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  • Larson scores a dominant win at Sonoma

    Larson scores a dominant win at Sonoma

    On a bright, sunny Sunday afternoon in Sonoma, California, the hometown hero shined brightly at Sonoma Raceway after Kyle Larson held off teammate Chase Elliott, Martin Truex Jr. and the field through several late race restarts to win the Toyota/Save Mart 350 for his second consecutive NASCAR Cup Series victory of the season and first on a road course.

    The starting lineup was based on a performance metric formula, weighing the driver’s and owner’s results from a previous Cup event, the owner points position and the fastest lap recorded from a previous Cup race. With that, Kyle Larson, winner of last weekend’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, started on pole position and was joined on the front row with teammate Chase Elliott.

    Prior to the event, rookie Anthony Alfredo started at the rear of the field due to a pre-race inspection violation, a move that resulted with his crew chief Seth Barbour being ejected for the event and Derrick Finley serving as Alfredo’s interim crew chief. Scott Heckert also started at the rear of the field due to unapproved adjustments.

    When the green flag waved and the race started, Larson took off with the lead through the first two turns and entering Turn 3A ahead of teammates Elliott and William Byron while the field scattered behind while competing for positions.

    Through the 12-turn circuit, Larson led the first lap followed by teammates Elliott and Byron while Joe Gibbs Racing’s Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch were in the top five. By then, Larson was out front by more than a second.

    The following lap, Larson extended his advantage to more than two seconds while Byron, Hamlin and Kyle Busch remained in the top 10. 

    By the third lap, Christopher Bell coasted to pit road after reporting fuel pump issues to his No. 20 Rheem Toyota Camry, an issue that cost him a lap from the leaders despite having the ECU in his car restored.

    Through the first five laps of the event, Larson’s No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE was leading by more than four seconds over Elliott’s No. 9 NAPA Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE, with Byron’s No. 24 AXALTA Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE trailing in third place by nearly five seconds. Teammates Hamlin and Kyle Busch continued to run in the top five followed by Austin Dillon, Alex Bowman, Brad Keselowski, Kevin Harvick and Tyler Reddick. Meanwhile, Martin Truex Jr., who started 19th, was in 11th followed by Joey Logano, Chris Buescher, Ryan Blaney and Bubba Wallace.

    Two laps later, Hamlin overtook Byron for third place while Bowman overtook Austin Dillon for sixth place. By then, Larson continued to lead by more than four seconds while Truex was scored in the top 10.

    Near the Lap 10 competition caution, names like Kyle Busch, Bowman, Ross Chastain, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Michael McDowell, Erik Jones, Ryan Newman, Chris Buescher, Bubba Wallace and rookie Chase Briscoe pitted for tires under green.

    Just as the field was approaching the start/finish line for the 10th lap, Larson pitted approaching Turn 11 along with teammate Elliott, Truex, Joey Logano, Kurt Busch and others. Following the sequence of events, Hamlin assumed the lead followed by Brad Keselowski as the competition caution flew on Lap 10.

    Under caution, Hamlin pitted along with Keselowski, Kevin Harvick, Ryan Blaney, Cole Custer, Logano and others, giving the front row back to Hendrick Motorsports’ Larson and Elliott. 

    When the race restarted on Lap 13, Larson retained the lead over teammate Elliott through the first three turns and entering the fourth turn while behind, Kyle Busch challenged Byron for third place through Turns 5 and 6, as Truex was running in the top five.

    By Lap 15, Larson was leading by more than a second over teammate Elliott while Kyle Busch was in third place, trailing by less than four seconds. Byron remained in fourth place, though he had Truex challenging him for the spot. 

    Not long after, however, Byron dropped from fourth to eighth after being overtaken by Truex, Bowman, Austin Dillon and Tyler Reddick, starting from Turn 4 through Turn 8. Behind, Hamlin received nose damage to the front of his No. 11 FedEx Toyota Camry while running in the mid-pack.

    In the closing laps of the first stage, names like Ross Chastain, Bubba Wallace, Ryan Newman pitted under green. During the stops, Wallace was penalized due to speeding on pit road. Soon after, Michael McDowell pitted along with Byron, Buescher and Daniel Suarez.

    Back on the course, Larson continued to lead by more than three seconds over teammate Elliott. With a comfortable advantage and gap over his teammate, Larson was able to navigate his way through the 12-turn road course one final time to win the first stage on Lap 20, thus claiming his 10th stage victory of this season. Elliott followed behind in second place followed by Kyle Busch, teammate Truex, Bowman, Austin Dillon, Reddick, Kurt Busch, Matt DiBenedetto and Erik Jones. 

    Under the stage break, a majority of names like Larson, Elliott, Kyle Busch, Truex, Bowman and others pitted while the rest led by new leader Kurt Busch remained on the track. In total, 14 competitors remained on the track with Larson back in 15th.

    The second stage started on Lap 24 with Kurt Busch and Matt DiBenedetto on the front row. At the start, Busch cleared DiBenedetto and retained the lead through the first two turns, with Keselowski, Blaney and Hamlin in the top five. Meanwhile, Christopher Bell rallied from his early issues to run in sixth place ahead of Cole Custer and Byron. 

    When the field returned to the start/finish line to complete Lap 25, Kurt Busch continued to lead followed by DiBenedetto, Keselowski, Blaney and Hamlin while Bell, Byron, Custer, Buescher and Chastain were in the top 10. Elliott, meanwhile, was in 11th followed by Larson while Truex was in 14th and Kyle Busch was in 16th.

    As the laps progressed, teammates Elliott and Larson continued to battle intensely over one another as they were stuck behind Bell, with the latter prevailing over both through Turn 6A. Meanwhile, Reddick made an unscheduled pit stop following contact with Bowman.

    On Lap 28, Byron emerged as the new leader after he overtook Kurt Busch in Turn 11. With Busch back in second, DiBenedetto was in fourth in between Team Penske’s Keselowski and Blaney.

    By Lap 30, Byron was out in front by more than three seconds over teammate Kyle Larson, who managed to carve his way near the front, while Kurt Busch was back in third. Behind, Keselowski was in fourth followed by Truex, Elliott, Kyle Busch, Blaney, Hamlin and Chris Buescher while DiBenedetto was back in 11th

    A lap later, the caution flew when Ricky Stenhouse Jr. made hard right-side contact against the wall entering Turn 1 and went off course in the dirt as a result of a flat right-front tire.

    Under caution, some of the competitors in the field led by Byron pitted while the rest led by Larson remained on the track.

    With six laps remaining in the second stage, the race restarted under green as Larson and Truex started on the front row. At the start, Larson retained the lead through the first two turns over Truex and the field fanning out to two lanes.

    In the closing laps of the second stage, Larson continued to lead followed by Truex, Logano, Bowman and Chastain. Meanwhile, Corey LaJoie and Erik Jones, both of whom made on-track contact that resulted with Jones nearly going off the course, were in sixth and 23rd. 

    Soon after, Chase Briscoe, Wallace, Suarez, Jones and Reddick pitted. In addition, Truex pitted along with Chastain. During the pit stops, Wallace made a full cycle around the track with a left tire before returning to pit road for a second stop, though he lost a lap to the leaders.

    Back on the course, Larson continued to lead with a healthy margin over Joey Logano. Continuing to flex his muscles, Larson was able to come back around and claim the second stage on Lap 40, thus claim his 11th stage victory of the season. Logano trailed behind by more than six seconds followed by Bowman, Kurt Busch and Elliott. Teammate Byron, Kyle Busch, Keselowski, Hamlin and Bell were scored in the top 10.

    Under the stage break, some like Larson, Logano, Bowman, Preece, Aric Almirola pitted while the rest led by Kurt Busch, Elliott, Byron, Kyle Busch and Keselowski remained on the track.

    With 46 laps remaining, the final stage commenced. At the start, Kurt Busch took off with the lead through the first two turns followed by Elliott, Byron, Kyle Busch, Keselowski, Bell and a steaming pack of cars.

    At the halfway mark on Lap 45, Elliott moved into the lead for the first time after overtaking Kurt Busch through Turns 11 and 12. Truex, who restarted 15th, was in 13th in between Buescher and Chastain while Larson, who restarted 21st, was in 16th in between Alfredo and Suarez.

    With 40 laps remaining, Elliott continued to lead by nearly four seconds over Kyle Busch, who moved his No. 18 Sport Clips Toyota Camry in front of brother Kurt’s No. 1 Monster Energy Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE. Truex and Larson worked their way up to fourth and fifth while Keselowski, Byron, Chastain, Bell and Blaney were in the top 10.

    During the next few laps, Truex and Larson navigated their way around Kurt Busch to move into third and fourth. Afterwards, Larson overtook Truex’s No. 19 Bass Pro Shops Toyota Camry for third place as he had Kyle Busch next on his sights. Meanwhile, Elliott continued to lead by more than four seconds.

    Nearing the final 35 laps of the event, the Busch brothers along with Blaney, Byron and others pitted under green. By then, Elliott was leading by three seconds over teammate Larson.

    Back on the track, the battle for the lead intensified between teammates Elliott and Larson, with the former fending off the latter through every turns and corner while Truex trailed by two seconds.

    With 33 laps remaining, Larson prevailed over his intense battle with Elliott after overtaking him in Turn 7 to reassume the lead, with Truex narrowing the gap to more than a second. Meanwhile, Jones was in fourth followed by Logano, Bowman, Reddick, Briscoe, Hamlin and Almirola.

     A few laps later, Truex overtook Elliott for the runner-up spot. By then, names like Hamlin, Chastain pitted under green.

    With 29 laps remaining, Elliott surrendered his track position to pit under green along with Erik Jones while Larson continued to run on the circuit with a two-second advantage over Truex. Not long after, Truex pitted. By then, Bowman, who went off the course through Turns 5 and 6, also pitted along with Aric Almirola and Briscoe.

    Soon after, Larson pitted and surrendered the lead to Logano. By the time Larson exited pit road, Truex was able to cycle in front of Larson on fresh tires. 

    Not long after, Larson was able to navigate his way around Truex through Turn 7 and move within striking distance of reassuming the lead with the finish in sight. By then, Logano pitted under green. 

    With 21 laps remaining, Larson returned to the lead after he overtook Kyle Busch. Truex, meanwhile, was still in third while Elliott was battling Keselowski for fifth. Soon after, Truex moved into the runner-up spot over Kyle Busch as he was trailing Larson by more than two seconds. 

    Then, the caution flew due to Quin Houff coming to a stop in Turn 6. By then, Keselowski pitted, though he was later penalized due to equipment coming over his pit stall too soon.

    Under caution, a majority of the leaders returned to pit road and Larson exited pit road in front of Truex, Elliott and others. Back on course, Logano remained on course along with Reddick, LaJoie and Alfredo, where they were followed by Larson, Truex and Elliott. 

    With 16 laps remaining, the race restarted. At the start, Logano maintained the lead through the first two turns and heading into Turn 3A while Larson quickly moved up to fourth place followed by teammate Elliott. 

    Through Turn 7 and the Esses, Larson moved up into third place followed by Elliott while Truex was stuck in seventh. 

    By the time the field returned to the start/finish line under the final 15 laps, Larson was up into second place behind Logano while Elliott and Truex were in fourth and sixth. Then, approaching Turn 8, Larson, racing on fresh tires, reassumed the lead over Logano.

    Then, the caution returned when Chastain and LaJoie made contact in Turn 11, sending both cars spinning and in front of incoming traffic. In the ensuing chaos, Kevin Harvick, Byron, Bell, Bowman and Erik Jones sustained damage.

    Under caution, nearly the entire field remained on the track while Harvick pitted to have the damage on his car addressed. 

    With 11 laps remaining, the race restarted with Larson and Logano comprising the front row. At the start, Larson and Logano battled dead even through the first two turns before Larson cleared Logano’s No. 22 AutoTrader Ford Mustang entering Turn 3A. 

    Through the Esses and Turns 10, 11 and 12 with 10 laps remaining, Larson continued to lead while teammate Elliott overtook Logano for the runner-up spot. Truex moved up into fourth place followed by Kyle Busch and Chastain.

    With eight laps remaining, Larson was leading by nearly three seconds over teammate Elliott with Truex, Logano and Kyle Busch running in the top five. 

    Three laps later, the caution flew when Ryan Preece spun in the Esses. While Preece was trying to recover, he was hit and turned by an oncoming Cody Ware in a heavy dust cloud, with Ware coming to a rest near the tire barriers as both competitors sustained damage to their respective machines.

    Under caution, nearly the entire field led by Larson, Elliott and Truex remained on the track while few like Keselowski and Reddick pitted.

    With three laps remaining, the race restarted with teammates Larson and Elliott comprising the front row. At the start, Larson managed to clear teammate Elliott to remain as the leader through the first two turns and heading into the third turn. Elliott retained the runner-up spot followed by Truex and the field.

    The caution, however, returned quickly when Alfredo, who was primed for a top-10 result, and Bell spun following contact with Bowman in Turn 4. The incident was enough to send the race into overtime.

    In overtime, Larson and Elliott engaged in a side-by-side battle for the lead through the first turn before the former emerged on top in Turn 2. Through the first four turns and the following three turns, Larson continued to lead despite being pressured by Elliott as Truex settled himself in third place. 

    When the white flag waved and the final lap started, Larson was leading by nearly six-tenths of a second over teammate Elliott with Truex trailing by one-and-a-half seconds. 

    Elliott gained ground briefly on Larson entering Turn 8 before Larson was able to retain his steady advantage through the Esses and Turn 10. After calmly navigating his way through Turns 11 and 12, Larson was able to come back around and take the checkered flag to win by six-tenths of a second over Elliott.

    In addition to claiming his second consecutive victory of this season and first on a road course, Larson recorded his ninth NASCAR Cup Series career victory, third of the season and the 270th win for Hendrick Motorsports. He also became the 20th different competitor to win a Cup race at Sonoma Raceway and the first competitor to sweep the day at Sonoma after he claimed the first two stages en route to his dominating victory.

    “It was not easy,” Larson said on FS1. “Any road course isn’t easy. Just trying to keep it on track is tough, especially when you got two of the best behind you on that last restart. I felt like I did a good job the one [restart] before and stretch it out a little bit and then, [I] didn’t want to give it another try at it, but [Elliott] kept the pressure on. Martin was strong, too, but what a car. This is unbelievable. I thought I would be okay today, but I just didn’t know how I would race. Our car was really good there and I can’t say enough about it. Northern California, this will always be home to me, even if I live out on the East Coast now…Look forward to just keeping this streak going.”

    Elliott, who led 13 laps, claimed the runner-up spot for a second consecutive week, fourth overall this season, while Truex, winner of the previous two Sonoma races, rallied from a three-race stretch of finishing outside the top 15 to finish in third place.

    “I wish I knew [where Larson was better],” Elliott said. “I would’ve tried to give him a little better run, but congrats to Kyle, [crew chief] and Cliff [Daniels], everybody on the No. 5 team. They’ve been doing an amazing job. Really proud of our NAPA group, though. I felt like we were a lot better there at the end than we were at the beginning, and definitely, the best I’ve ever been here, I feel like, at Sonoma, in particular. Pleased with that. I wished we could’ve gotten another spot, but we’ll try again.”

    “[We were beaten] Just a little bit everywhere, I felt like,” Truex added. “Right handers, I couldn’t quite lean on the left rear like I needed to and didn’t quite have the drive off. More so than that, I didn’t have the short-run speed. I think the really long runs was our only chance there. All those cautions at the end, they killed any chance we had. Proud of the guys on the Bass Pro Toyota. Just not quite good enough. The Hendrick cars are really strong right now, they’re really fast, making a lot of grip, making our job tough, but like I said, we needed long runs at the end, not all those cautions.”

    Logano finished fourth while Kyle Busch, a two-time winner at Sonoma, completed the top five on the track. 

    Kurt Busch, a former winner at Sonoma, claimed his first top-10 result since Homestead-Miami Speedway in February by finishing sixth while teammate Chastain, Hamlin, Bowman and Blaney finished in the top 10.

    Erik Jones, Daniel Suarez, Austin Dillon, Bubba Wallace and Brad Keselowski finished in the top 15 while Chase Briscoe was the highest-finishing rookie competitor in 17th. Harvick came home in 21st, Bell fell back to 24th and Ben Rhodes finished 30th in his Cup debut. Michael McDowell and Ryan Newman finished 28th and 33rd after both were turned and spun in Turn 11 on the final lap.

    There were 13 lead changes for seven different leaders. The race featured eight cautions for 18 laps. In total, 33 of the 37 starters finished on the lead lap.

    Hamlin continues to lead the regular-season standings by 47 points over Larson with Elliott trailing by 73 points.

    Results.

    1. Kyle Larson, 57 laps led, Stage 1 & 2 winner

    2. Chase Elliott, 13 laps led

    3. Martin Truex Jr.

    4. Joey Logano, five laps led

    5. Kyle Busch, two laps led

    6. Kurt Busch, eight laps led

    7. Ross Chastain

    8. Denny Hamlin, two laps led

    9. Alex Bowman

    10. Ryan Blaney

    11. Erik Jones

    12. Daniel Suarez

    13. Austin Dillon

    14. Bubba Wallace

    15. Brad Keselowski

    16. Chris Buescher

    17. Chase Briscoe

    18. Corey LaJoie

    19. Tyler Reddick

    20. Cole Custer

    21. Ryan Preece

    22. Kevin Harvick

    23. Matt DiBenedetto

    24. Christopher Bell

    25. James Davison

    26. Scott Heckert

    27. Aric Almirola

    28. Michael McDowell

    29. Josh Bilicki

    30. Ben Rhodes

    31. Anthony Alfredo

    32. Garrett Smithley

    33. Ryan Newman

    34. Cody Ware – OUT, Accident

    35. William Byron – OUT, Accident, five laps led

    36. Quin Houff – OUT, Rear gear

    37. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. – OUT, Engine

    Next on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule is the series’ annual All-Star Open and Race events at Texas Motor Speedway, both scheduled to occur on Sunday, June 13. The NASCAR All-Star Open will air at 6 p.m. ET on FS1 while the All-Star Race will commence at 8 p.m. ET on FS1.

  • NASCAR Top-10 Power Rankings: Talladega

    NASCAR Top-10 Power Rankings: Talladega

    Note: The quotes in this article are fictional.

    1. Denny Hamlin: Hamlin was penalized twice for speeding on pit lane, and later suffered damage in a late crash. He finished 32nd, three laps down.

    “I got caught speeding while serving the penalty for my first speeding infraction,” Hamlin said. “NASCAR officials told me, ‘Better luck next time.’

    “Bubba Wallace will be the center of a Netflix series that chronicles his season with newly-formed 23XI Racing. If you’d like to know more, do a Google search for ‘NASCAR streaming’ and kindly ignore the results that explain how drivers relieve themselves in their cars.”

    2. Brad Keselowski: Keselowski survived at Talladega and used a last-lap pass to win the Geico 500, his sixth Talladega triumph.

    “Roger Penske met with his Penske Racing drivers earlier this week,” Keselowski said, “and he told us that a replay of our last lap crash at Daytona in February would be unacceptable. His words really stuck with me. You could say the words of the man who built the Penske trucking empire really ‘moved’ me.”

    3. Martin Truex Jr.: Truex suffered damage when a Brad Keselowski block sent Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin into the wall and into the path of Truex. Truex eventually finished 31st, two laps down.

    “It was good to see fans in the Talladega infield,” Truex said, “and it’s also good to see them partying hard and consuming alcohol at a rate that would make a liver blush. You could say they’re ‘BAC.’”

    4. Joey Logano: Logano crashed out at Talladega with a lap to go in Stage 1. Logano finished 39th.

    “My No. 22 Ford went airborne after I made contact with Denny Hamlin,” Logano said. “As Denny’s primary sponsor is FedEx, that’s called getting ‘air mailed.’

    “Congratulations to my teammate Brad Keselowski for his win, and congratulations to Jeb Burton for winning the Xfinity race on Saturday. That was his first Xfinity win. Jeb is the son of Jeff Burton, and the nephew of ‘Wadd Button.’”

    5. William Byron: Byron survived a late Stage 2 accident that collected three Hendrick Motorsports cars and rebounded to take the runner-up finish at Talladega.

    “Talladega is always a battle of attrition,” Byron said. “It’s all about survival and making educated decisions that are beneficial despite all the chaos going on around you. And on that note, it’s a good time to reiterate that NASCAR will not mandate that drivers get the COVID vaccination. It makes sense, because there’s no way NASCAR will inspect their drivers as strictly as they do their cars.”

    6. Kevin Harvick: Harvick led 12 laps and finished fourth in the Geico 500.

    “My No. 4 Ford advertised a product called ‘Dog Brew By Busch,’” Harvick said. “Just to be clear, this product does not contain alcohol. That means dogs won’t get drunk when they drink it, and humans will be very drunk when they inevitably drink it.”

    7. Christopher Bell: Bell finished 17th at Talladega.

    “Hip-hop duo Tag Team served as the race’s grand marshals,” Bell said. “They’re famous for the song ‘Whoomp! (There It Is).’ I think it was awesome that NASCAR tabbed Tag Team to give the ‘Start Your Engines’ command. It was a bold selection. Could it have been bolder? Only if NASCAR had chosen Tag Team to deliver the convocation.”

    8. Ryan Blaney: Blaney was a factor on the final lap at Talladega and finished ninth as Penske Racing teammate Brad Keselowski took the win.

    “If you’re leading the next-to-last lap at Talladega,” Blaney said, “you’re what we call a ‘sitting duck.’ To quote Matt DiBenedetto, who led that penultimate lap, ‘Quack.’”

    9. Chase Elliott: Elliott finished 24th at Talladega.

    “I’m very disappointed,” Chase Elliott said. “For finishing 24th, for sure, but mostly for finishing 18 spots behind a driver named Kaz Grala, who may or may not be an Israeli self-defense discipline.”

    10. Kyle Larson: Larson blew an engine only seven laps in at Talladega and finished last.

    “My car overheated almost immediately,” Larson said, “so I completed only three laps. That’s totally unacceptable. And I was pissed. As I was pulling my No. 5 Chevrolet into the garage, I thought, ‘The car and I both are ‘coming in hot.’”

  • Keselowski prevails in overtime for sixth victory at Talladega

    Keselowski prevails in overtime for sixth victory at Talladega

    Brad Keselowski rallied from being involved in an accident following the first stage involving his teammate Joey Logano to add his name as a NASCAR Cup Series winner in 2021 after overtaking Matt DiBenedetto on the final lap before holding off Michael McDowell and William Byron to win the GEICO 500 at Talladega Superspeedway on Sunday, April 25.

    Keselowski’s first victory of the season, which occurred in his 423rd career start, came with a bonus as he became the third competitor in the Cup Series history to win at Talladega six times.

    The starting lineup was based on a performance metric formula, weighing the driver’s and owner’s results from a previous Cup event, the owner points position and the fastest lap recorded from a previous Cup race. Denny Hamlin, the regular-season points leader, was scheduled to start on pole position, but he dropped to the rear of the field due to unapproved adjustments. With that, Joey Logano and Alex Bowman, winner of last weekend’s Cup event at Richmond Raceway, started on the front row.

    Along with Hamlin, teammates Martin Truex Jr. and Christopher Bell along with Bubba Wallace, B.J. McLeod and Harrison Burton, making his Cup Series debut with Gaunt Brothers Racing, dropped to the rear of the field due to unapproved adjustments. Cody Ware also started at the rear of the field due to his car failing pre-race inspection twice.

    When the green flag waved and the race commenced, Logano moved from the bottom lane to the outside lane and in front of William Byron to retain the lead. Byron, however, drew himself alongside Logano as he led the first lap by a narrow margin as the field fanned out to two lanes in a pack.

    While Logano and Byron battled for the lead in front of a bevy of cars in a pack, Kyle Larson pitted after reporting temperature and engine issues to his No. 5 Chevrolet. Despite trying to continue while multiple laps down, the engine issues on Larson’s car was enough to terminate his run early.

    By the fifth lap and with the lead group running in a single-file line, Logano was leading followed by teammate Brad Keselowski, Aric Almirola, Kevin Harvick and rookie Chase Briscoe. Cole Custer and Chris Buescher were in sixth and seventh followed by Ryan Preece, Bubba Wallace and Ross Chastain.

    By the 10th lap, Logano remained out in front of a three-wide pack battling for positions at the front.

    Two laps later, Wallace moved his No. 23 Door Dash Toyota Camry to the lead followed by Kevin Harvick. Another three laps later, though, Harvick moved to the outside lane and received a push from Brad Keselowski to lead a lap for himself. 

    Entering Turn 1, Harvick moved in front of Wallace for the lead followed by Keselowski while Wallace remained as the first car leading the inside lane. By then, names like Ross Chastain, Michael McDowell, Tyler Reddick and teammate Austin Dillon were in the top 10 along with Kyle Busch, Logano, Kurt Busch and Christopher Bell.

    When the competition caution flew on Lap 25, Kyle Busch, who took over the top spot on Lap 22, was the leader followed by his Joe Gibbs Racing teammates, Logano, Chase Elliott and others.

    Under the competition caution, most of the leaders pitted and Hamlin exited in first followed by teammate Kyle Busch, Ryan Blaney, Bell, Byron and Kurt Busch. During the pit stops, Harrison Burton was assessed a pit road penalty for removing the gas can out of his pit stall. Truex was also penalized for speeding on pit road along with Ryan Preece due to a crew member jumping over the wall too soon.

    Back on the track, a handful of competitors that include rookie Chase Briscoe, Corey LaJoie, Erik Jones, Aric Almirola, Ryan Newman, rookie Anthony Alfredo, Justin Haley, B.J. McLeod, Timmy Hill and J.J. Yeley remained on the track. They all, though, pitted prior to the restart.

    When the race restarted on Lap 30, Hamlin retained the lead over teammate Kyle Busch while the field quickly fanned out to three lanes.

    By Lap 35 and with the field still fanned out to three lanes, Hamlin remained in the lead on the outside lane followed by Keselowski while Kyle Busch mounted a challenge in the inside lane with drafting help from Byron. Wallace, meanwhile, was in the middle lane in front of Elliott, but shuffled out of the lead draft after challenging for the top spot earlier.

    The caution returned on Lap 39 due to Joey Gase spinning in Turn 4. Under caution, some like Harvick, Wallace, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Tyler Reddick, Matt DiBenedetto, Kurt Busch, Aric Almirola and Daniel Suarez pitted while the rest led by Hamlin remained on the track.

    When the field restarted on Lap 43, the No. 11 FedEx Toyota Camry piloted by Hamlin retained the lead followed by Blaney and the pack.

    By Lap 50, Blaney was leading followed by teammate Logano, Cole Custer, Matt DiBenedetto and Harvick while Hamlin, Chris Buescher, Byron, Preece and Bubba Wallace were in the top 10. A lap later, though, DiBenedetto stormed to the lead. Another two laps later, Preece moved his No. 37 Chevrolet to the lead. 

    With the laps in the first stage dwindling, a majority of competitors within the lead pack started to establish their run for the top spot held by DiBenedetto. Entering the backstretch and on the final lap of the first stage, however, contact from Stenhouse turned Hamlin into third-place Logano, which sent Logano’s No. 22 AutoTrader Ford Mustang sideways and airborne after being hit by Stenhouse as Logano flipped over and spun in a circle on his roof before flipping back on all four wheels and coming to rest below the apron near Turn 3. Logano emerged uninjured following his accident, though his race concluded after leading 10 laps. In the midst of Logano’s wild ride, teammate Keselowski, Wallace and Stenhouse sustained damage.

    The caution for the wreck concluded the first stage of the race, with DiBenedetto scored as the leader and calming his maiden stage victory in the Cup Series followed by Blaney, Elliott, Hamlin and Byron. Buescher, Bowman, McDowell, Harvick and Bell were running in the top 10.

    Under the stage break, a majority of the leaders pitted while some like Ryan Newman, Suarez, Kaz Grala, Quin Houff, Yeley, Justin Haley, McLeod and Timmy Hill remained on the track. They all, though, pitted prior to the restart.

    The second stage started on Lap 66 with Chase Elliott and Hamlin on the front row. When the field returned to the tri-oval and the start/finish line, Hamlin was back in the lead.

    By Lap 75 and with the field fanning out to three lanes in a tight pack for the lead, Hamlin was scored as the leader followed by DiBenedetto, Byron, Preece and Chastain while Harvick, Truex, Kurt Busch, Elliott and Bell were in the top 10.

    Nearly 10 laps later, a majority of Chevrolet competitors pitted under green. During the process, Suarez and Chastain were penalized for speeding on pit road.

    By Lap 90, Hamlin was still out in front followed by DiBenedetto, Truex, Bell and Custer while Blaney, Keselowski, Kyle Busch, Harvick and Buescher were in the top 10. With the field spread out around the superspeedway, names like Elliott, Chastain and Suarez were pinned a lap behind the leaders.

    A few laps later, a majority of the Ford competitors pitted under green. Not long after, the Toyota competitors pitted. Following the stops, Harvick and Buescher were nabbed with pit road speeding penalties. Hamlin, who overshot his pit stall during his stop, was also penalized for speeding on pit road. While serving his penalty, things went from bad to worse for Hamlin, who was busted with another pit road speeding penalty.

    At the halfway mark on Lap 94, Preece emerged as the leader followed by Chevrolet competitors Byron, Kurt Busch, Bowman, Austin Dillon and Erik Jones.

    By Lap 100, Preece continued to lead followed by Byron, Kurt Busch, DiBenedetto and Keselowski while Custer, McDowell, Kyle Busch, Wallace and Bell were in the top 10. Hamlin, following his pair of pit road speeding penalties, was mired back in 36th place and scored a lap behind the leaders. 

    Four laps later, the caution returned due to fluid on the track that came from Kurt Busch’s No. 1 Monster Energy Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE with smoke steaming out from Busch’s car. While nursing his car back to pit road, a fire broke out underneath Busch’s car and the 2004 Cup champion took his car to the garage to address an oil cooler issue.

    Under caution, some like Bowman, Truex, Blaney, Reddick, Harvick, Buescher and Elliott pitted while the rest led by Byron remained on the track. During the pit stops, Harvick was penalized due to a crew member jumping over the wall too soon.

    When the race restarted on Lap 109, Byron and DiBenedetto battled dead even for the lead, though Byron retained the top spot.

    Prior to Lap 112, DiBenedetto and Kyle Busch made contact while battling for the lead exiting Turn 3, where DiBenedetto was trying to block Kyle Busch. Though both competitors dipped below the apron and lost the lead, both prevented their cars from spinning. At the front, Bubba Wallace returned to the lead.

    With five laps remaining in the second stage, Wallace continued to lead followed by Keselowski, McDowell, Byron and Blaney as the field continued to battle in two lanes.

    With two laps remaining in the stage, however, a multi-car wreck erupted entering the tri-oval when a bump from teammate Truex sent Hamlin, who was a lap down, bouncing off the outside wall and a chain reaction ensued behind with Truex, Bowman, Elliott and Byron wrecking on the frontstretch. 

    The wreck was enough to end the second stage under caution as Bubba Wallace claimed his first stage victory in the Cup circuit. Keselowski charged his way to second place followed by McDowell, Kyle Busch, Preece, Blaney, Buescher, Stenhouse Bell and Harrison Burton.

    Under the stage break, the majority of the leaders returned to pit road except for Newman, Grala, Yeley, McLeod and Custer. The first competitor to exit pit road in first was Blaney followed by Almirola, Wallace, McDowell, Kyle Busch and Keselowski. Shortly after, Newman, Grala, Yeley, McLeod and Custer pitted.

    Prior to the restart, a majority of competitors returned to pit road to top off on fuel for the final stage.

    With 62 laps remaining, the final stage commenced. At the start, Blaney received a push from his friend Wallace to retain the top spot over Almirola and McDowell. With Wallace remaining on the inside lane, he was shuffled out of the battle for the lead due to a lack of competitors running on his lane. Meanwhile, Blaney retained the top spot on the outside line and with a bevy of cars behind him.

    Shortly after, Blaney reported debris on his front grille despite leading the race. With Almirola moving his No. 10 Smithfield Ford Mustang to the lead on Lap 131, Blaney was able to tuck behind Almirola’s car and remove the debris from his car.

    With 50 laps remaining, Almirola continued to lead followed by Blaney, McDowell, Keselowski, Chris Buescher, DiBenedetto, Austin Dillon, Preece, Briscoe and Erik Jones, all of whom were among several competitors running in a single-file lane on the outside lane led by Blaney. Bubba Wallace was in 12th behind Ross Chastain, Kyle Busch was in 14th in front of teammate Bell, Harvick was in 21st followed by Newman and Truex, Elliott was in 25th and Byron was in 27th in front of Harrison Burton. Hamlin was in 34th, two laps behind, while Kurt Busch was in 36th, six laps behind.

    Down to the final 40 laps of the event, Ross Chastain muscled his No. 42 Caregility Chevrolet into the lead with drafting help from teammate Kurt Busch, who was multiple laps behind. Kyle Busch moved into second place followed by teammate Bell while Almirola was shuffled back in fourth place despite leading the outside lane ahead of Blaney and McDowell.

    With 35 laps remaining, the top-30 competitors were separated by less than two seconds. At the front, Chastain continued to lead followed by Kyle Busch and teammate Bell while Harvick mounted a challenge for the top spot on the outside lane.

    Not long after, a wave of competitors led by Chastain reduced their speed on the bottom lane to pit under green. During the process, Stenhouse spun following a bump from Quin Houff and made light contact with the inside wall near the pit road entrance. Despite the incident, the race remained under green. Following the pit stops, Newman was penalized for speeding on pit road.

    Back on the track and with 30 laps remaining, the top-10 positions were filled by Ford competitors led by Harvick. A lap later, another wave of competitors led by Harvick pitted under green. During this process, Newman was penalized a second time for speeding on pit road again.

    With the field cycling through following the pit stops, Christopher Bell emerged as the leader followed by Chastain, Kyle Busch, Tyler Reddick and Erik Jones. Harvick was shuffled back to sixth place followed by teammate Almirola, McDowell, Keselowski and Briscoe. With 26 laps remaining, though, Chastain reassumed the lead while Bell was shuffled back into fifth place.

    Down to the final 20 laps of the event, the top-18 competitors were separated by a second, with Chastain still leading followed by Kyle Busch and Erik Jones, who moved up to the outside lane in front of McDowell as he challenged for second place and more. 

    With 18 laps remaining, Erik Jones muscled his No. 43 U.S. Air Force Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE into the lead followed by DiBenedetto, Bubba Wallace, Chastain and Keselowski while Kyle Busch was in sixth.

    A lap later, the caution flew due to a single-car incident in Turn 2 involving Quin Houff, an incident that occurred in front of the leaders as the leaders took evasive action to avoid the incident.

    Under caution, some like Jones, DiBenedetto, Custer, Truex, Wallace, Kyle Busch, Reddick, Blaney and Kaz Grala remained on the track while others pitted for fuel to make it to the finish. By then, 27 of the 40-car field were scored on the lead lap.

    With 12 laps remaining, the race restarted under green. At the start, Jones retained the lead on the inside lane followed by Chastain and Wallace, but DiBenedetto fought back on the outside lane with drafting help from Truex. When the field returned to the start/finish line, DiBenedetto and the No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane Ford Mustang for the iconic Wood Brothers Racing team emerged with the lead.

    Down to the final 10 laps of the event, DiBenedetto was leading followed by Truex, Kyle Busch, Blaney, Keselowski, Harvick and Jones. Shortly after, Penske drivers Blaney and Keselowski lined up behind DiBenedetto.

    Behind, Truex, who was running towards the front in the final laps, fell out of the lead pack and pitted due to a flat tire.

    With five laps remaining, DiBenedetto continued to lead followed by Blaney, Keselowski, Harvick and McDowell. Meanwhile, Byron started to mount a challenge on the inside lane with drafting help from Jones, Kyle Busch and Chastain.

    Two laps later and with the field starting to fan out with competitors establishing their run to the front, the caution returned due to a tire carcass spotted on the frontstretch, which came off of Truex’s car after he lost another tire.

    Under caution, some like Kyle Busch and Wallace pitted while the rest led by DiBenedetto remained on the track.

    With the race sent into overtime, the race restarted with DiBenedetto and Blaney on the front row. At the start, DiBenedetto retained the lead through Turns 1 and 2. Through the backstretch, however, Harvick drafted Blaney to the front, but DiBenedetto retained the lead through Turn 3 and the tri-oval as he started the final lap of the race.

    With the field bunched up and fanned out to two lanes entering Turns 1 and 2, Keselowski drew his No. 2 MoneyLion Ford Mustang alongside DiBenedetto and received a push from McDowell and Harvick to take the lead while DiBenedetto had no drafting help on the outside lane.

    Through Turn 3, Keselowski continued to lead followed by McDowell and Harvick while DiBenedetto was split in a three-wide battle with Erik Jones and Byron as the field fanned out to three lanes.

    Entering the tri-oval, Jones spun following contact with Kaz Grala and made contact with the outside wall as the field scattered to avoid him. With Chastain also spinning coming to the start/finish line, McDowell made a move to the outside of Keselowski, but it was not enough as Keselowski managed to fend off McDowell and a hard-charging Byron to cross the finish line with the lead and the victory, having led only the final lap of the race.

    With his first victory of the 2021 season and the 35th of his Cup career, Keselowski tied Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Jeff Gordon for the second-most victories at Talladega (six). In addition, he became the third Team Penske competitor and the ninth different competitor to record a win through the first 10 Cup races of this season.

    “Man, what an awesome day today to bring the MoneyLion Ford Mustang into Victory Lane,” Keselowski said. “The whole race I had a couple opportunities to take the lead, but I just kept thinking, ‘Man, keep your car in one piece.’ We’ve been so close here and it just didn’t seem to want to come together here the last few years and I’ve been on kind of a four-year drought here, but it’s nice to get number six. I would have never dreamed I’d tie Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr. here. That’s something. Those guys are really legends. I’m just really proud of my team. We had an accident there early and they recovered and got it fixed up to where I could keep running…That’s pretty cool.”

    Behind Keselowski, William Byron edged Michael McDowell by 0.001 seconds to claim the runner-up spot. The third-place finish marked McDowell’s second consecutive top-five result on a superspeedway venue, which also comes after he won this year’s Daytona 500.

    “I felt like it was pretty close,” McDowell said. “I am just so thankful to everybody at this Front Row Motorsports team. We have fast superspeedway cars. This Ford Mustang was fast. It has been a great season for us. I really felt like I was in a good spot again working with Brad and drug back off of him coming off of Turn 4. I thought I would have the run, but just didn’t suck him down enough. It was a great run and I am glad there is another Ford Mustang in Victory Lane. I am thankful to all our partners. It has been a great year. To get a top-five and to be running in the top-10 and have a win says a lot for this team and [team owner] Bob Jenkins for giving me the opportunity.”

    Harvick finished fourth followed by Matt DiBenedetto, who led 28 laps and was in position to claim his first Cup career victory. While he did not leave Talladega as a winner, DiBenedetto was still smiling as he recorded his first top-five result of the season.

    “It’s tough, but it’s just all so circumstantial,” DiBenedetto said. “We talked about it a lot before the race and it’s tough. Our day will come. I’m just lucky to drive this thing and have the support from everybody. The fans, they are so awesome. Driving for the Wood Brothers is really a dream come true. Gosh, it’s hard to come so close to so many of these things. The Fords are so fast. They believe in me, the whole Ford camp. They do an excellent job. The Mustangs are great…Our day will come. We’ll get there. I just appreciate the support from everybody.

    Kaz Grala recorded an impressive sixth-place result in his third Cup career start while Reddick, teammate Austin Dillon, Blaney and Custer finished in the top 10.

    Rookies Chase Briscoe and Anthony Alfredo finished 11th and 12th, Chastain finished 16th after pounding the inside wall head-on while sliding across the finish line, Wallace finished 19th behind JGR’s Bell and Kyle Busch and Harrison Burton finished 20th in his Cup debut. Erik Jones settled in 27th following his wreck on the final lap.

    There were 35 lead changes for 17 different leaders. The race featured seven cautions for 34 laps. 

    Despite his issues at Talladega, Denny Hamlin continues to lead the regular-season standings by 87 points over teammate Truex, 93 over Logano, 95 over Byron and 100 over Blaney.

    Results.

    1. Brad Keselowski, one lap led

    2. William Byron, 12 laps led

    3. Michael McDowell

    4. Kevin Harvick, 12 laps led

    5. Matt DiBenedetto, 28 laps led, Stage 1 winner

    6. Kaz Grala

    7. Tyler Reddick

    8. Austin Dillon

    9. Ryan Blaney, 11 laps led

    10. Cole Custer

    11. Chase Briscoe, one lap led

    12. Anthony Alfredo

    13. Ryan Newman, two laps led

    14. Ryan Preece, nine laps led

    15. Aric Almirola, 16 laps led

    16. Ross Chastain, 12 laps led

    17. Christopher Bell, two laps led

    18. Kyle Busch, six laps led

    19. Bubba Wallace, 16 laps led, Stage 2 winner

    20. Harrison Burton

    21. Chris Buescher

    22. Corey LaJoie

    23. Daniel Suarez

    24. Chase Elliott, three laps led

    25. B.J. McLeod

    26. J.J. Yeley

    27. Erik Jones – OUT, Accident, seven laps led

    28. Cody Ware, one lap down

    29. Timmy Hill, one lap down

    30. Justin Haley, one lap down

    31. Martin Truex Jr., two laps down 

    32. Denny Hamlin, three laps down, 43 laps led

    33. Ricky Stenhouse Jr., five laps down

    34. Joey Gase, five laps down

    35. Kurt Busch, six laps down

    36. Josh Bilicki, 11 laps down

    37. Quin Houff – OUT, Accident

    38. Alex Bowman – OUT, Dvp

    39. Joey Logano – OUT, Accident, 10 laps led

    40. Kyle Larson – OUT, Engine

    Next on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule is a trip to the midwest at Kansas Speedway on Sunday, May 2, with the event to occur at 3 p.m. ET on FS1.

  • Bowman grabs a thrilling late victory at Richmond

    Bowman grabs a thrilling late victory at Richmond

    Alex Bowman saved his best performance for the last after overtaking Denny Hamlin and Joey Logano on a restart with 12 laps remaining to win the Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond Raceway on Sunday, April 18, for his first NASCAR Cup Series victory of the 2021 season. In addition, Bowman won after rallying from a pit road penalty prior to the final stage.

    The starting lineup was based on a performance metric formula, weighing the driver’s and owner’s results from a previous Cup event, the owner points position and the fastest lap recorded from a previous Cup race. With that, Martin Truex Jr., winner of last week’s Cup event at Martinsville Speedway, started on pole position and was joined on the front row with Denny Hamlin, Truex’s teammate and the regular-season points leader.

    When the green flag waved and the race commenced, Truex jumped ahead with an early advantage. He was followed by Chase Elliott and Joey Logano while Hamlin, the first car on the outside lane, dropped back to fourth. 

    Entering Turn 1, Logano slipped up wide and Hamlin was able to move up to third place entering Turn 3. At the front, though, Truex led the first lap over Elliott.

    By Lap 10, Truex was out in front by more than six-tenths of a second over teammate Hamlin, with Logano, Chase Elliott and Ryan Blaney in the top five. Kevin Harvick was in sixth followed by Kyle Larson, Christopher Bell, William Byron and Austin Dillon.

    By Lap 25, Truex stabilized his early advantage by nearly eight-tenths of a second over Hamlin while Blaney, teammate Logano and Elliott remained in the top five. Harvick continued to run in sixth followed by Larson, Bell, Austin Dillon and Byron. 

    When the competition caution flew on Lap 30, Truex was leading by nearly a second over teammate Hamlin. By then, names like Tyler Reddick, Brad Keselowski, Kyle Busch, Bubba Wallace and Matt DiBenedetto were in the top 15. In addition, Alex Bowman was in 17th, Aric Almirola was in 19th ahead of teammate Cole Custer, Kurt Busch and Ryan Newman were in 21st and 22nd, rookie Chase Briscoe was in 24th behind Michael McDowell, Daniel Suarez was in 28th behind Austin Cindric and Erik Jones was in 29th. 

    Under the competition caution, the leaders pitted and Hamlin emerged with the lead following his four-tire service followed by teammate Truex, Blaney, Logano and Elliott. Larson, who came into pit road running in the top 10, dropped all the way back to 18th after receiving a packer on his car during his service.

    When the race restarted on Lap 37, Hamlin, this time around, prevailed on the outside lane to retain the lead while Logano moved up to second place over Truex. Behind, Byron moved his No. 24 Liberty University Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE into fourth place followed by Blaney while Elliott and Bell battled for sixth. 

    By Lap 50, Hamlin was leading by more than a second over Logano while Truex, Byron and Blaney stabilized themselves in the top five. Bell was in sixth followed by Elliott, Keselowski, Austin Dillon and Harvick.

    Through the first 65 laps of the event, Hamlin’s No. 11 FedEx Toyota Camry continued to lead by more than a second over Logano’s No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Mustang. Truex’s No. 19 Auto-Owners Insurance Toyota Camry was in third followed by Byron and Blaney. Bell, racing in his No. 20 SiriusXM Toyota Camry, was in sixth followed by Austin Dillon, Keselowski, Harvick and Alex Bowman. Elliott, meanwhile, had fallen back to 11th in front of Kyle Busch while Larson was mired back in 21st place and in between Ryan Newman and Austin Cindric.

    When the first stage concluded on Lap 80, Hamlin was scored the leader as he achieved his fourth stage victory of the season. Truex prevailed in a late battle over Logano to settle in second followed by Byron and Blaney. Bell, Bowman, Austin Dillon, Keselowski and Harvick were scored in the top 10. By then, 29 of the 38 competitors were scored on the lead lap.

    Under the stage break, the leaders returned to pit road and Hamlin, Truex, Logano, Byron and Blaney.

    The second stage started on Lap 90 with teammates Hamlin and Truex on the front row. At the start, Hamlin retained the lead following a strong start while Truex retained second place ahead of Logano and Blaney. Meanwhile, Bowman started to challenge teammate Byron for a spot in the top five.

    By Lap 100, Hamlin continued to lead by a narrow margin over teammate Truex, who started to pressure his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate for the top spot. 

    Four laps later and following an intense battle with his teammate, Truex returned to the lead following a pass through Turns 2 and 3. By then, Logano continued to run in third place followed by Bowman while Harvick cracked the top five.

    By Lap 110, Truex started to stretch his advantage as he was less than a second ahead of teammate Hamlin. Logano and Bowman battled for third place followed by Harvick, Byron, Blaney, Keselowski, Bell and Kyle Busch. Meanwhile, Kurt Busch was in 13th behind teammate Ross Chastain, Austin Dillon and Elliott were in 15th and 16th, Larson was in 18th in front of Reddick and Bubba Wallace was in 20th ahead of Briscoe, Cindric and Newman.

    Through the first 125 laps of the event, Truex continued to lead by less than half a second over teammate Hamlin. Logano stabilized himself in third place followed by Bowman’s No. 48 Ally Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE and Harvick’s No. 4 Hunt Brothers Pizza Ford Mustang.

    By Lap 135, green flag pit stops started as Harvick pitted along with Kyle Busch, Chris Buescher, leader Truex, Hamlin, Bell, Briscoe, Cole Custer, Logano, Byron, Kurt Busch, Chastain, Wallace, Larson and others.

    In the midst of the pit stops, the caution flew on Lap 140 when a tap from Cindric sent Newman spinning in Turn 3.

    Under caution, some like Austin Dillon, teammate Reddick, Brad Keselowski, DiBenedetto, Corey LaJoie, Daniel Suarez and others that had not yet pitted under green pitted.

    With the field cycling back under caution and some taking the wave around, Harvick emerged with the lead, where he was set to restart alongside Truex. By then, 20 competitors were scored on the lead lap while names like Larson, Wallace, Briscoe, Erik Jones, Cindric, Buescher, Custer, McDowell, Newman and others were pinned a lap behind.

    When the race restarted on Lap 147, Truex rocketed away from Harvick to reassume the lead. Hamlin muscled his way into second place, thus dropping Harvick to third and with Team Penske’s Brad Keselowski and Logano trailing behind.

    By Lap 160, Truex was out in front by a second over teammate Hamlin while Harvick, Logano and Keselowski continued to run in the top five. Reddick was in sixth followed by Bowman, DiBenedetto, Austin Dillon and Suarez. LaJoie was in 11th followed by Bell, Kyle Busch, Byron and Kurt Busch.

    Through the first 175 laps of the event, Truex’s advantage over teammate Hamlin decreased to nearly half a second, though the former remained out in front.

    Nearly 10 laps later, a second round of pit stops under green commenced as the leaders Truex and Hamlin pitted. Soon, Austin Dillon made the turn to pit road along with Bowman, Harvick, Kyle Busch, Corey LaJoie, Elliott, Suarez, Larson, Logano, Buescher, Briscoe and others.

    By Lap 193, Keselowski, who has yet to pit, was leading followed by Kurt Busch and Blaney while Hamlin, the first competitor with fresh tires, was in fourth ahead of teammate Truex. Logano was in sixth while everyone else behind, starting with seventh-place Bowman, were a lap behind.

    On Lap 207, Hamlin utilized the fresh tires to his advantage as he overtook Keselowski for the lead. Shortly after, Truex moved into second place followed by Logano as Keselowski slipped back to fourth. Prior to this, Kurt Busch and Blaney pitted.

    By Lap 225, Hamlin, who was encountering lapped traffic, including Elliott, was ahead by less than half a second over teammate Truex followed by Logano, Bowman and Harvick. 

    When the second stage concluded on Lap 235, Hamlin was able to navigate his way through the lapped traffic to claim his fifth stage victory of the season. Teammate Truex finished second followed by Logano, Bowman, Harvick, DiBenedetto, Kyle Busch, Byron, Bell and Almirola. By then, Elliott, who was in 12th, was able to remain as the first competitor scored a lap behind, thus giving him the free pass ticket for the caution. The result left names like Reddick, Kurt Busch, Suarez, Keselowski and others pinned a lap behind.

    Under the stage break, the leaders pitted and Hamlin retained the lead following another stellar service from his crew. Teammate Truex, Logano, Harvick, Kyle Busch and Byron. During the pit stops, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. was panelized for equipment interference. In addition, Bowman was sent to the rear of the field due to an uncontrolled tire violation.

    With 153 laps remaining, the final stage started as JGR’s Hamlin and Truex led the field on the front row. At the start, Hamlin retained the lead followed by Logano and Truex while teammate Kyle Busch started to challenge his way to the front while running in fourth. 

    Under the final 150 laps, Logano issued a challenge on Hamlin for the race lead. Though he was able to draw himself even with Hamlin’s car, he was unable to pull ahead nor clear Hamlin as Hamlin retained the top spot. 

    Shortly after, the battle for the lead between Hamlin and Logano became a three-man battle for the lead as Truex joined the party. 

    With 135 laps remaining, Hamlin remained as the leader by less than half a second over Logano and a second over Truex. Kyle Busch, the third JGR competitor, remained in fourth place while trailing the leaders by more than two seconds while Harvick was back in fifth place, trailing by three seconds. Matt DiBenedetto, meanwhile, was in sixth followed by Bell, Byron, Almirola and Austin Dillon.

    With 110 laps remaining, Hamlin stabilized his advantage as he was leading by more than a second over Logano and more than two seconds over Truex.

    Not long after, another round of pit stops under green commenced as Suarez pitted along with Austin Dillon, Bowman, Reddick, the Busch brothers, Almirola, DiBenedetto and others. Leader Hamlin also pitted followed by Truex.

    During the pit stops, disaster struck for Truex, who was caught speeding on pit road during his service and was forced to serve a drive-through penalty on pit road.

    Down to the final 100 laps of the event, Hamlin was leading by nearly two seconds over Logano. Kyle Busch was in third followed by Harvick and Bell. Byron, teammate Bowman, Almirola, Austin Dillon and DiBenedetto were in the top 10. Truex, following his pit stop penalty, was in 12th place, the final car scored on the lead lap.

    With 75 laps remaining, Hamlin stabilized himself as the leader by nearly half a second over Logano. Kyle Busch, racing in his No. 18 M&M’s Red Nose Day Toyota Camry, continued to run in third place followed by teammate Bell and Harvick. Truex, meanwhile, was in 10th place while Chase Elliott was back as the final car on the lead lap in 12th place. 

    Under the final 70 laps of the event, the battle for the lead started to heat up as Hamlin had Logano closing in on him for the lead as both encountered lapped traffic.

    Five laps later, Logano emerged with the lead over Hamlin. By then, Elliott was lapped along with Austin Dillon. 

    Under the final 60 laps of the event, pit stops under green occurred as names like Byron, Bowman, Elliott, Jones, Logano, Kyle Busch, Hamlin, Harvick, Keselowski, Truex and others pitted. Earlier, Byron tried to enter pit road but he was forced to circle around the track another lap after failing to slow his car prior to the pit road entrance. 

    Following the pit stops, Kyle Busch was penalized for a commitment line violation and was forced to serve a pass-through penalty through pit road. 

    With 50 laps remaining, Logano was leading by more than a second over Hamlin followed by Bell, Bowman and Byron. Harvick, Almirola, Truex and DiBenedetto were running sixth through ninth. Kyle Busch, following his late pit road penalty, was back in 10th place and trapped a lap behind.

    Under the final 35 laps of the event, Logano, who was navigating his way through lapped traffic, was still ahead by nearly eight-tenths of a second over Hamlin. Bell was in third place and trailing the two leaders by nearly 13 seconds. Bowman was in fourth and Harvick was in fifth.

    With the laps winding down, the battle for the lead started to heat up as Hamlin closed back in on Logano’s rear bumper for the lead. He then started to challenge Logano on the inside lane, with Logano fighting back on the outside lane. Way behind the leaders, Bowman started to catch Bell for third place.

    Then with 20 lap remaining and the battle for the lead between Logano and Hamlin heating up, the caution flew when a cut right-rear tire sent Harvick sliding into the Turn 1 outside wall, where he slapped the wall and sustained significant rear end damage. 

    Under caution, the leaders pitted and Hamlin reassumed the lead following another stellar service from his pit crew. Logano exited pit road in second place followed by Bowman, Bell and Almirola.

    With 12 laps remaining, the race restarted under green. At the start, Hamlin took off with the lead with a strong start while Bowman challenged Logano for the runner-up spot.

    The following lap, Bowman took over the runner-up spot over Logano, but he was not done as he immediately challenged Hamlin for the race lead on the inside lane.

    Following a battle beneath Hamlin’s Toyota, Bowman emerged with the lead with 10 laps remaining following a power move in Turn 1.

    With five laps remaining, Bowman was leading by seven-tenths of a second over Hamlin. Logano was back in third while Almirola and Bell were in the top five. Behind, Truex worked his way up to sixth place followed by Byron, Kyle Busch, DiBenedetto and Austin Dillon.

    With the leaders starting to catch a bevy of lapped traffic, Bowman continued to lead while Hamlin was trying to close back in on Bowman’s No. 48 Chevrolet for the lead. Despite cutting the deficit down to nearly four-tenths of a second, it was too little, too late for Hamlin and Logano as Bowman came back around to Turn 4 in the midst of the traffic and claim the checkered flag by 0.381 seconds for the win.

    While Bowman achieved his third NASCAR Cup Series career win and first of the 2021 season, the Hendrick Motorsports’ No. 48 car returned to Victory Lane since June 2017 at Dover International Speedway made by Jimmie Johnson. In addition, Hendrick Motorsports achieved its first victory at Richmond Raceway since September 2008 and its 266th Cup career victory as Bowman became the eighth different winner through the first nine events of the 2021 Cup season.

    During his interview, Bowman, who won for the first time since March 2020 at Auto Club Speedway, dedicated his Richmond win to William “Rowdy” Harrell, a Hendrick Motorsports’ pit crew member who died along with his wife Blakley in a car accident in the Florida Keys last November.

    “[Crew chief] Greg Ives and all the guys, they have to deal with me at short tracks and I drive these places really wrong,” Bowman said on FOX. “We kind of instead of trying to make me figure it out, we went to work on getting the race car where I needed it to be. Greg has done such an amazing job at making that happen…This one is for Rowdy and his family. Miss him and Blakley every day. Just means the world to be able to win for Ally. It’s definitely emotional, obviously, with how hard the off-season was on us. Appreciative for the opportunity and we have more races to win this year.”

    “To be honest with you, we were terrible on short runs,” Bowman added. “We restarted third and I’m like man, if we get out of here with a solid top-five, we’ll be good. We’ve overcome a lot today. I don’t know if Greg pumped the pressures way up or what he did, but that’s more grip than I’ve ever had in a race car at Richmond and it worked out really well. Getting to race a guy like Denny at a place that this is really cool. I feel like we raced each other really clean, so I’m appreciative of that. It means a lot.”

    Hamlin, who led a race-high 207 laps, settled in second place for his eighth top-five result through the first nine races of the season, though he did not claim his first victory of the season, while Logano, who led 49 laps and was originally in position of claiming his second victory of the season, finished third.

    “We just didn’t take off quite as good there at the end,” Hamlin said. “I tried to warm it up and do everything that I could, just [Bowman] had a little more on those last few laps and I couldn’t hold the bottom. Once he got the position, we were just shut down there. Great job by this FedEx Ground team…We will keep digging. We are dominating, just have to finish it.”

    Bell finished in fourth place for his second top-five result of the season while Truex settled in fifth place following his pit road penalty.

    Almirola, Byron, Kyle Busch, DiBenedetto and Austin Dillon finished in the top 10 as only 14 of the 38 starters finished on the lead lap.

    Elliott finished 12th, Keselowski settled in 14th, Suarez finished 16th, Larson crossed the line in 18th, Harvick dropped back to 24th behind teammates Briscoe and Custer, Bubba Wallace finished 26th and Newman fell back to 30th.

    There were 20 lead changes for six different leaders. The race featured five cautions for 39 laps. 

    With his runner-up result, Hamlin continues to lead the regular-season standings by 81 points over teammate Truex, 82 over Logano, 124 over Byron, 130 over Blaney and 135 over Larson.

    Results.

    1. Alex Bowman, 10 laps led

    2. Denny Hamlin, 207 laps led, Stage 1 & 2 winner

    3. Joey Logano, 49 laps led

    4. Christopher Bell

    5. Martin Truex Jr., 107 laps led

    6. Aric Almirola

    7. William Byron

    8. Kyle Busch, one lap led

    9. Matt DiBenedetto

    10. Austin Dillon, one lap led

    11. Ryan Blaney

    12. Chase Elliott

    13. Kurt Busch

    14. Brad Keselowski, 25 laps led

    15. Ross Chastain, one lap down

    16. Daniel Suarez, one lap down

    17. Ricky Stenhouse Jr., one lap down

    18. Kyle Larson, two laps down

    19. Erik Jones, two laps down

    20. Tyler Reddick, two laps down

    21. Corey LaJoie, two laps down

    22. Chase Briscoe, two laps down

    23. Cole Custer, two laps down

    24. Kevin Harvick, three laps down

    25. Chris Buescher, three laps down

    26. Bubba Wallace, three laps down

    27. Michael McDowell, four laps down

    28. Austin Cindric, four laps down

    29. Ryan Preece, four laps down

    30. Ryan Newman, five laps down

    31. Anthony Alfredo, five laps down

    32. B.J. McLeod, seven laps down

    33. James Davison, 10 laps down

    34. Quin Houff, 10 laps down

    35. Garrett Smithley, 11 laps down

    36. Cody Ware, 15 laps down

    37. Josh Bilicki, 16 laps down

    38. Justin Haley – OUT, Engine

    Next on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule is Talladega Superspeedway, the first of two annual visits to the superspeedway venue for the series this season, with the first event to occur on Sunday, April 25, at 2 p.m. ET on FOX.

  • NASCAR Top-10 Power Rankings: Martinsville

    NASCAR Top-10 Power Rankings: Martinsville

    Note: The quotes in this article are fictional.

    1. Denny Hamlin: Hamlin led 276 of 500 laps and finished third in the Blue-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 500 at Martinsville.

    “Me and my Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Martin Truex Jr. and Christopher Bell led 305 of the 500 laps,” Hamlin said. “Kyle Busch was involved in cautions in the other 195 laps.”

    2. Martin Truex Jr.: Truex passed Denny Hamlin with 15 laps to go and went on to win at Martinsville, becoming the season’s first repeat winner.

    “The grandfather clock struck ‘2’ at Martinsville,” Truex said. “It struck ‘midnight’ for anyone who had one too many of Martinsville’s $2 hot dogs.”

    3. Joey Logano: Logano finished sixth at Martinsville.

    “A limited number of fans were able to attend the race on Sunday,” Logano said. “I felt right at home though, because I only have a ‘limited number of fans.’”

    4. Kyle Larson: Larson finished fifth at Martinsville.

    “‘Blu-Emu Maximum Pain Relief 500’ is quite a name for a race,” Larson said. “Honestly, I think it’s too much. I say we go back to calling it the Virginia 500, because, let’s face it, some things are better left unsaid.”

    5. William Byron: Byron finished fourth at Martinsville.

    “Joe Graf Jr. and Gray Gaulding fought after the Xfinity race,” Byron said. “Those guys were actually teammates last year. That’s hard to believe. I’d have an easier time believing they are current teammates at Rick Ware Racing.”

    6. Kevin Harvick: Harvick finished ninth at Martinsville, posting his sixth top 10 of the season.

    “I tangled with Bubba Wallace early in the race,” Harvick said. “We all know that the great Michael Jordan is a co-owner of his team. That being said, I’d just like to say to Bubba, ‘If you’re feeling froggy, ‘Jump, man.’”

    7. Chase Elliott: Elliott finished third in the Blue-Emu Maximum Pain Relief at Martinsville.

    “Sunday’s race aired on Fox Sports 1,” Elliott said. “Which means it was probably seen by more people live than on television.”

    8. Ryan Blaney: Blaney took the first two stages at Martinsville and finished 11th at Martinsville.

    “We had a late pit penalty that really hurt our chances at the win,” Blaney said. “The air hose got hung up in the car as I was leaving the pits. That’s not good. Heck, just ask Charles Barkley. He’ll tell you that there’s nothing worse than hose stuck in your car.”

    9. Christopher Bell: Bell took seventh at Martinsville, recording his fourth top 10 of the season.

    “My Joe Gibbs Racing teammates had quite a battle there at the end,” Bell said. “Ultimately, Martin Truex Jr. outlasted Denny Hamlin. And streaking of ‘outlasting,’ it seems like every week, Corey LaJoie, Quin Houff, Josh Bilicki, and the like are in a battle to see who can ‘out last’ the other.”

    10. Brad Keselowski: Keselowski’s hopes at Martinsville faded after he was caught up in a big pileup on lap 387. He finished 33rd.

    “It’s not often you get the ‘Big One’ in Martinsville,” Keselowski said. “There were 12 cars involved in that accident. A 12-car accident is unheard of at Martinsville, at least on the race track, but not in the parking lots in the pre-COVID era.”

  • NASCAR Top-10 Power Rankings: Bristol Dirt

    NASCAR Top-10 Power Rankings: Bristol Dirt

    Note: The quotes in this article are fictional.

    1. Denny Hamlin: Hamlin finished third at Bristol in the first NASCAR race on dirt since 1970.

    “I have six top-five finishes in seven races so far this season,” Hamlin said. “So, I guess I’m already in championship form, which always seems to be the case with me, until it’s time to decide the championship.”

    2. Joey Logano: Logano dominated the final stage at Bristol and pulled away to win the Food City Dirt Race.

    “The No. 22 Penske Ford was great at the end,” Logano said. “We left all the contenders in the dust. As a matter of fact, as you would expect on a dirt oval track, everybody was ‘left’ in the dust.”

    3. Brad Keselowski: Keselowski finished 11th at Bristol.

    “That’s two straight wins for Penske Racing,” Keselowski said. “One on asphalt and one on dirt. Me? I’d just settle for ‘one.’”

    4. Kyle Larson: Larson was caught up in Christopher Bell’s early spin, and the ensuing repairs cost him two laps. Larson eventually finished 29th, five laps down.

    “Bell did me dirt-y,” Larson said, “so he’s gonna have to pay for this. Isn’t he supposed to be a dirt-track expert? Consider me not impressed. I guess his reputation on dirt just became a reputation of dirt.”

    5. Ryan Blaney: Blaney finished eighth at Bristol, posting his fourth top 10 of the year.

    “It was a wild weekend in Bristol,” Blaney said. “It’s like Mother Nature and Joe Dirt got together, shacked up in a double-wide, and birthed BMS’s dirt track.”

    6. Kevin Harvick: Harvick finished 15th at Bristol.

    “Tony Stewart is frustrated that NASCAR gave the dirt track race to Bristol and not his Eldora Speedway,” Harvick said. “After all Tony’s done for this sport, it’s pretty awful for NASCAR to treat him like dirt over dirt. As a result, Tony’s showing his ass in addition to other body parts, like the cold shoulder, and the middle finger.”

    7. Martin Truex Jr.: Truex won Stage 1 at Bristol but faded late and finished 19th.

    “That was my first Trucks series win,” Truex said. “And it’s one I’m going to remember a long time from now, especially if I can’t get the taste of Tennessee red clay out of my mouth.”

    8. William Byron: Byron finished sixth at Bristol, scoring the best finish for Hendrick Motorsports.

    “I don’t mind racing on dirt,” Byron said. “Heck, if it’s dry, it’s practically like racing on a paved surface. And the few fans there seemed to love it too. Even though there were only 30,000 of them in attendance, the place was ‘packed.’”

    9. Chase Elliott: Elliott took 10th in Bristol’s rain-delayed dirt race.

    “NASCAR announced during the race that next year’s spring race at Bristol would also be on dirt,” Elliott said. “That’s also known as NASCAR ‘soiling themselves.’”

    10. Christopher Bell: Bell spun on Lap 51, collecting Kyle Larson and Ross Chastain in his wake. Bell’s day was done, and he finished 34th.

    “The accident was certainly my fault,” Bell said. “And both Kyle and Ross have said as much. Kyle especially. He’s been very outspoken in his criticism of me. But I’m no pushover. All I have to say to Kyle is, ‘Watch what you say.’”

  • Logano conquers inaugural Bristol Dirt Course

    Logano conquers inaugural Bristol Dirt Course

    In the first NASCAR Cup Series-sanctioned race on the dirt in half a century, Joey Logano made a late charge to the front and prevailed on an overtime restart to win the inaugural Food City Dirt Race at the Bristol Motor Speedway Dirt Course on Monday, March 29.

    Qualifying was initially set to occur on Saturday, March 27, featuring four 15-lap qualifying heat events and the starting lineup was based on a formula weighing the results and position gained during each heat. The qualifying heats, however, were cancelled due to rain, and the starting lineup was determined by qualifying metrics, based on race/points results and the fastest lap from the previous Cup race. 

    Kyle Larson was awarded the pole position based on the metric formula, but he started at the rear of the field due to an engine change. The move propelled Denny Hamlin, the regular-season points leader, to the front row along with Ryan Blaney, winner of last weekend’s Cup event at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Along with Larson, Matt DiBenedetto and Michael McDowell dropped to the rear of the field due to unapproved adjustments.

    Delayed by weather and steady rain, the race was delayed from starting on Sunday, March 28, as the main event commenced on Monday, March 29. When the green flag waved and the race commenced, Hamlin launched his No. 11 FedEx Toyota Camry ahead with an early advantage on the outside lane as he led the first lap ahead of teammate Kyle Busch and Ryan Blaney.

    The following lap, Kyle Busch powered his No. 18 M&M’s Messages Toyota Camry to the lead. Shortly after, teammate Martin Truex Jr., winner of the Truck Series event at the Bristol Dirt Course, moved into second place as Hamlin dropped to third place. Behind, Blaney was in fourth followed by Hendrick Motorsports’ Alex Bowman and William Byron.

    On the ninth lap, Truex emerged as the new leader of the event while Kyle Busch, who fell off the pace, pitted due to an overheating issue.

    By Lap 15 and with the dirt kicking up on the cars through every turn, Truex was leading by more than a second over Blaney, who was locked in a battle with the No. 24 Liberty University Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE driven by Byron. Hamlin and Bowman were in the top five followed by Joey Logano, Christopher Bell, Kevin Harvick, Austin Dillon and Ryan Newman. Meanwhile, Kyle Larson, one of NASCAR’s dirt specialists who started at the rear of the field due to an engine change, was up into 18th place.

    Through the first 30 laps of the event, Truex continued to lead as he was ahead by two seconds over Blaney. Teammates Bowman and Byron battled for third and fourth while Christopher Bell, one of the favorites as a dirt racing specialist, moved his No. 20 IRWIN Toyota Camry into fifth place. By then, Larson was in 12th. Kyle Busch, on the other hand, was in 38th place and trapped two laps behind the leaders.

    Not long after, Bowman slipped his way into the runner-up spot. In addition, Byron slipped his way on the inside lane in the dirt to take over third place, thus dropping Blaney to fourth. 

    On Lap 41, the first caution of the NASCAR Cup Series’ dirt event at Bristol flew due to a vicious multi-car wreck in the backstretch that involved Corey LaJoie, Stewart Friesen, Shane Golobic, rookie Anthony Alfredo and Aric Almirola, whose No. 10 Smithfield Ford Mustang sustained heavy damage after being hit three different times. The wreck, which occurred in front of the leaders, was enough for NASCAR to display the red flag, with the event being stopped for six and a half minutes.

    When the red flag was lifted and the race returned to racing under green on Lap 45, Truex retained the lead following a strong restart. Teammate Bell moved up into second place followed by teammate Hamlin while Bowman fell back to fourth ahead of Ryan Newman and Byron. Larson, meanwhile, moved up to seventh.

    Two laps later, the caution returned when contact from Byron sent Newman around in the backstretch. Fortunately, the field dodged Newman as he continued without any serious damage. In the midst of Newman’s incident, Stewart-Haas Racing’s Kevin Harvick and rookie Chase Briscoe made contact with one another, where Harvick pinned Briscoe’s car against the outside wall and resulted with both competitors sustaining damage. Cody Ware was also involved in a separate incident with his car coming to a rest towards the backstretch’s inside wall.

    The incident was enough to send the field to the first scheduled competition caution on Lap 50. Under the competition caution, the field pitted and the teams were placed on a three-minute clock to work on the adjustments of the cars.

    When the field returned to the track and the race returned to green on Lap 51, Truex retained the lead followed by teammate Bell and Bowman. Larson charged up to fourth place followed by Hamlin and Daniel Suarez.

    Shortly after, the caution returned when Bell ran up the track in Turn 1 and entering the backstretch, got loose and spun in the dirt, collecting Larson and Ross Chastain, who ran into Larson’s No. 5 Freightliner Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE after having his path blocked. Teammates Harvick and Briscoe also sustained damage along with Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

    Under caution, Larson drove his damaged car into the rear bumper of Bell’s car to express his displeasure as both competitors pitted for heavy damage on both of their cars. Bell and Chastain were knocked out of the race following the incident while Larson continued, though he dropped off the lead lap.

    When the race restarted on Lap 59, Truex retained the lead following a strong start while Suarez moved up into second place. Byron and Blaney were in third and fourth followed by Stenhouse and Hamlin. Chase Elliott and Logano were in seventh and eighth followed by Chris Buescher. Tyler Reddick, Bowman, Bubba Wallace and Ryan Newman

    By Lap 70, the No. 19 Auto-Owners Insurance Toyota Camry driven by Truex remained as the leader by nearly a second over Suarez while Byron, Blaney and Hamlin continued to run in the top five. Logano was in sixth while Elliott and Bubba Wallace battled for seventh. Stenhouse and Newman were in the top 10. Meanwhile, Kyle Busch, who returned to the lead lap under the first competition caution, was in 17th behind brother Kurt Busch.

    Ten laps later, Truex stabilized his advantage to less than two seconds over the No. 99 Camping World Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE driven by Suarez while third-place Byron was trailing by less than three seconds. Hamlin was in fourth ahead of Team Penske’s Blaney and Logano while Wallace was in seventh ahead of Elliott. Newman and Stenhouse continued to run in the top 10 and just ahead of Buescher, Reddick, Ryan Preece, Erik Jones and Bowman. The Busch brothers were in 17th and 18th, Harvick was in 20th, Brad Keselowski was in 23rd in between Michael McDowell and Stewart Friesen and Briscoe was in 25th in front of Austin Dillon.

    Through the first 90 laps of the event, Truex’s advantage increased to more than two seconds over Suarez, with Byron closing in on Suarez’s rear bumper for the runner-up spot. 

    With early action igniting in the inaugural Cup Bristol dirt event, Truex was able to cruise to the first stage victory on Lap 100 and become the ninth different competitor to record a stage victory through the first seven Cup events of the 2021 season. Byron crossed the start/finish line in second place followed by Hamlin, Suarez and Blaney. Logano, Wallace, Newman, Stenhouse and Buescher were scored in the top 10. By then, 24 of the 39-car field were scored on the lead lap, with names like Briscoe and Austin Dillon pinned a lap behind. Larson, meanwhile, was in 30th, two laps behind the leaders.

    Under the stage break, the leaders returned to pit road as the teams were given three minutes to service the cars.

    The second stage started on Lap 101 with Truex and Byron on the front row. At the start, Truex retained the lead and Suarez reassumed second place on the outside of Byron while Logano made a charge for fourth place against Hamlin. Newman, following his early spin, charged his way back into sixth place ahead of Wallace and Blaney as the dirt was kicking up around the track in the midst of the competitive racing.

    By Lap 110, Truex was ahead by nearly a second over Suarez while Byron, Logano and Hamlin were in the top five. Newman, Wallace, Blaney, Buescher and Chase Elliott were in the top 10 followed by Reddick, Erik Jones, Bowman, Matt DiBenedetto and Kyle Busch.

    With the field reaching the halfway point on Lap 125, Truex remained in command of the field by less than a second over Suarez while third-place Byron was trailing by less than two seconds. Logano continued to run in fourth place followed by Hamlin and Newman.

    Not long after, Suarez started to close in on Truex’s rear bumper for the lead as he was behind by three-tenths of a second. Byron also started to close in with his deficit being a second behind.

    On Lap 134, Suarez, who came into the main event with little dirt racing experience and in his seventh race with the newly formed Trackhouse Racing Team, put the bumper on Truex to move Truex out of the racing groove in Turn 3 and assume the lead in Turn 4. Not long after, Byron moved into second place while Truex dropped back to third place ahead of Logano and Newman.

    By Lap 140, Suarez was ahead by a narrow margin over Byron while Truex continued to retain third place over Logano and Newman.

    When the second competition caution flew on Lap 150, Suarez remained as the leader over Byron, Truex, Logano and Newman. 

    Under the second competition caution, the leaders returned to pit road for tires and service.

    When the race restarted on Lap 152, Suarez and Byron battled dead even for the lead through the first two turns before Suarez prevailed on the outside lane. Not long after, the caution returned for a multi-car wreck on the frontstretch that started when in the midst of the dust, Kyle Busch ran into Blaney’s No. 12 Advance Auto Parts Ford Mustang, turning him and stacking up the oncoming competitors behind. The incident also involved Austin Dillon, Bowman, Michael McDowell, Ryan Preece, Cody Ware, J.J. Yeley and Larson.

    The race restarted on Lap 158, and Suarez retained the lead following a strong start. Behind, Logano was able to take over second place while Byron and Truex battled for third place. Two laps later, however, the caution returned due to a single-car incident on the frontstretch involving Briscoe, who was turned by Keselowski.

    Following the recent wrecks and the rising dust amid the restarts, NASCAR announced that the competitors will restart in a single-file line, not double lanes, for the remainder of the race.

    When the race restarted on Lap 169, Logano challenged Suarez for the lead, but Suarez was able to retain the top spot. Behind, Truex was in third followed by teammate Hamlin, Byron, Newman, Elliott, Wallace, Reddick and Stenhouse.

    By Lap 180, Suarez remained as the leader by half a second over Logano with Truex, teammate Hamlin and Byron remaining in the top five. 

    Six laps later, the caution flew due to an incident involving Cody Ware and J.J. Yeley in Turn 3.

    On Lap 190, the race restarted and Suarez continued to lead, though Logano mounted another challenge for the lead. The following lap, Logano, following a brief battle with Suarez, emerged with a narrow advantage, though Suarez refused to give in.

    By Lap 195, Logano was leading by nearly half a second over Suarez while Joe Gibbs Racing’s Hamlin and Truex battled for third place. 

    Following his late surge to the front, Logano was able to come back around and win the second stage on Lap 200. Suarez settled in second place followed by Hamlin, teammate Truex and Newman while Stenhouse, Wallace, Erik Jones, Reddick and Elliott were scored in the top 10.

    Under the stage break, the leaders returned to pit road for adjustments. In addition, the teams were given approximately 10 minutes to work on the cars to allow track officials to work on the track in preparation for the final stage.

    With 48 laps remaining, the final stage started with Logano remaining as the leader. At the start, Hamlin jumped to the outside lane to take the runner-up spot over Suarez. He then went to work on Logano for the lead while Truex started to close in on Suarez for third place. 

    Five laps later, Hamlin drew himself alongside Logano’s No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Mustang, with both competitors locked in a heated battle for the lead in the dirt. Following a lengthy side-by-side battle, Logano retained the lead by a narrow margin over Hamlin.

    While Logano and Hamlin battled for the lead, Suarez remained in third place ahead of Truex, Newman and Tyler Reddick. Not long after, Reddick moved into the top five after overtaking Newman’s No. 6 Oscar Mayer Ford Mustang.

    Under the final 35 laps of the event, Wallace’s hopes for a top-10 result evaporated when contact from Stenhouse sent Wallace around and cut the left-rear tire on Wallace’s No. 23 DoorDash Toyota Camry. He was able to limp back to pit road and have the tire changed.

    With 30 laps remaining and the dirt continuing to kick up, Logano extended his advantage to under half a second over Hamlin with third-place Suarez trailing by three seconds. Truex and Reddick were in the top five followed by Newman, Stenhouse, Byron, teammate Elliott and Jones. By then, the leaders were mired in heavy, lapped traffic.

    Down to the final 20 laps of the event, Logano remained as the leader, but by less than half a second over Hamlin. Behind, Truex moved into third place over Suarez.

    Five laps later, Logano continued to lead by nearly half a second over Hamlin, with Logano starting to catch Bowman, Briscoe and Austin Dillon to lap them.

    With 10 laps remaining, Logano was still leading by a reasonable margin over Hamlin. Meanwhile, Truex was trailing the two leaders by less than three seconds.

    Down to the final five laps of the event, Logano extended his advantage to more than three seconds over Hamlin, who was still navigating his way through lapped traffic.

    Just then, the caution flew due to Mike Marlar spinning on the frontstretch due to a flat tire. The caution all but evaporated Logano’s advantage of more than three seconds over Hamlin, who was briefly overtaken by teammate Truex after Hamlin made contact with the outside wall while trying to close back in on Logano. By then, Stenhouse was in fourth followed by Suarez, Reddick, Newman, Byron, Jones and Blaney.

    The race restarted in overtime. At the start, Logano took off with the lead while Stenhouse mounted a challenge on Hamlin to take over the runner-up spot. Truex, meanwhile, fell off the pace after losing a tire.

    When the final lap initiated, Logano was still leading while Stenhouse was able to overtake Hamlin for the runner-up spot.

    With no challengers mounting close behind, Logano, who came into the event with little dirt experience, was able to come back around and claim the checkered flag ahead of Stenhouse.

    By winning the first stock car event on the Bristol Dirt Course, Logano became the first competitor to win a Cup event on dirt since Richard Petty made the last accomplishment at the North Carolina State Fairgrounds in September 1970. Logano also became the seventh different winner through the first seven Cup events of the 2021 season as he also collected his 27th career victory in NASCAR’s premier series.

    “Man, it’s incredible!” Logano exclaimed on FOX. “How about Bristol on dirt, guys?! This is incredible! Unbelievable racetrack! Great job by everybody that prepped the track. Obviously, a lot of work over here the last few days. We did a lot of work in the dirt department here the last few weeks…I was getting nervous. There were so many first-time winners and different winners than there has typically been. I said, ‘We’ve got to get a win to make sure we get in the Playoffs,’ so it’s amazing to get this Shell/Pennzoil Mustang into victory lane at Bristol. There’s nothing like winning at Bristol, but putting dirt on it and being the first to do it is really special.”

    “Everyone at Team Penske really put together some really good cars to come here and wing it,” Logano added. “That’s what this is about. Nobody really knew what to put in the car and we were able to adjust the right way throughout practice and get into victory lane. It’s great.”

    Stenhouse crossed the finish line in an impressive second-place result and for his first top-five result in nearly a year followed by Hamlin, who secured his sixth top-five result of this season. Behind, Suarez notched a strong fourth-place result for his first top-five result since November 2019 and for a career-best result for the newly formed Trackhouse Racing Team. Newman finished in fifth place for his first top-five result since October 2019. 

    “Yeah, our Kroger Camaro was really good on the long run; we needed a little bit more NOS Energy Drink for the restarts,” Stenhouse said. “I just couldn’t get going, couldn’t get the turn in the race car that we needed. But, we made a ton of adjustments and we kind of went back and forth overnight of what we were going to do…Man, we had a blast. At the start of the race, I was terrible with the green race track and a little bit of moisture in it. But as it blew off, we got back to where we were in practice and felt really good with it. A good way to go into the off week. I’m going to go run my sprint car with my dad this weekend. Hope everyone has a good Easter.”

    “I thought I could, on that last restart, run the top-end hard, but they didn’t prep it in-between cautions like they did before, so it was just marbles up there,” Hamlin said. “I’m proud of this whole FedEx Camry team. Man, I thought I had a shot there. I cut t[Logano] too many breaks there when he was cutting us off, but at the end of the day it looked like he had a little bit better car in the long run. I’m proud of this whole team. We are third-best again.”

    “To be honest, I had no idea what I was doing,” Suarez said. “But, we’re having fun. Everyone at Trackhouse Racing did an amazing job. This is the second week in a row that we’ve had very fast race cars capable of running in the fop-five, top-10. I couldn’t be more proud of all these guys [like] Justin Marks, Ty Norris, and everyone that helps in this program…Everyone has been a huge support of myself. It just feels so good to be back. It’s been a little bit difficult the last year, and it feels so good to be able to race with these guys and to have some fun up front. Hopefully, our time will come soon.”

    Byron, Reddick, Blaney, Jones and Elliott finished in the top 10.

    Harvick finished 15th, Kyle Busch finished 17th behind brother Kurt, Truex dropped all the way back to 19th after leading a race-high 126 laps, Briscoe was the highest-finishing rookie in 20th, Stewart Friesen finished 23rd in his Cup debut, Wallace settled in 27th and Larson ended his long run in 29th.

    Following an eventful, successful first-year run of the NASCAR Bristol Dirt Course event, NASCAR announced that the event will return in Spring 2022.

    There were five lead changes for five different leaders. The race featured 10 cautions for 39 laps. 

    Following the first seven NASCAR Cup Series races of the 2021 season, Hamlin continues to lead the regular-season standings by 58 points over Logano, 80 over Truex, 85 over Larson and 95 over Keselowski.

    Results.

    1. Joey Logano, 61 laps led, Stage 2 winner

    2. Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

    3. Denny Hamlin, one lap led

    4. Daniel Suarez, 58 laps led

    5. Ryan Newman

    6. William Byron

    7. Tyler Reddick

    8. Ryan Blaney 

    9. Erik Jones

    10. Chase Elliott

    11. Brad Keselowski

    12. Michael McDowell

    13. Matt DiBenedetto

    14. Chris Buescher

    15. Kevin Harvick

    16. Kurt Busch

    17. Kyle Busch, seven laps led

    18. Ryan Preece

    19. Martin Truex Jr., 126 laps led, Stage 1 winner

    20. Chase Briscoe, one lap down

    21. Austin Dillon, one lap down

    22. Alex Bowman, one lap down

    23. Stewart Friesen, one lap down

    24. Cole Custer, one lap down

    25. Quin Houff, one lap down

    26. Ty Dillon, one lap down

    27. Bubba Wallace, two laps down

    28. J.J. Yeley, four laps down

    29. Kyle Larson, five laps down

    30. Josh Bilicki, six laps down

    31. Mike Marlar – OUT, Accident

    32. Cody Ware, 11 laps down

    33. Chris Windom – OUT, Engine

    34. Christopher Bell – OUT, Accident

    35. Ross Chastain – OUT, Accident

    36. Aric Almirola – OUT, Accident

    37. Shane Golobic – OUT, Accident

    38. Corey LaJoie – OUT, Accident

    39. Anthony Alfredo – OUT, Accident

    The NASCAR Cup Series will enter a one-week Easter break before returning at Martinsville Speedway in Henry County, Ridgeway, Virginia, for the series’ first Saturday night race of the season on April 10. The event is slated to occur at 7:30 p.m. ET on FS1.

  • NASCAR Top-10 Power Rankings: Atlanta

    NASCAR Top-10 Power Rankings: Atlanta

    Note: The quotes in this article are fictional.

    1. Denny Hamlin: Hamlin finished fourth at Atlanta, posting his fifth top-five of the season.

    “I accidentally sent Kurt Busch into the wall on a restart,” Hamlin said. “Hopefully, Kurt will understand that just as I had no intentions of wrecking him, I have no intentions of apologizing.”

    2. Kyle Larson: Larson swept the first two stages at Atlanta, but couldn’t hold off Ryan Blaney, who passed Larson with eight laps to go. Larson held on for second and is second in the points standings.

    “I did everything but win,” Larson said. “It hurts. Luckily, I have a crew chief in Cliff Daniels who will let me complain all I want. And he also knows that when I’m done, the last three words I want to hear are, ‘I hear you.’”

    3. Martin Truex Jr.: Truex finished ninth at Atlanta, joining Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch in the top 10.

    “We’re off to Bristol for the next race,” Truex said. “I don’t think anyone really knows how it will turn out. It could be a circus, or it could be the greatest show on ‘earth.’”

    4. Joey Logano: Logano finished 15th at Atlanta.

    “Xfinity drivers Noah Gragson and Daniel Hemric traded punches after their race on Saturday,” Logano said. “I’m not sure if either really connected, but if Tim Richmond was alive today, he would surely give them credit for ‘swinging.’”

    5. Brad Keselowski: Contact with Martin Truex Jr. damaged the front of Keselowski’s No. 2 Penske Mustang and Keselowski limped home with a 28th-place finish.

    “I’m in the middle of contract renewal negotiations with Penske Racing,” Keselowski said. “Roger Penske has assured me he wants me to stick around, so much like my performance at Atlanta, ‘I’m not going anywhere.’”

    6. Ryan Blaney: Blaney passed Kyle Larson with eight laps to go and pulled away to win the Folds Of Honor Qwik Trip 500 by over two seconds.

    “I gave the checkered flag to a young fan in the stands,” Blaney said. “That’s something he’ll treasure for the rest of his life, or, at the very least, as long as the funds from its sale on eBay will last.”

    7. Kevin Harvick: Harvick finished 10th at Atlanta despite having to make a green flag pit stop due to a flat tire.

    “Tony Stewart is engaged to NHRA drag racer Leah Pruett,” Harvick said. “When she walks down the aisle, it will be ¼-mile long. If you would have mentioned ‘tying the knot’ to Tony 10 years ago, he would have adamantly refused to undergo lap-band surgery.”

    8. Chase Elliott: Elliott’s engine blew 220 laps into the Folds Of Honor Qwik Trip 500. He finished 38th.

    “When NASCAR’s most popular drivers blow an engine,” Elliott said, “it’s a big deal. When he does it in his home state of Georgia, it sends shock waves throughout the sport. And the sound it makes is ‘GA boom!’”

    9. Christopher Bell: Bell finished 21st at Atlanta, only his second result outside of the top 10 this season.

    “My Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Kyle Busch won the Trucks Series race on Friday night,” Bell said. “That was his 60th Trucks win. That means that 60 times, Kyle won a race against inferior competition that he was supposed to.”

    10. William Byron: Byron came home eighth at Atlanta as Hendrick Motorsports placed three cars in the top 10.

    “NASCAR used COVID-19 sniffing dogs to test team members at Atlanta,” Byron said. “It may very well be the first time anyone at a NASCAR race has passed the ‘smell test.’”

  • NASCAR Top-10 Power Rankings: Phoenix

    NASCAR Top-10 Power Rankings: Phoenix

    Note: The quotes in this article are fictional.

    1. Denny Hamlin: Hamlin finished third at Phoenix and maintained his lead in the points standings.

    “It was a good day for the No. 11 Toyota,” Hamlin said. “So I’m happy. I would have been happier if Bubba Wallace Jr. had held on to a top 10. We think Bubba’s gonna be great. How can he not with me and Michael Jordan mentoring him on the things we know best? It’s perfect—I talk to Bubba about racing and Michael talks to him about championships.”

    2. Brad Keselowski: Keselowski started on the pole and finished fourth at Phoenix, posting his third top-five of the year.

    “Unfortunately,” Keselowski said, “we had two missing/loose lugnuts in post-race inspection. I’m not saying we’re looking for an advantage, but if you’re gonna ‘cut corners,’ the Phoenix track layout is the place to do it.”

    3. Martin Truex Jr.: Truex pulled away late and won the Instacart 500 at Phoenix, ending a 29-race winless streak.

    “It’s good to be back in Victory Lane,” Truex said. “I’d forgotten what it looked like there, and asking Kyle Busch to describe it was a waste of time.”

    4. Joey Logano: Logano led a race-high 143 laps at Phoenix and finished second.

    “It was about one year ago that the COVID-19 outbreak shut down our sport,” Logano said. “It’s times like those that make you take stock and be thankful you’re alive. It was the same feeling I got after being confronted by an angry Ryan Newman.”

    5. Kevin Harvick: Harvick finished sixth at Phoenix.

    “Jeff Gordon and Clint Bowyer had a memorable feud at Phoenix back in 2012,” Harvick said. “I think they probably would have thrown hands had an army of crew members not stepped in between them. So, much like Sunday’s race at Phoenix, nothing happened then either.”

    6. Kyle Larson: Larson started at the rear after failing inspection but worked his way back to the front for a seventh-place finish.

    “I failed two inspections,” Larson said. “As you know, NASCAR inspections are pretty routine, monotonous, and boring. That being said, both of mine were more exciting than the race itself.”

    7. Chase Elliott: Elliott finished fifth at Phoenix, recording his second top-five result of the year.

    “I started from the rear due to unapproved adjustments,” Elliott said. “For those of you not familiar with it, ‘starting from the rear’ is another term for ‘qualifying is virtually meaningless in NASCAR.’”

    8. Christopher Bell: Bell finished ninth at Phoenix.

    “Actor Jason Biggs served as Grand Marshal for the race,” Bell said. “His ‘start your engines’ command was awesome. And boy, did he put ‘everything into it,’ much like he did to that pie in the movie ‘American Pie.’”

    9. William Byron: Byron came home eighth in the Instacart 500 as Hendrick Motorsports placed three cars in the top 10.

    “Trucks series driver Stewart Friesen and his wife Jessica will be racing in the same race at Bristol on March 26th,” Byron said. “In a perfect world, the two will make contact and wreck each other, allowing a witty race reporter to ask one of them, ‘How did you two meet?’”

    10. Kyle Busch: Busch finished 25th at Phoenix, his day sidetracked by a number of problems.

    “Let’s see,” Busch said. “To start with, I had a penalty for an uncontrolled tire. Then, I got spun into the wall by Ross Chastain. And there was more. It was a run of bad luck matched only by my run of expletives I uttered on my radio.”

  • Truex snaps winless drought, records first Cup victory of 2021 at Phoenix

    Truex snaps winless drought, records first Cup victory of 2021 at Phoenix

    The 29-race winless drought for Martin Truex Jr. and Joe Gibbs Racing’s No. 19 Toyota team came to an end under the afternoon sun in the desert state of Phoenix, Arizona, after the 40-year-old veteran from Mayetta, New Jersey, rallied from an early scrape in the wall to prevail on a restart with 25 laps remaining and over Joey Logano to win the Instacart 500 at Phoenix Raceway on Sunday, March 14. 

    The starting lineup was based on a performance metric formula, weighing the driver’s and owner’s results from a previous Cup event, the owner points position and the fastest lap recorded from a previous Cup race. With that, Brad Keselowski started on pole position. Kyle Larson, winner of last weekend’s event at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, was due to start on the front row with Keselowski, but ended up dropping to the rear of the field due to his car failing pre-race inspection twice. As a result, Christopher Bell moved up to the front row.

    Along with Larson, teammate William Byron and Cody Ware dropped to the rear of the field due to their respective machines also failing pre-race inspection twice. Chase Elliott and Quin Houff also dropped to the rear of the field due to unapproved adjustments along with Garrett Smithley, his case due to a driver change.

    When the green flag waved and the race commenced, Keselowski was able to jump ahead with a strong lead, even as he went low through the dogleg and entering Turn 1, followed by Denny Hamlin, who overtook teammate Christopher Bell for the runner-up spot. 

    Following the first lap, Keselowski was the leader followed by four Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota competitors led by Hamlin. The following lap, however, Hamlin was able to move his No. 11 Offerpad Toyota Camry into the lead.

    By the fifth lap, Hamlin was ahead by more than half a second over Keselowski, who was soon overtaken by Bell for the runner-up spot. Truex remained in fourth place ahead of teammate Kyle Busch and Ryan Blaney. 

    Five laps later and through the first 10 laps of the event, Hamlin stabilized his lead by half a second over teammate Bell while Keselowski, Truex and Blaney were in the top five. Kyle Busch fell back to sixth followed by brother Kurt Busch, Joey Logano, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Matt DiBenedetto.

    The following lap, Truex’s No. 19 Bass Pro Shops Toyota Camry made contact with the outside wall exiting Turn 1 and entering the backstretch, which allowed Blaney to overtake him for fourth place. 

    By Lap 20, Hamlin extended his advantage to more than a second over Bell’s No. 20 Rheem Toyota Camry while Team Penske’s Keselowski, Blaney and Logano were in the top five. Truex remained in sixth place while the Busch brothers battled for seventh place. Stenhouse was in ninth followed by DiBenedetto while Kevin Harvick was in 11th. 

    When the competition caution flew on Lap 30, Hamlin remained in the lead followed by Keselowski, teammate Blaney, Bell and Logano. Kurt Busch and Stenhouse were in sixth and seventh while Truex fell back to eighth. Harvick was in ninth while Kyle Busch dropped back to 10th in front of DiBenedetto. By then, Kyle Larson was in 14th behind Austin Dillon and teammates William Byron and Chase Elliott were in 20th  and 21st behind teammate Alex Bowman and Bubba Wallace, who was making his 250th NASCAR national touring series career start.

    Under caution, the leaders pitted and Keselowski exited pit road with the lead over Bell, Blaney, Harvick, Hamlin and Truex. Following the pit stops, Larson was sent to the rear of the field for speeding on pit road. 

    The race restarted on Lap 36 with Keselowski and Bell on the front row. At the start, Keselowski retained the lead followed by teammate Blaney. Bell dropped back to third followed by teammate Hamlin and Logano.

    On Lap 44, Blaney emerged with the lead after overtaking teammate Keselowski through the backstretch and coming back to the start/finish line. By then, Bell was still in third followed by Logano, Hamlin and Harvick.

    Shortly after, the caution returned when Bowman, who checked up behind Ross Chastain and made contact with him, was hit by Austin Dillon and spun as his No. 48 Ally/Best Friends Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE made light contact with the outside wall in Turn 1. The accordion effect nearly collected Chris Buescher, Bubba Wallace, Corey LaJoie and rookie Chase Briscoe. 

    Under caution, some like Kyle Busch, Byron, DiBenedetto, Chastain, Austin Dillon, Bubba Wallace, Michael McDowell, Elliott, Larson, Bowman, Ryan Newman, Daniel Suarez, Ryan Preece, Justin Haley and rookie Anthony Alfredo pitted while the rest led by Blaney remained on the track. During the pit stops, Austin Dillon was penalized for speeding on pit road.

    The race restarted on Lap 50 with teammates Blaney and Keselowski on the front row. At the start, Blaney utilized the dogleg to remain in the lead. Teammate Keselowski, racing in his No. 2 Wurth Ford Mustang, remained in second while teammate Logano battled Bell for third in front of Hamlin. 

    By Lap 60, the three Penske competitors were out in front led by Blaney. Behind, Hamlin was in fourth while Chase Elliott, racing on fresh tires in his No. 9 UniFirst Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE, moved up to fifth ahead of Kyle Busch’s No. 18 Stanley Toyota Camry. Bell fell back to seventh in front of Harvick while Byron, another competitor on fresh tires, was in ninth ahead of DiBenedetto, Kurt Busch, Truex, Larson, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Tyler Reddick. 

    Ten laps later and through the first 70 laps of the event, Blaney’s No. 12 Menards/Richmond Water Heaters Ford Mustang continued to lead by nearly three-tenths of a second over teammate Logano’s No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Ford Mustang. Keselowski, meanwhile, was pressured by Hamlin for third place as Elliott joined the battle. Kyle Busch, Harvick, Byron, teammate Larson and DiBenedetto were in the top 10 while Bell fell back to 11th.

    With the laps in the first stage closing, the battle for the lead heated up as Blaney came under fire from teammates Logano and Keselowski with Hamlin and Elliott scrambling in the battle. Despite nearly losing the lead to teammate Logano, Blaney was able to hold on ahead of a five-car battle and claim the first stage victory on Lap 75. In claiming his first stage victory of this season, Blaney also became the seventh different competitor to record a stage victory through the first five Cup events of the 2021 season. Logano settled in second followed by teammate Keselowski, Hamlin and Elliott. Kyle Busch settled in sixth followed by Harvick, Byron, teammate Larson and DiBenedetto. 

    Under the stage break, the leaders pitted and Logano emerged with the lead after exiting pit road with the top spot followed by teammate Blaney Hamlin, Elliott, Keselowski and Larson.

    The second stage started on Lap 83 with teammates Logano and Blaney on the front row. At the start and with the field fanning out through the dogleg, Logano retained the lead followed by Blaney while Elliott muscled his way into third place entering the backstretch. Keselowski and Hamlin battled for fourth followed by Larson and Harvick. Behind, Byron and DiBenedetto battled for eighth as Kyle Busch joined the battle. 

    Six laps later, the caution returned for an on-track accident involving Cody Ware and rookie Anthony Alfredo, who wrecked into the Turn 2 outside wall following contact from Ware and sustained heavy damage to his No. 38 Front Row Motorsports Ford Mustang.

    Under caution, some like Kurt Busch, Erik Jones, Briscoe, Chris Buescher, Cole Custer, McDowell, Preece, Haley and James Davison pitted while the rest led by Logano remained on the track.

    Following an extensive caution as a result of Alfredo’s incident, the race resumed under green on Lap 98 with teammates Logano and Blaney remaining on the front row. At the start and with the field fanning out through the dogleg again, Logano retained the lead followed by teammates Blaney and Keselowski while Hamlin was in fourth ahead of Elliott, Kyle Busch and Byron.

    Two laps later and through the Lap 100 mark, Logano was scored the leader followed by teammate Blaney and Keselowski. Elliott overtook Hamlin for fourth and went to work on Keselowski for more. Teammates Hamlin and Kyle Busch were in fifth and sixth while Larson moved up to seventh ahead of teammate Byron. Bell and Harvick were in the top 10. 

    By Lap 110, Logano continued to lead by more than half a second over teammate Blaney while Elliott settled in third. Keselowski was in fourth while Larson, racing in his No. 5 HendrickCars.com Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE, prevailed over a battle with Hamlin to move into the top five.

    By Lap 120, Logano extended his advantage to less than two seconds over teammate Blaney. Elliott retained third place while teammate Larson moved into fourth place. Keselowski was back in fifth ahead of Hamlin, Harvick, Kyle Busch, teammate Truex and Byron. 

    Not long after, Larson continued to flex his muscles after overtaking teammate Elliott for third place. By then, he was less than four seconds behind race leader Logano. In addition, Keselowski started to close in on Elliott for position along with Hamlin.

    By Lap 130, Logano was leading by more than three seconds over Larson, who earlier overtook Blaney for the runner-up spot. Keselowski moved up to fourth followed by Hamlin while Elliott fell back to sixth. Truex started to close in on Elliott for the sixth spot while Harvick, Byron and Aric Almirola were in the top 10. Bell and teammate Kyle Busch were in 11th and 12th followed by DiBenedetto, Briscoe, Bowman and Wallace. Kurt Busch was mired in 17th followed by Tyler Reddick, Erik Jones and Stenhouse.

    Nearing the Lap 140 mark, pit stops under green started to occur as Keselowski pitted followed by Harvick, Elliott, Logano, teammate Blaney, Kurt Busch, Bowman, Stenhouse, Truex, Byron, Almirola, Erik Jones, Buescher, Cole Custer, Hamlin, teammate Bell, teammate Kyle Busch, Larson and Briscoe. Following the pit stops, Larson was busted with a second pit road speeding penalty. Kyle Busch was also penalized due to an uncontrolled tire violation.

    By Lap 150 and with most of the leaders completing pit stops under green, Corey LaJoie, who has yet to pit, was scored the leader. Logano was in second followed by teammate Blaney, Truex, Keselowski and Hamlin. 

    At the halfway mark on Lap 156, Logano reassumed the lead from LaJoie. Blaney, Truex and Keselowski were in the top five followed by Hamlin, Harvick, Byron, teammate Elliott and Bell. By then, Larson was back in 22nd, still on the lead lap and in front of Daniel Suarez and Bubba Wallace, while Kyle Busch was in 30th, the sixth car scored a lap behind the leaders.   

    Through the first 175 laps of the event, Logano stabilized his advantage to more than three seconds over Truex. Teammates Blaney and Keselowski were in third and fourth followed by Hamlin. Harvick was in sixth while Byron, teammate Elliott, Almirola and Bell were in the top 10. By then, Larson was back in 17th and still on the lead lap while Kyle Busch was in 28th, the sixth car scored a lap down. Meanwhile, LaJoie, still on the track on old tires but with enough fuel to complete the second stage, was scored in the top 15.

    With the laps in the second stage closing, Logano continued to lead by approximately two seconds over Truex while Hamlin and Blaney battled for third place. Keselowski stabilized himself in fifth place followed by Harvick, Byron, teammate Elliott, Almirola and Bell. 

    While Truex was able to decrease his deficit to Logano to, Logano was able to retain the lead and navigate his way through lapped traffic to claim the Stage 2 victory on Lap 190. In claiming his first stage victory of the season, Logano also became the eighth different competitor to record a stage victory through the first five events of the 2021 Cup season. Hamlin was scored in third place behind teammate Truex while Keselowski managed to overtake teammate Blaney for fourth place. Harvick, Byron, Almirola, Elliott and Bell were scored in the top 10. By then, Larson moved back up to 13th ahead of Kurt Busch while Kyle Busch was in 27th, two laps behind.

    Under the stage break, the leaders pitted and Logano retained the lead after exiting pit road in first followed by Hamlin, Truex, Blaney, Keselowski and Harvick. Following the pit stops under caution, Almirola, Elliott and Ross Chastain were penalized for speeding on pit road.

    With 113 laps remaining, the final stage commenced with Logano and Hamlin on the front row. At the start, Logano nearly got turned after being bumped by Truex, but he retained the lead through the dogleg and entering Turn 1. Behind, Hamlin and Keselowski battled for the runner-up spot through the backstretch while Blaney retained fourth ahead of Harvick, Byron and Truex. Behind, Larson moved up to eighth followed by Erik Jones and Stenhouse. 

    With 110 laps remaining, Logano was ahead by nearly six-tenths of a second over Hamlin followed by teammates Blaney and Keselowski with Truex moving back into fifth over Byron. By then, Larson moved up to seventh over Bell, Harvick and Stenhouse. Meanwhile, Wallace was in 11th ahead of Jones and Kurt Busch.

    Down to the final 100 laps of the event, Logano was leading by approximately a second over Hamlin. Blaney, Truex and Keselowski stabilized themselves in the top five followed by Byron, racing in his No. 24 AXALTA Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE. Larson was in seventh followed by Harvick, Bell and Stenhouse. Behind, Wallace, Jones, Briscoe, Kurt Busch and Bowman were running in the top 15. Almirola and Elliott, following their late pit road penalties, were in 18th and 20th while Kyle Busch was mired back in 24th, a lap behind.

    With 88 laps remaining, Truex gained a huge run entering the backstretch to emerge as the new leader over Logano. As Hamlin remained in third followed by Keselowski, Larson fought his way back into the top five after passing Blaney. 

    Eight laps later and with 80 laps remaining, Truex was leading by more than a second over Logano. Hamlin, Keselowski and Larson remained in the top five followed by Blaney, Harvick, Bell, Byron and Bubba Wallace, who overtook Stenhouse for position.

    Down to the final 70 laps of the event, Truex extended his advantage to more than three seconds over Logano, who also had Hamlin starting to close in on him for the runner-up spot. Keselowski was still in fourth, trailing by less than five seconds, while Larson remained in fifth, trailing by more than five seconds. Blaney and Bell battled for sixth followed by Harvick, Wallace and Byron.

    Under the final 65 laps of the event, Byron made a pit stop under green. By then, Truex stretched his advantage to more than five seconds over teammate Hamlin, thus dropping Logano to third. Keselowski, Larson and Bell were in fourth, fifth and sixth while Wallace continued to his impressive run to the front as he was scored in seventh. 

    Shortly after, Logano and Larson pitted under green. Blaney soon pitted along with Keselowski, Elliott, Bell, Almirola, Wallace, Reddick, Ryan Newman, leader Truex and others.

    With 55 laps remaining and the leaders completing service under green, Truex was back out in front by nearly two seconds over Larson. Hamlin was in third followed by teammates Logano and Keselowski. Bell and Harvick were in sixth and seventh followed by Blaney, Byron and Wallace. 

    Behind, Kyle Busch, racing on old tires, made contact with the outside wall while scored in 14th. Despite the incident, the race remained under green as Busch pitted for fresh tires and dropped out of the lead lap category. 

    With 50 laps remaining, the caution flew when Reddick made contact with the outside wall in Turn 2 after cutting a right-front tire.

    Under caution, nearly all of the leaders returned to pit road and Logano muscled his way back into the lead following a stellar service from his No. 22 pit crew. Truex exited in second place followed by Truex, Keselowski, Larson and Hamlin. On track, though, Wallace did not pit for fresh tires and emerged as the leader. Following the pit stops, Briscoe was busted with a pit road speeding penalty.

    With 44 laps remaining, the race restarted under green with Wallace and Logano on the front row. At the start, Wallace and Logano made contact as the field fanned out to three lanes through the dogleg. Through Turn 1, Keselowski managed to prevail in a three-wide battle to take the lead followed by teammate Logano. Wallace remained in third followed by Truex while Larson, Hamlin and Byron battled for fifth. 

    With 40 laps remaining, teammates Keselowski and Logano battled for the lead while Truex trailed by more than a second. Truex, Larson and Hamlin were in the top five while Wallace was trying to hang on in sixth while battling Hamlin and Harvick.

    Two laps later, Logano used the infield dogleg on the frontstretch to reassume the lead over teammate Keselowski. 

    With 31 laps remaining, Logano extended his advantage to over a second over teammate Keselowski and Truex. Just as Truex was able to take over the runner-up spot, the caution returned the following lap when teammate Kyle Busch, the first competitor scored a lap down, spun across the start/finish line after receiving a tap from Ross Chastain. At the time of caution, Wallace had fallen back to 16th on old tires. 

    Under caution, the leaders returned to pit road and Logano retained the lead following another stellar pit stop followed by Truex, teammate Hamlin, Keselowski, Larson and Harvick.

    With 25 laps remaining, the race restarted under green with Logano and Truex on the front row. At the start, Logano went super low through the dogleg, Truex remained on the outside lane and the field fanned out to multiple lanes.

    Back to the start/finish line, Truex reassumed the lead over Logano followed by Hamlin, who was locked in a battle with Keselowski and Larson. Teammate Elliott was back up in sixth followed by Almirola, Byron, Harvick and Bell. 

    With 20 laps remaining, Truex was leading by nearly half a second over Logano while Hamlin and Keselowski were in third and fourth. Teammates Larson and Elliott battled for fifth in front of their other teammate William Byron. Harvick was in eighth followed by teammate Almirola and Bell. Blaney was in 11th in front of Bowman, Kurt Busch was in 14th and Wallace was in 17th in between Cole Custer and Austin Dillon.

    Five laps later, Truex extended his advantage to a second over Logano with Hamlin trailing behind. Keselowski was locked in a battle with Larson for fourth while Elliott settled in sixth. Harvick, meanwhile, overtook Byron for seventh while Bell and Blaney were in the top 10. Earlier, Custer made a pit stop under green after making contact with the wall with help from Wallace.

    Down to the final 10 laps of the event, Truex remained in the lead by more than a second over Logano. Hamlin settled in third, nearly two seconds behind, followed by Keselowski. Elliott, meanwhile, managed to move into the top five while Larson was locked in a battle with Harvick for sixth place. 

    With five laps remaining, Truex continued to lead by more than a second over Logano with Hamlin trailing by two seconds. By then, Harvick prevailed over Larson for sixth place while Keselowski and Elliott remained in the top five. 

    Utilizing the final laps to his favor in cruise control and with a respectable lead of over a second over Logano, Truex was able to take the white flag, navigate his No. 19 Toyota Camry through the circuit smoothly for a final time and come back around to claim his first checkered flag of the season and become the fifth different winner through the first five Cup races of the 2021 season. 

    The victory was Truex’s 28th of his Cup career, moving him to a tie with Carl Edwards and Rex White for 28th place on the all-time Cup wins list, and first at Phoenix as he also claimed his first Cup victory since June 2020 at Martinsville Speedway. In addition, crew chief James Small claimed his second career victory while Joe Gibbs Racing claimed Cup career win No. 187.

    “Just an awesome job by everybody, James [Small], [car chief] Blake [Harris] and all the pit crew guys fixing it,” Truex said on FOX. “Really solid. I thought at the beginning of the race, we were gonna run 15th or so. Man, I can’t really believe it, I’m speechless. This feels pretty amazing. Phoenix has been a tough one for us and to come here and win this, I wish it was November, but hopefully we can come back here in November and have a shot at being in the Final Four. Man, just so thankful and so proud of everybody at JGR and everybody who makes this possible.”

    Logano settled in second place for the second time this early in the season while Hamlin finished third and claimed his fourth top-five result through the first five events of this season.

    “All of the above, just a little bit everywhere is where it seemed [Truex] beat us,” Logano said on MRN. “Once they got [Truex] tuned in, he was the fastest car on the racetrack. We did a good job maximizing our day with our Shell/Pennzoil Mustang. We were a second-place car and finished second, won a stage and second in the other stage, so a lot of points. I hate finishing second, though. It really stinks, but, overall, this has been a good racetrack for us. The last few times we’ve been here is first, third and second, so we’re all over it, just needed that last run not to have a caution. I think we were in a pretty good spot to maybe run that thing out, but, overall, that was where we had it.”

    “Yeah, I think we are happy with [the finish],” Hamlin said. “Obviously, we want to win with our Offerpad Toyota but certainly the short tracks is something we want to put a lot of emphasis on this year. We just didn’t have the results on the short tracks that we wanted last year, but getting the first short track win here for JGR – 1, 3 is a good sign that we worked on the right things and we are headed in the right direction.”

    Keselowski finished fourth for his third top-five result in four races while Elliott rounded out the top five at Phoenix, which marked his best result since finishing in second place in this year’s Daytona 500. Harvick, Larson, teammate Byron, Bell and Blaney completed the top 10 on the track.

    Almirola rallied from his slow start to the season by finishing 11th followed by Stenhouse, Bowman, DiBenedetto and Kurt Busch. Wallace posted a 16th-place result in front of Austin Dillon, Erik Jones and Daniel Suarez finished 20th and 21st, rookie Chase Briscoe finished 22nd in front of Michael McDowell and Kyle Busch ended his long afternoon in 25th.

    There were 22 lead changes for eight different leaders. The race featured seven cautions for 45 laps. 

    Denny Hamlin continues to lead the regular-season standings 39 points over Brad Keselowski, 44 over Logano, 56 over Truex, 57 over Larson and Elliott and 60 over Harvick. 

    Results.

    1. Martin Truex Jr., 64 laps led

    2. Joey Logano, 143 laps led, Stage 2 winner

    3. Denny Hamlin, 33 laps led

    4. Brad Keselowski, 19 laps led

    5. Chase Elliott

    6. Kevin Harvick

    7. Kyle Larson, one lap led

    8. William Byron

    9. Christopher Bell

    10. Ryan Blaney, 35 laps led, Stage 1 winner

    11. Aric Almirola

    12. Ricky Stenhouse Jr., one lap led

    13. Alex Bowman

    14. Matt DiBenedetto

    15. Kurt Busch

    16. Bubba Wallace, four laps led

    17. Austin Dillon

    18. Chris Buescher

    19. Ross Chastain

    20. Erik Jones

    21. Daniel Suarez

    22. Chase Briscoe

    23. Michael McDowell

    24. Justin Haley

    25. Kyle Busch, one lap down

    26. Ryan Preece, one lap down

    27. Corey LaJoie, one lap down, 12 laps led

    28. Ryan Newman, one lap down

    29. Tyler Reddick, two laps down

    30. B.J. McLeod, three laps down

    31. Cole Custer, four laps down

    32. Quin Houff, seven laps down

    33. James Davison, nine laps down

    34. Garrett Smithley, 12 laps down

    35. Josh Bilicki – OUT, Power steering

    36. Cody Ware – OUT, Accident

    37. Anthony Alfredo – OUT, Accident

    38. Timmy Hill – OUT, Engine

    The NASCAR Cup Series will return to the south to compete at Atlanta Motor Speedway, the first of two visits to the track for the series this season, on Sunday, March 21. The event is slated to occur at 3 p.m. on FOX.