you just can’t hold it,” Hamlin said. “There was an example of that about three times today … I want to thank ‘Wheels’ (crew chief Mike Wheeler) for giving me the dominant car. We had the best car, and just, wow, what a day.”

In Hamlin’s view, Dillon wasn’t blameless either.

“Well, he jumped the restart, for one,” Hamlin said. “I’m the control car, but that’s fine. Eventually I was going to get back around him anyway. Same thing—I was a fender ahead, and he drove in there knowing that he was going to have to hold me low to hold the position, and I just washed up into him.

“But that’s two guys on a short track racing for the win.”

Dillon clearly had a different opinion.

“What is racing, if you can’t race side-by-side for more than a corner?” Dillon asked rhetorically. “He never even went through a corner with me, the whole race. He didn’t want to. He just moved me. Missed the corner. Wrecked me.

“I’m fine with racing rough. I promise you, I can do it to anybody. But if we’re going to race like that, I need to know before you get to the first corner. Give me a corner at least.”

Dillon indicated there might be some payback in the offing but wouldn’t reveal how or when.

“I’m not going to talk about it,” Dillon said. “He won’t be ready.”

Hamlin’s reply? “We’ve both got race cars.”

Dillon got the lead on Lap 175 moments after a restart following the sixth and final caution for Brian Scott’s blown engine.

Both Hamlin and Dillon had stayed out on old tires under the previous yellow, but Keselowski came to pit road for fresh rubber on Lap 142. As it turned out, the new tires made little difference.

“It was the right call and probably got us to third, instead of fourth or fifth,” Keselowski said. “We just weren’t as fast as the 33 and 20 were. … We just weren’t fast enough this weekend.”

Rookie Daniel Suarez ran fifth, followed by Ty Dillon, Regan Smith, Darrell Wallace Jr., Chase Elliott and Brennan Poole. Series leader Chris Buescher finished 14th, one lap down, and saw his lead in the standings shrink to 31 points over second-place Elliott.

 NASCAR XFINITY Series Race – Lakes Region 200

New Hampshire Motor Speedway

Loudon, New Hampshire

Saturday, July 18, 2015

               1. (1) Denny Hamlin(i), Toyota, 200, $52101.

               2. (6) Austin Dillon(i), Chevrolet, 200, $32261.

               3. (4) Brad Keselowski(i), Ford, 200, $27038.

               4. (2) Kyle Busch(i), Toyota, 200, $26186.

               5. (3) Daniel Suarez #, Toyota, 200, $27768.

               6. (7) Ty Dillon, Chevrolet, 200, $23909.

               7. (8) Regan Smith, Chevrolet, 200, $23253.

               8. (11) Darrell Wallace Jr. #, Ford, 200, $24948.

               9. (9) Chase Elliott, Chevrolet, 200, $23720.

               10. (13) Brennan Poole, Chevrolet, 200, $23494.

               11. (10) Brendan Gaughan, Chevrolet, 200, $22467.

               12. (14) Ben Rhodes, Chevrolet, 199, $22341.

               13. (21) Ryan Reed, Ford, 199, $22188.

               14. (20) Chris Buescher, Ford, 199, $21935.

               15. (19) JJ Yeley, Toyota, 199, $22209.

               16. (15) Dakoda Armstrong, Ford, 199, $21681.

               17. (17) Elliott Sadler, Ford, 199, $21755.

               18. (28) Eric McClure, Toyota, 198, $21402.

               19. (23) Jeremy Clements, Chevrolet, 198, $21352.

               20. (16) Blake Koch, Toyota, 198, $21802.

               21. (25) Cale Conley #, Toyota, 198, $21200.

               22. (24) David Starr, Toyota, 198, $21144.

               23. (18) Landon Cassill, Chevrolet, 198, $21093.

               24. (26) Dylan Lupton, Chevrolet, 198, $21028.

               25. (27) BJ McLeod(i), Chevrolet, 197, $21142.

               26. (31) Peyton Sellers #, Chevrolet, 195, $20957.

               27. (36) Derek White, Dodge, 195, $20921.

               28. (33) Joey Gase, Chevrolet, Clutch, 174, $20885.

               29. (5) Brian Scott, Chevrolet, Engine, 165, $20850.

               30. (35) Todd Peck(i), Chevrolet, Fuel Pump, 156, $21115.

               31. (37) Mike Harmon, Dodge, Brakes, 111, $20779.

               32. (38) Derrike Cope, Chevrolet, Brakes, 98, $14744.

               33. (29) Matt Wallace, Toyota, Vibration, 84, $14723.

               34. (12) Ryan Sieg, Chevrolet, Brakes, 46, $20703.

               35. (40) Matt Frahm, Chevrolet, Brakes, 42, $14651.

               36. (34) Morgan Shepherd, Chevrolet, Brakes, 40, $13234.

               37. (22) Ross Chastain #, Chevrolet, Accident, 36, $18234.

               38. (39) Josh Reaume #, Dodge, Brakes, 24, $11234.

               39. (32) Harrison Rhodes #, Chevrolet, Engine, 16, $16234.

               40. (30) Jeff Green, Toyota, Vibration, 3, $9234.

Average Speed of Race Winner:  98.342 mph.

Time of Race:  02 Hrs, 09 Mins, 06 Secs. Margin of Victory:  0.516 Seconds.

Caution Flags:  6 for 38 laps.

Lead Changes:  12 among 7 drivers.

Lap Leaders:   D. Hamlin(i) 0; K. Busch(i) 1-22; B. Keselowski(i) 23-39; D. Lupton 40-42; D. Hamlin(i) 43-44; K. Busch(i) 45-47; D. Hamlin(i) 48-119; B. Scott 120-121; A. Dillon(i) 122-123; D. Wallace Jr. # 124; D. Hamlin(i) 125-173; A. Dillon(i) 174-178; D. Hamlin(i) 179-200.

Leaders Summary (Driver, Times Lead, Laps Led):  D. Hamlin(i) 4 times for 145 laps; K. Busch(i) 2 times for 25 laps; B. Keselowski(i) 1 time for 17 laps; A. Dillon(i) 2 times for 7 laps; D. Lupton 1 time for 3 laps; B. Scott 1 time for 2 laps; D. Wallace Jr. # 1 time for 1 lap.

Top 10 in Points: C. Buescher – 623; C. Elliott – 592; T. Dillon – 585; R. Smith – 564; E. Sadler – 555; D. Wallace Jr. # – 547; D. Suarez # – 516; B. Gaughan – 506; R. Reed – 502; B. Scott – 494.