Cup - Ragan Gets First Career Win at Daytona

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David Ragan cruised to his first career Cup Series win in Saturday night's Coke Zero 400 at Daytona International Speedway.

Racing in the two-car drafts that have become commonplace at the superspeedways, the top four finished in single file. Ragan was pushed to victory by his Roush Fenway teammate Matt Kenseth.  The tandem of Joey Logano and Kasey Kahne didn't try to challenge the finish and finished third and fourth respectively.

A sedate race by Daytona standards turned treacherous at the end.  It took two green-white-checkered finishes and ten extra laps to settle this one.  With two separate wrecks occurring simultaneously on the final lap, NASCAR let it play out to the finish and didn't throw the caution until the leaders had crossed the line.

After three cautions in the first 50 laps, the race settled down into a long green flag run from Lap 53 to Lap 157.  Then with just three laps left to go, Kahne got together with his Red Bull teammate Brian Vickers, pushing Jeff Gordon up into Kyle Busch and Logano.  It was slight contact, but was enough to send Gordon sideways in traffic.  Gordon made a tremendous save to get the car straightened out again, but that brought out the caution and set up the first GWC attempt.

The first attempt didn't make it through Turn Two.  Racing three wide through the turn, Mark Martin drifted down on Logano, triggering the Big One.  Somewhere in the neighborhood of fifteen cars were involved in various degrees.

They lined up again for a second GWC.  Ragan got a great push from Kenseth to stay out front, but Ryan Newman and Denny Hamlin challenged.  Logano and Kahne went outside to make it three wide, and Newman and Hamlin were stranded in the middle and fell back.  On the final lap, Landon Cassill got together with Marcos Ambrose, triggering a multi-car crash.  As that one was playing out, Jamie McMurray got together with Dale Earnhardt Jr., triggering another melee closer to the front of the field.

Kyle Busch finished fifth, followed by Gordon, Kevin Harvick, Paul Menard, Juan Montoya, and A. J. Allmendinger.  (Race results)

Ragan atoned for a big mistake at the Daytona 500 in February.  Leading the field to green on a late restart, Ragan was penalized for changing lanes before he crossed the start/finish line, ending his chances for a win.

Daytona 500 winner Trevor Bayne's hopes for a repeat at the track ended early on Lap 5.  A push from Brad Keselowski hooked him into the wall and ended his day.

Carl Edwards's day also ended early.  On Lap 23, he was hooked by his Roush Fenway teammate Greg Biffle.  Biffle slapped the outside wall; Edwards slid through the infield and smacked the inside wall hard.  Edwards came into the race with a 25-point lead in the series points standings, but finished 37th and relinquished the lead to Harvick.

Harvick now leads Edwards by five points.  Kyle Busch jumped two spots to third, ten points behind Harvick.  Kurt Busch (-16) is fourth.  Kenseth (-22) is fifth.  Jimmie Johnson (-22) got caught up in the last-lap melees and finished 20th, dropping him three spots to sixth in the standings.  Earnhardt (-52) is seventh, followed by Gordon (-67), Clint Bowyer (-81) and Newman (-88).  With just nine races left before the Chase, Hamlin has closed to within three points of tenth.  Tony Stewart is just four points behind Newman now.  (Points standings)

Related articles

• Ragan may have saved his job (msn.foxsports.com)
• WINNERS & LOSERS: David Ragan and Matt Kenseth make Roush Fenway Racing the big winner at Daytona (scenedaily.com)

Cup - Logano Takes the Pole at Sonoma

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Joey Logano grabbed the pole for Sunday's Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Infineon Raceway.  Logano, who doesn't have much of a reputation as a road racer, turned a lap of 76.821 seconds (93.256 mph) on the 1.99-mile course.  Logano was as surprised as everyone else, "This is the last place that I figured we'd get a pole."

It was Logano's second career pole.  The other came at Bristol in March 2010.  Logano is the youngest driver (21 years, 1 month) to win a road course poll, besting Parnelli Jones (24 years, 9 months, 18 days) at Riverside in 1958.

Jamie McMurray (76.848 seconds, 93.223 mph) will start on the outside of the front row.  Paul Menard starts third, followed by Denny Hamlin and Ryan Newman. 

Tony Ave, a road race specialist substituting for Travis Kvapil in the No. 38 Front Row Motorsports Ford, was the only driver to fail to qualify for the race.  (Race lineup)

Kurt Busch was trying to earn his fourth straight pole.  He led the first practice session, giving him the final run in qualifying, but he was a half-second off of Logano's time.  He starts eleventh.  McMurray was fastest in the second practice.  Brad Keselowski was fastest in Happy Hour.

Series points leader Carl Edwards canceled his plans to run the Nationwide Series race at Road America.  After a poor first practice and qualifying run, Edwards decided he needed the extra practice time at Infineon.  He starts 23rd Sunday.

NASCAR News

Joe Gibbs Racing:  It turned out just as expected -- no points penalties, but hefty monetary fines for bringing the unapproved oil pans to Michigan.  The three crew chiefs -- Mike Ford, Dave Rogers and Greg Zipadelli -- were fined $50,000 each.  The crew chief, the car chiefs and competition director Jimmy Makar were all put on probation until the end of the year.

Red Bull Racing:  The news that Red Bull was pulling out of NASCAR seems to have leaked a lot quicker than the company might have liked.  Anyway, they're searching for a buyer to keep the team going and will even throw in some sponsorship.  Whatever it takes.

Silly Season:  Carl Edwards is still the top free agent.  His decision -- to stay at Roush Fenway or move on -- will affect everyone else, but the situation at Red Bull throws a big monkey wrench into the works.  It's currently a two-car team, but Kasey Kahne is going to Hendricks next season and Brian Vickers's contract is up at the end of the season.  And what about Mark Martin...and Clint Bowyer and Danica Patrick and Juan Montoya and all the others?

It's a strange weekend coming up for the new official sport of North Carolina.  No Truck race, but the Cup and Nationwide Series are both at road courses -- just not the same one.  The Cup race is at Sonoma, California, at Infineon Raceway.  The Nationwide race is in Wisconsin at Road America.

Road courses?  Yea or nay?  I think they're fun and take a lot of driver skill.  I'd like to see maybe one more road course track on the Cup schedule, maybe even during the Chase.

NASCAR News

Some stories to check out:

• The news has leaked out that Red Bull will be leaving NASCAR at the end of the season.  It sounds like they are going to concentrate on their much more successful Formula One team.  They've had some bad luck and made some bad decisions since they've been in NASCAR, but I thought they were finally turning the corner.  Oh well.
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• Did you notice Hendrick's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day at Michigan?  Mark Martin had the best finish of the group (ninth), but that was after he ran Junior into the wall with about 15 to go.
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• Carl Edwards has become the lead spokeman for doing something about the downforce in the Cup cars.  "I'm really hoping that NASCAR will take the opportunity in 2013 to take downforce away, so the fans can see the guys race race cars and not race downforce. That would be cool."
•  
• And Fox is trying to work out an agreement with NASCAR to allow them to move some of their races to Speed.  This is probably good news unless you don't have Speed.  Eh, it probably won't happen for a couple of years anyway.

Nationwide -- Edwards Outruns Stenhouse at Michigan

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Carl Edwards outran his Roush Fenway teammate Ricky Stenhouse Jr. to win Saturday's Alliance Truck Parts 250 at Michigan International Speedway.  It was Edward's fourth Nationwide Series win of the season and the 33rd of his career.

Stenhouse passed Edwards for the lead with 21 laps to go, but Edwards ran him down and the two dueled for the win in the closing laps before Edwards finally retook the lead with less than ten laps to go and pulled away for a 1.669 second victory.  Edwards led a race-high 62 (of 125) laps, including the final eight.

Stenhouse finished second to give Roush Fenway a 1-2 finish.  Kyle Busch finished third, followed by Paul Menard and Trevor Bayne.  (Race results)

Mark Martin was on pit road when the third and final caution of the day flew over Aric Almirola's spin in Turn Two.  Martin inherited the lead when the leaders else pitted during the caution, but he fell back and finished seventh.

Stenhouse took over the lead in the series points standings, two points ahead of Elliott Sadler, who finished eighth.  Reed Sorenson recovered from a early pit road commitment line violation and pass-through penalty to finish 11th, but fell from first to third in the standings, four points behind Stenhouse.  Justin Allgaier is fourth, 17 points back.  Aric Almirola and Jason Leffler are tied for fifth, 54 points behind Stenhouse.

Nationwide -- Allgaier Coasts to Victory at Chicagoland

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Justin Allgaier coasted to the win in Saturday night's STP 300 at Chicagoland Speedway, finishing 1.719 seconds ahead of Carl Edwards.  Both Allgaier and Edwards ran out of gas on the final lap, but Allgaier ran out a few seconds after Edwards and had enough momentum to coast to the stripe.

It was Allgaier's second career Nationwide Series win, and the second win of the season for a Nationwide-only driver.  It was Allgaier's first win at Chicagoland, the hometown track for the Riverton, Illinois, native.

With a long green run at the end, fuel became an issue for a lot of the field.  Carl Edwards dominated the race, leading 144 of the 200 laps, but it appeared to be a two-car race with Edwards battling Elliott Sadler for most of the final quarter of the race.  Edwards finally got around Sadler and led 24 of the final 25 laps.  Allgaier was running a distant third, but was slowly reeling in the leaders as the laps wound down.  Sadler had to pit with a tire going down with just six laps to go, ending his hopes for a victory.

As they began the final lap, Allgaier was close behind Edwards.  Edwards ran out of gas as they were going into Turn Three.  Allgaier swerved around him, then ran about 100 yards further before running of of gas himself.

Trevor Bayne, who made his return to the track after a six-race layoff due to a mysterious illness, finished third, the first car still under power.  After the race, he lamented that maybe his team had tried to conserve too much gas at the end.  If they had run a little harder sooner they might have been able to take advantage of the race leaders running out of gas in front of them.  Aric Almirola finished fourth, Jason Leffler fifth.  Allgaier, Bayne, Almirola and Leffler all scored their highest Nationwide finishes of the season.  (Race results)

The tire going down cost Sadler the lead in the series points standings.  Reed Sorenson, who finished sixth, moved ahead of Sadler, who finished 11th, by two points.  Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (-6) is now third, followed by Allgaier (-11) and Almirola (-46).

Nationwide -- Iowa Results

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Ricky Stenhouse Jr held off Carl Edwards and Brad Keselowski to win the John Deere Dealers 250 at Iowa Speedway Sunday.  It was Stenhouse's first NASCAR win and the first Nationwide win for a non-Cup driver since Justin Allgaier won at Bristol in March 2010.


Stenhouse and his Roush teammate Edwards swapped the lead several times in the late stages of the race, but Stenhouse took the lead for good on Lap 232 (of 250).  Edwards finished second, followed by Keselowski, Reed Sorenson and Elliott Sadler.  (Race results)

The race marked the first time that three women competed in the same Nationwide race.  Jennifer Jo Cobb was joined by the Cope twins, Angela and Amber, who were making their series debuts.  The Cope twins spun out on almost the same spot on the racetrack just a few laps apart -- Angela on Lap 117, Amber on Lap 129.  Cobb finished 26th, Angela 28th, and Amber 32nd.

Elliott Sadler still leads the series points standings.  Reed Sorenson is second, now just seven points behind.  Stenhouse moved into third, just eight points back.  Justin Allgaier (-20) dropped to fourth, followed by Jason Leffler (-43).

The Sprint All-Star Race

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Carl Edwards won the race off pit road, then pulled away on the restart and led every lap of the final ten-lap segment to win the 2011 Sprint All-Star Race at Charlotte Motor Speedway Saturday night.


Edwards won the second and third segments (both 20 laps each) of the four-segment race.  After the third segment, the cars lined up on pit road for a ten-minute intermission.  The cars then left pit road under yellow, then returned for a mandatory four-tire change.  Edwards beat Kyle Busch off pit road, then dominated the final segment, a ten-lap shootout, to win the $1,000,000 grand prize.  In all, Edwards won $1,203,300, the largest amount ever in a single All-Star Race.

Edwards beat Busch to the finish by 0.443 seconds.  David Reutimann finished third, followed by Tony Stewart and Greg Biffle.  Biffle, who won the first segment, a 50-lap affair, led twice for a race-high 46 laps.  (All-Star Race results)  It was Edwards's first All-Star Race win in six starts.  He becomes the eighth different All-Star Race winner in the past eight years.

As All-Star Races go, it was a pretty low-key affair.  No drama, no feuding, very few incidents, just a lot of hard racing.  There were only two cautions for accidents.  Both were one-car slides.  The only real incident of the evening occurred on Lap 2 of the preliminary event, the Sprint Showdown.  Landon Cassill's left rear tire blew causing him to spin.  He came up the track in front of Derrike Cope, who T-boned him in the driver's side door. 

Carl Edwards had some issues after winning the race while attempting a celebratory spin through the grass.  He went across a paved strip, then, when he hit the grass again, the nose of his car dug in and almost flipped the car over.  The front end of his car was destroyed, and NASCAR had to move the Victory Lane celebration to the front straightaway.

Eighteen drivers qualified for the All-Star Race.  David Ragan and Brad Keselowski raced their way into the All-Star Race by finishing first and second respectively in the Sprint Showdown.  Dale Earnhardt Jr. got into the All-Star Race by winning the fan vote.

NASCAR: NNS -- Gateway: 5-Hour Energy 250 Results

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When the caution came out in the closing laps of Saturday's Nationwide Series race at Gateway International Raceway, Brad Keselowski came to pit road and took four tires.  The gamble paid off as he was able to slice through the competition to win the 5-Hour Energy 250.

Keselowski appeared to be on his way to a second-place finish behind his Penske Racing teammate Justin Allgaier when Danica Patrick spun into the wall after contact from Stephen Wallace.  The top three cars -- Allgaier, Keselowski and Carl Edwards -- took four tires and lined up for the restart behind Reed Sorenson and Josh Wise, who stayed out, and Mike Bliss and Jason Leffler, who took two tires.  Bliss got into the rear of Sorenson and got him loose, then got by him for the lead.  Keselowski pulled even with Bliss with the white flag in sight.  His four tires beat Bliss's two through Turns One and Two and he pulled away to win by 0.227 seconds.

It was Keselowski's 12th career Nationwide win, his fifth of the season and his first at Gateway.  He had victory in sight in the July race at Gateway, but Carl Edwards punted him into the wall in the final turns, and he finished 14th.

They were three abreast for third place with Allgaier, who led a race-high 88 (of 200) laps, nosing ahead of Leffler and Edwards.  (Race results)

With the win, Keselowski has all but locked up the Nationwide Series championship.  He now leads Edwards by an insurmountable 485 points with just three races remaining.  In fact, Keselowski will clinch the championship in two weeks at Texas if he finishes just nine points better than Edwards.  He can also clinch at Texas just by finishing 20th or better.  (Points standings)

Keselowski and Edwards started in the back of the field after relief drivers qualified their cars for them.  They were busy with Cup practice and qualifying at Martinsville, and showed up just long enough to race.  They both quickly worked their way through the field.  Keselowski took the lead for the first time on Lap 77.  He led four times for 83 laps.

At the midpoint of the race, Scott Wimmer and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. got loose coming out of Turn Four.  That triggered an 11-car melee that sent nine cars to the garage.  The race was red-flagged for about 20 minutes to clean up the mess.

This might have been the final NASCAR race at Gateway International Raceway.  Dover Motorsports, who owns the track, is looking for a buyer and has not requested any racing dates for 2011.

NASCAR: Richmond Preview

Image by Bristol Motor Speedway & Dragway via FlickrNASCAR is on a tight schedule at Richmond International Raceway this weekend.  The Sprint Cup race, the Air Guard 400, is set for 7:30 p.m. ET (ABC).  The Nationwide race, the Virginia 529 College Savings 250, is already underway (ESPN2).  The Camping World Truck Series is off this weekend; they'll be back next weekend at Loudon.

Unlike past years, there's not a lot of drama going into this final race of the "regular season" over who will make the Chase.  Ten drivers have already qualified.  If 13th place Ryan Newman wins Saturday night and leads the most laps, earning the maximum 195 points, Greg Biffle needs to finish 42nd or better and Clint Bowyer needs to finish 28th or better to make the Chase field.  Bowyer leads Newman by 117 points in the points standings.

Carl Edwards earned the pole for Saturday night's race in the just completed qualifying session.  Edwards ran a lap of 21.13 seconds (127.762 mph), edging Juan Pablo Montoya (21.18 seconds, 127.455 mph).  A. J. Allmendinger will start third, followed by Clint Bowyer and David Reutimann.  Bobby Labonte needed to use the past champion's provisional to make the field.  That meant that the provisional wasn't available for brother Terry, who was making his first attempt with a new team, Stavola Labonte Racing.  Michael McDowell, Todd Bodine, Scott Riggs and Brian Keselowski also failed to make the 43-car field.  (Race lineup)

Mattias Ekstrom will be driving the No. 83 Red Bull Toyota.  The two-time German Touring car champ made his NASCAR debut in June at Infineon Raceway.  This will be Ekstrom's oval debut. Brian Vickers is scheduled to be back in the car next season.