NASCAR

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Six races left, and the Chase for the Sprint Cup is shaping up nicely.

Jimmie Johnson dominated at Kansas, running up front most of the day and holding off Kasey Kahne on a green-white-checkered restart for the win.  Brad Keselowski was third and Matt Kenseth fourth.  Carl Edwards and Kevin Harvick came on strong at the end to finish fifth and sixth respectively.

It all fell apart at the end for Tony Stewart and Jeff Gordon.  Stewart gave up track position for four tires on a late stop, then had trouble getting into his stall on the final stop.  Gordon's engine blew to set up the GWC finish.  (Race results)

Six races left, and Edwards leads Harvick by one point in the standings.  Jimmie Johnson sits just four points back and we're heading to one of his best tracks, Charlotte Motor Speedway, next.

Six races left.  Eight drivers within 20 points of the lead.  (Points standings)

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 - Gordon Wins at Pocono

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Jeff Gordon won Sunday's 5-Hour Energy 500 at Pocono Raceway.  His crew was able to get him out the pits ahead of Kurt Busch under caution on Lap 156 (of 200), then increased his lead on a later green-flag stop.  Gordon beat the elder Busch to the line by 2.965 seconds.

It was Gordon's 84th career Sprint Cup victory, tying him with Darrell Waltrip and Bobby Allison for third on the all-time wins list.  It was his second win of the season, solidifying his chances of making the Chase as at least a wild-card entry.  This is the first time since 2007 that Gordon has won multiple times in a season.  It was his fifth victory at Pocono, tying Bill Elliott for most wins at the track.

Kyle Busch was third, but his car failed post-race inspection.  It was too low in the front end.  Penalties should be announced Tuesday.  This will be the first penalty assessed under the new points system.  Jimmie Johnson was fourth; Kevin Harvick fifth.  (Race results)

Harvick tangled with Kyle Busch very early in the race, running him very low on the track on the front straightaway on the second lap, then bumping and banging with him a few laps later.  NASCAR stepped in and reminded both teams that they still had a week of probation left after their run-in at Darlington and warned them that they were being watched.  There were no further run-ins after that.

Harvick says that Busch "knows he's got one coming.  I just wanted him to think about it.   Busch said, "It's not my fight. He's trying to turn it into one."

It was a clean race.  There were just four cautions, all for debris.  Greg Biffle had the most interesting ride.  He spun coming out of Turn Three and went sideways through some traffic, past the commitment cone marking the entrance to pit road.  He didn't hit anything so the race stayed green.  Biffle pitted for four fresh tires and got back to it.

Mechanical problems were the big story of the day.  NASCAR changed the gear ratio which necessitated more shifting, adding to teams' woes.  Series points leader Carl Edward broke a valve and spent most of the day in the garage, finishing 37th, 141 laps down.  Both Stewart-Haas Racing cars, Tony Stewart's and Ryan Newman's, lost third gear.  Marcos Ambrose, Brad Keselowski and Juan Montoya also had transmission problems.

Denny Hamlin had a strong race car.  He led a race-high 76 laps and appeared to be on his way to his fifth win at the track.  But bad luck found him again, a common theme this season.  On a caution-flag stop on Lap 156, something sheared off the valve stem on his left rear tire.  He had to come all the way back around to change it and was mired back in the field.  A part of the shredded tire got wrapped around the brake lines, leaving Hamlin without brakes late in the race.  He finished a disappointing 19th.

The top seven positions in the series points standings remained the same, but Edwards's lead over Johnson shrank by 34 points.  Johnson is just six points behind now.  Dale Earnhardt Jr. (-10), Harvick (-11), and Kyle Busch (-25) round out the Top 5.  Kurt Busch is sixth, followed by Matt Kenseth, Clint Bowyer, Stewart and Newman.  Gordon moves up two spots to eleventh, just six points behind Stewart and Newman.

NASCAR: Charlotte Preview

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A Saturday night Cup race means an accelerated schedule for the weekend.  There are two races on the weekend schedule, both at Charlotte Motor Speedway:  the Friday night Nationwide race, the Dollar General 300 (7:30 p.m. ET, ESPN2), and Saturday night's Bank of America 500 (7:30 p.m. ET, ABC).  The Camping World Truck Series is off yet again, but returns next weekend at Martinsville.

Saturday night's Cup race is the fifth race in the ten-race Chase for the Sprint Cup.  Jimmie Johnson increased his points lead last weekend at Fontana; he now leads Denny Hamlin by 36 points.   The contenders are now separating themselves from the pretenders.  Kevin Harvick (-54) and Jeff Gordon (-85) are the only other drivers within 100 points of the four-time champion, but Tony Stewart lurks back in fifth, just 107 points behind Johnson.  (Points standings)

Again, some bad news for those trying to catch Johnson:  we're in the middle of a string of Johnson's best tracks.  Johnson leads all active drivers with six wins at Charlotte Motor Speedway.  His next win at CMS will move him ahead of Bobby Allison and Darryl Waltrip, making him the all-time winner at the track.

Jeff Gordon captured the pole for Saturday night's race in a rare Thursday qualifying session.  Gordon ran a lap of 28.192 seconds (191.544 mph) to edge out Carl Edwards (191.455 mph) for the top spot.  A. J. Allmendinger qualified third, followed by Mark Martin and Paul Menard.  The pole was Gordon's first in almost a year, dating back 34 races to November 2009 at Texas.  It was Gordon's eighth pole at Charlotte and the 69th of his career, tying him with Cale Yarborough for third on the all-time list.  Gordon has now won a pole in 18 consecutive seasons, tying him with Richard Petty.  David Pearson put together a streak of 20 consecutive pole-winning seasons.

Only four Chase drivers qualified in the top 10 -- Gordon, Edwards, Kyle Busch (sixth) and Johnson (tenth).  Kurt Busch, who is going for an unprecedented three-race sweep at CMS, starts 15th.  Matt Kenseth starts 17th, Jeff Burton 18th, Clint Bowyer 20th, Greg Biffle 22nd, Denny Hamlin 23rd, Kevin Harvick 24th, and Tony Stewart 29th.

Joe Nemechek, Casey Mears, Mike Bliss, Jason Leffler, Kevin Conway and Johnny Sauter failed to make the 43-car field.  (Race lineup)

Charlotte Motor Speedway is a 1.5-mile quad-oval with moderate banking -- 24 degrees in the turns and 5 degrees on the straightaway.  The 1500 feet back straightaway is the only straight part of the track; the frontstretch has little doglegs before and after the start/finish line.  Since drivers spend about two-thirds of a lap turning, downforce wins races here.