Nationwide - Keselowski Stretches His Fuel Mileage to Win at Kentucky

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Brad Keselowski dominated Friday night's Feed the Children 300 at Kentucky Speedway, leading 132 of the 200 laps, but it came down to fuel mileage at the end.  Keselowski conserved enough to take the checkered flag.

Keselowski's only real challenge came from Kevin Harvick, who was also in fuel conservation mode.  But Harvick's crew made a crucial mistake in the closing laps, calling Harvick to the pits for fuel, then changing their minds at the last minute and telling him to stay out.  A car had spun out and they were looking for a caution that never came.  Harvick couldn't make up the lost time, allowing Keselowski to cruise to a 1.180-second victory.

It was Keselowski's first win of the season and the 13th of his career.  It was his first win at Kentucky Speedway in his fourth start.

On Lap 134, Robert Richardson spun and backed into the wall to bring out the fifth and final caution of the race.  Keselowski took fuel only and was the first off of pit road.  Keselowski pulled away on the restart and led the rest of the way.

Kyle Busch started in the rear of the field after wrecking in practice and switching to his backup car.  He quickly worked his way toward the front, but never challenged Keselowski and Harvick.  He finished third, followed by Kasey Kahne and Elliott Sadler.  (Race results)

Sadler took over the lead in the series points standings from Reed Sorenson, who finished 17th.  Sorenson had pit troubles earlier in the race, leaving the pits with the track bar wrench still in the back of the car.  Sadler now leads Sorenson by four points.  Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (-27) is third, followed by Justin Allgaier (-43) and Jason Leffler (-73).

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.

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Cup -- Harvick Snatches an Improbable Win

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There was no way NASCAR was going to top what happened today at Indy, right?  I don't know; they might have pulled it off. 

Kevin Harvick came out of nowhere to win Sunday night's Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway when Dale Earnhardt Jr. ran out of gas the last time down the backstretch.

Just like Indy, it came down to fuel mileage.  A lot of cars were running low on gas, and then there's a green-white-checkered finish to push the issue further.  Earnhardt and Kasey Kahne were on the front row for the final restart, both a long time past the last win and both running on fumes.  Kahne ran out of gas on the restart, stacking up traffic behind him.  There were a few cars sliding around and going in the grass, but nobody was hitting much of anything so NASCAR kept it green. 

Harvick dove down low around the jam and was suddenly in third.  Ahead of him was Denny Hamlin who was trying to chase down Earnhardt.  Earnhardt was about a half-mile from breaking a 104-race winning drought.  Then, coming down the backstretch for the last time, Earnhardt was suddenly out of gas; Hamlin too, and Harvick scooted by both of them to grab the win.  "We'll take them any way we can get them," Harvick said on the radio after the win.

David Ragan finished second, followed by Joey Logano, Kurt Busch and A. J. Allmendinger.  Earnhardt coasted home seventh, Hamlin tenth.  (Race results)

It looked like Greg Biffle might be headed for a classic Coke 600 victory.  His car was junk and the problems were mounting during the day, but when night fell the car came to him and he was gone.  But when Jimmie Johnson's engine blew to bring out the final caution with four laps to go, Biffle couldn't go the extra distance and pitted for gas just before the race went green again.  During the caution, Harvick got a gas-saving push from his RCR teammates Clint Bowyer and Paul Menard.  The green-white-checkered restart extended the race two laps past the regulation 400-lap distance.

Carl Edwards finished 16th, but extended his points lead to 36.  Harvick moved up three spots to second.  Johnson finished 28th and fell to third, 37 points back.  Earnhardt remains fourth, 43 points back.  Kyle Busch dropped two spots to fifth, 53 points back.  Kurt Busch, Matt Kenseth, Clint Bowyer, Tony Stewart and Ryan Newman round out the top 10.  (Points standings)

NASCAR: Talladega Results

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeNSCS:  Amp Energy Juice 500

It took a few minutes but NASCAR finally decided that Clint Bowyer was the winner of Sunday's Amp Energy 500 at Talladega.  After a review of the videos and loop data, they determined that Bowyer was just ahead of his RCR teammate Kevin Harvick when the race ended under caution.

Bowyer was in the inside lane being pushed by Juan Montoya.  Harvick was on the outside with David Reutimann glued to his back bumper.  As they came to the stripe to take the white flag, Harvick was inches ahead, but a few seconds later, when the caution came out and the field was frozen, Bowyer was just ahead of Harvick.

It was Bowyer's fourth career win, his first at a restrictor-plate race, and his second of the Chase.  Montoya finished third, followed by Reutimann and Joey Logano.  (Race results)

Bowyer and Harvick almost weren't there at the end.  On Lap 141 (of 188) Bowyer got into the rear of Marcos Ambrose in Turn Two, turning him in front of Harvick.  Both RCR cars suffered front-end damage, but were able to continue.  Harvick made a lengthy pit stop to put tape on the nose of his car.

The race was tame by Talladega standards.  There were just five cautions, and one of those was for debris.  The only accident that would come close to being a "Big One" was the wreck that brought out the final caution and ended the race a couple of miles too soon.  A. J. Allmendinger got the worst of that one.  He spun, flipped up on his side, and slammed hard (still on his side) into the inside wall.  Tony Stewart, Kasey Kahne, Scott Speed, and David Gilliland were also involved.

On Lap 134, Dale Earnhardt Jr., who led a race-high 24 laps, tried an ill-timed bump draft on Jeff Burton.  The contact put Burton into the wall, where he collected Earnhardt, finishing both of their days.

Kyle Busch pushed his JGR teammate Denny Hamlin to the front and was in position to win, but got shuffled back at the end of the race and finished 25th.  All of the Roush Fenway Chasers -- Matt Kenseth, Carl Edwards, and Greg Biffle -- suffered the same fate.  They finished 16th, 17th, and 19th respectively.

Denny Hamlin's day almost became a disaster to ruin his championship hopes.  On Lap 77, while cruising around in the back of the field to stay out of trouble, he lost contact with the pack and fell out of the draft.  Running by himself, he fell behind quickly at the rate of about four seconds per lap and was eventually lapped on Lap 105.  Once he got back in the main pack, he was able to stay up near the front, and eventually got his lap back during the caution for the Bowyer-Harvick-Ambrose incident on Lap 141.

It was a three-man race for the championship coming into this race, and it's an even tighter three-man race now.  In fact, this is the closest race between the top three contenders with three races to go since the Chase format started.  Jimmie Johnson, who finished seventh, increased his lead over Denny Hamlin, who finished ninth, from six to 14 points, but Harvick is now just 38 points behind Johnson.   Jeff Gordon, who finished eighth, jumped back ahead of Kyle Busch to fourth in the standings, but he's 207 points out.  (Points standings)



NCWTS:  Mountain Dew 250

Kyle Busch beat Aric Almirola to the line to gain a controversial win in Saturday's Mountain Dew 500 at Talladega.  Busch's margin of victory was 0.002 seconds, the closest in Camping World Truck Series history and tying Ricky Craven's win over Kurt Busch in a Cup race at Darlington in 2003 for the closest win in the three national series since the introduction of electronic timing in 1993.

Johnny Sauter finished third, followed by Matt Crafton and Ricky Carmichael.  (Race results)

They came out of the final turn in a single-file line with Busch seemingly ready to just push Almirola to the victory, but Sauter went low and Busch went down to block.  Sauter gave Busch a push, then moved up high and the three crossed the line side-by-side-by-side.  That final push from Sauter got Busch out of shape and his left tires went below the yellow line, out of bounds, as he struggled to keep control.  That had Almirola's team complaining that Busch should have been disqualified.  NASCAR let it slide.

It was Busch's sixth Truck Series win of the season, his second at Talladega, and the 22nd of his career.

The Big One came on Lap 91.  Grant Enfinger bumped series-leader Todd Bodine, turning him and triggering a wild wreck that saw Ron Hornaday's truck flip several times before coming to rest on its roof.   Bodine finished 18th and took a big hit in the points standings, but still has a comfortable 216-point lead over Almirola with just three races remaining.

NASCAR: NSCS -- Martinsville: Tums Fast Relief 500 Results

Image by Hans J E via FlickrDenny Hamlin rallied to pick up his third straight Sprint Cup Series win at Martinsville Sunday in the Tums Fast Relief 500, Kevin Harvick finished a surprising third, and we're left with the closest points battle with four races to go in the history of the Chase format.  And the true wild-card race in the Chase, Talladega, is up next.

The final 98 laps (of 500) were run under green, a benefit to Hamlin whose car was much better on long runs.  On the final restart on Lap 402, Harvick led the field to green with Jeff Burton second and Hamlin third.  Hamlin got around Burton on Lap 453, then battled Harvick side-by-side for several laps before finally taking the lead for good on Lap 471.

Hamlin started on the pole and led the first ten laps until he was passed by Marcos Ambrose.  By the first caution 47 laps in, Hamlin had faded to 12th.  But the crew kept working and the track finally came to Hamlin.  He beat Mark Martin to the finish by 2.318 seconds.  It was Hamlin's 15th career Cup win, his series-leading seventh of the year, and his fourth at Martinsville, including the last three in a row.

Martin's day started out bad, then got much worse before he put on a furious rally at the end to finish second.  By Lap 30, Martin was overheating his brakes and had to baby them the rest of the way.  On Lap 226, he spun, backing into the wall and doing considerable damage to his car.  He fell two laps down and was 18th on the final restart before rallying to a runnerup finish.  He was coming hard at the end and might have won if the race had gone ten laps more.  Martin said adjustments didn't make much of a difference. "I think the race track just came to us. We had a good setup in the car for the race track when it was rubbered up in the second half of the race."

Harvick, whose previous best at the track was a seventh-place finish, was expected to lose ground in the points battle.  His 36th-place start also added to those predictions.  But he quickly moved up through the field.  By that first caution on Lap 47, he was in ninth, three spots ahead of Hamlin.  He stayed near the front for the rest of the race and led most of that last long green flag run until Hamlin and Martin passed him in the closing laps.  Harvick also benefited from a crew swap with Clint Bowyer before the race.

After a long, multi-lap battle, Kyle Busch pulled ahead of Johnson in the closing laps to finish fourth.  Johnson, whose car was much better on short runs, held on for fifth, followed by Joey Logano.  Dale Earnhardt Jr. led 90 laps around the midpoint of the race and finished seventh for just his second top 10 in the last 14 races.  Carl Edwards, Jeff Burton and Brad Keselowski rounded out the top 10.

Burton led a race-high 134 laps before fading at the end.  After a restart on Lap 364, he got into an on-track feud with Harvick, his RCR teammate.  Burton was running on the outside and attempted to cut down in front of Harvick.  Harvick cut him off, then accused Burton of cutting him off.  Over the radio, he also accused Burton of doing the same thing at Indy and Loudon.  A short time later, during another caution, Harvick bumped doors with Burton.  For his part, Burton was perplexed:  "I have no clue what he could possibly be upset about.  I cleared him and turned to the bottom the same way he cleared me on the restart and turned to the bottom.  It's Martinsville, that's what you do."  Calmer heads eventually prevailed, and Harvick dismissed the dustup in his postrace press conference:  "We were just racing."

Another on-track incident put the final dagger in Jeff Gordon's fading championship hopes.  On Lap 384, Gordon was trying to nose ahead of Kurt Busch going into Turn Three.  He came in too hot and the two got together.  Gordon tapped Busch.  Busch got loose and Gordon went around him.  But Busch accelerated and caught Gordon coming out of Four.  He hooked him and spun him down the frontstretch.  Gordon lost a lap as his crew tried to repair the damage.  He got the lap back, but lost two more on the final green flag run as his damaged car struggled to keep up.  Gordon got inside of Busch again in the closing laps and pushed him up the track.  Busch lost one spot as a result and finished 16th.  Gordon finished 20th.

Other Chase drivers:  Matt Kenseth finished 15th, Tony Stewart 24th, Greg Biffle 33rd, and Clint Bowyer 38th.  (Race results)

The top three in the points standings have tightened up with Johnson's lead over Hamlin down to just six points.  Harvick gained 15 points on Johnson and is now just 62 points behind.  Although no one has been eliminated yet, it really is a three-man race with just four races remaining.  With his fourth-place finish, Kyle Busch moved into fourth in the standings, 172 points back.  Gordon dropped to fifth, 203 points behind Johnson.

NASCAR: NNS -- Fontana: CampingWorld.com 300 Results

Image via WikipediaMake it an even dozen for Kyle Busch.  He picked up the victory Saturday in the Nationwide Series race at Fontana to extend the record he set last weekend for most series wins in a season to twelve.

Busch battled hard to keep the lead on the final restart then gradually pulled away from the field to win the CampingWorld.com 300, crossing the finish line 1.034 seconds ahead of Brad Keselowski.  Kevin Harvick was third, followed by Carl Edwards and Joey Logano.  (Race results)

It was Busch's fourth victory at the two-mile track and the 42nd of his career.  He is now just six wins behind Mark Martin for the Nationwide Series career win record.

Busch overcame a pit road speeding penalty on Lap 87 (of 150).  That dropped him back to 15th, but he worked his way through the field and was back in the lead on Lap 112.  This was Busch's third victory of the season after a speeding penalty.

Harvick, who led a race-high 86 laps, had a better car than Busch on the long runs, but was frustrated by slow pit stops that cost him positions.  He came into the pits with the lead on Lap 134 (of 150) but came out sixth.  Two cautions in the final 17 laps kept him from challenging Busch for the win.

Danica Patrick, starting her eighth Nationwide race and her second at Fontana, was having her best run of the season until misfortune struck again.  Just after a restart with the field still tightly packed, Patrick was running 17th, looking for her first Top 15 finish and her first lead lap finish.  She got too close to James Buescher and squeezed him into the wall.  A lap later she got close to Buescher again and he turned into her rear, turning her into the wall.  Ricky Carmichael and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. also got caught up in the incident that brought out the sixth and final caution and set up the five-lap dash to the finish.  Patrick would finish 30th.

Keselowski should start clearing out a space in his trophy case.  He now leads Edwards by 384 points in the series standings with just five races to go.

NASCAR: Richmond - NNS: Virginia 529 College Savings 250 Results

Image by Bristol Motor Speedway & Dragway via FlickrKevin Harvick held off a hard-charging Brad Keselowski to pick up the victory in Friday night's Nationwide Series race at Richmond, the Virginia 529 College Savings 250.  It was Harvick's third Nationwide win of the year and the 37th of his career, third all time in the series.  It was Harvick's fifth Nationwide win at Richmond, tying him with Mark Martin for most series wins at the track.

It was an impressive performance by Harvick and Keselowski, the series points leader, in the third race in the new Nationwide car.  Harvick led a race-high 170 laps.  Keselowski fell two laps down around the midpoint of the race due to problems on pit road, but rallied to take the lead from Kyle Busch on Lap 163 (of 250).  Harvick took the lead from Keselowski on Lap 197, and held him off the rest of the way.  It was a close thing though.  Lapped traffic allowed Keselowski to close in on Harvick in the final laps and challenge him for the win.  Harvick slapped the wall on the next-to-last lap, but managed to hang on and cross the finish line 0.256 seconds ahead of Keselowski.

Trevor Bayne finished third, tying a career best in the series.  Ricky Stenhouse Jr. was fourth, followed by Reed Sorenson.  (Race results)

Kyle Busch was going for a record 11th Nationwide Series win of the season, but had problems on a pit stop on Lap 205.  The nozzle broke off on one of the gas cans and Busch drove away with it still stuck in the car.  Penalized for taking equipment from the pits, Busch restarted 21st, but rallied to finish ninth.

Keselowski increased his lead in the Nationwide point standings to 373 over Carl Edwards, who finished tenth.