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.

Cup -- Penalties for Kyle Busch

Image by fdtate via Flickr

Kyle Busch's No. 18 car failed post-race inspection at Pocono Raceway.  In the past, penalties for such violations were announced on the following Tuesday, but NASCAR moved it up a day and announced Busch's penalties Monday.

The car was about 1/16th of an inch too low on the left front, violating Sections 12-1 (actions detrimental to stock car racing); 12-4-J (any determination by NASCAR officials that race equipment used in the event does not conform to NASCAR rules); and 20-12.8.1B (body height requirements - car failed to meet the minimum front car heights) of the 2011 NASCAR rule book.

Busch was docked six driver points.  Car owner Joe Gibbs was docked six owner points.  Crew chief Dave Rogers was fined $25,000.  This is the first such technical violation since NASCAR adopted a new points system at the beginning of the season.

Busch finished third in Sunday's 5-Hour Energy 500.  He remains fifth in the series points standings, now 31 points behind Carl Edwards.

MLB -- Heating Up

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Have you checked out the baseball standings lately?  Six divisions and the biggest lead heading into the middle of June is two games.  This could shape up to be a very interesting season.  I think I'm going to have to start paying more attention.

The Atlanta Braves have put together a six-game winning streak, and moved solidly into second place in the National League East, just two games behind the Phillies, who have the best record in baseball at the moment.  The Braves offense still scares me quite a bit, but it has shown some signs of life during the streak.  The Braves are winning most of these with great pitching.  They beat the Astros 4-1 Sunday; Tommy Hanson struck out 14 to get his third win in a row.  The Braves go for the four-game sweep Monday.

In the National League Central, the Brewers just completed a three-game sweep of the Cardinals to move ahead of them by a half-game.  Prince Fielder hit a 440-foot, 2-run blast for today's 4-3 win.

The Giants lead the Diamondbacks by one game in the National League West.  Arizona plays Florida Monday, then hosts a three-game set with the Giants.

The Red Sox have the best record in the American League and the biggest lead, two games over the Yankees in the East.  In the West, the Rangers have a 1 1/2 game lead over the Mariners.  The Indians have lost four in a row and now their lead in the Central is down to just percentage points over the Tigers.  And on top of all that, Derek Jeter is now just seven hits away from becoming the 28th member of the 3000-hit club.

Fasten your seatbelts!

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.

From the Twitter Machine

The 11 guys pulled this off the rear end housing. http://twitpic.com/5aqebuSun Jun 12 21:04:38 via Seesmic for AndroidMarty Smith
MartySmithESPN

24 HEURES DU MANS 2011

24 HEURES DU MANS 2011, a photo by geoffroy.barre on Flickr.

Wow! An amazing photo from the 24 Hours of Le Mans. They were very lucky that no one was seriously hurt in the car or in the photographers' area.

Trucks -- Black Flag Gives Hornaday a Texas Win

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Ron Hornaday won the WinStar World Casino 400k at Texas Motor Speedway Friday night when Johnny Sauter was black-flagged for changing lanes on the final restart.

Sauter took the lead from Hornaday on Lap 130 (of a scheduled 167), but was penalized for moving down in front of Hornaday on a green-white-checkered restart before crossing the start/finish line.  Both Sauter and Hornaday spun their tires on the restart.  Sauter finished ahead of the field, but was shown the black flag at the stripe; he was scored with a 22nd-place finish, the last car on the lead lap.  Sauter later contended that he left Hornaday a lane to race in, but doesn't have much of a case.

It was Hornaday's 48th career Camping World Truck Series win, the first of the season, and his third at the track.  The race went one lap beyond the scheduled distance.

Since this week's Cup race is 1500 miles away in Pocono, this was a exclusively a Truck Series regular affair.  Rookie Parker Klingerman, making just his tenth career series start, finished second.  David Mayhew was third for a new career-best finish.  Brian Ickler recovered from a spin of Lap 50 that put him a lap down to finish fourth in his first start of the season.  Rookie Joey Coulter was fifth, matching his career-best finish set last week at Kansas.  (Race results)

Sauter still managed to increase his lead in the series points standings by eight points.  He now leads Cole Whitt, who finished 28th, by 20 points.  Hornaday (-33) jumped three spots into third, followed by Austin Dillon (-35) and Matt Crafton (-41).

The Fight or Altercation or Whatever It Was

If you're a NASCAR fan, you're probably aware that there was an altercation between Richard Childress and Kyle Busch after Saturday's Truck race. I was trying to wait to say anything about it until I knew more about what happened. Finally, it looks like some facts are coming out.

Busch, who owns his own Truck team, was racing hard for fifth position with Joey Coulter, who was driving a Childress-owned truck. Coulter won the position, finishing ahead of Busch. On the cooldown lap, Busch pulled alongside Coulter and their trucks bumped.

It may or may not have been a congratulatory tap; Busch claims it was, several stories on the incident have said that Busch was showing his displeasure but I've haven't heard anything to see how they draw that conclusion. In any case, that kind of bumping is quite common on cooldown laps.

But Childress didn't like it.  He and Busch have had several disagreements over Busch damaging RCR equipment.  There has been some history between Busch and RCR drivers, most recently at Darlington with the pit road/unattended car incident.  After Saturday's Truck race, the 65-year-old Childress put the 26-year-old Busch in a headlock and punched him three times.

NASCAR president Mike Helton gave a statement Sunday morning in which he cleared Busch of any wrongdoing:  "We've concluded that the driver of the No. 18 truck, Kyle Busch, did nothing to provoke or to cause the reactions that, in our opinion, would have violated probation.  He did nothing that would have warranted the actions of Richard Childress."

Childress was not ejected from the track, but his movements were restricted during Sunday's STP 400.  He was not allowed on pit road.  It looks like more penalties might be forthcoming.  NASCAR met with Busch, Childress, and Joe Gibbs, the owner of Busch's Cup car, then issued a harsher statement than the earlier Helton statement, including...

"Richard Childress' actions were not appropriate and fell far short of the standard we expect of owners in this sport. We have met with Childress this morning and made our position very clear to him. Further, we expect he will make it clear to all in his organization to ensure this situation does not escalate any further. We will announce our actions [in] regard [to] this incident Monday.

"Kyle Busch remains on probation with NASCAR, and we continue to watch his actions carefully. However, we have determined that Kyle's involvement in this incident does not violate his probation, and no further action is required."

Busch and RCR driver Kevin Harvick are on probation until June 15 for the incident at Darlington.

From the Twitter Thingy

Jimmie Johnson, a few hours after the race...

Man... came home to a house with no power. Tonight should be fun.Mon Jun 06 00:21:46 via Twitter for AndroidJimmie Johnson
JimmieJohnson

A little later, there was this...

Yes the power bill has been paid (Haha) and I have my gen up and running now. We have a few things working... my beer is cold so I'm happy.Mon Jun 06 00:57:55 via Twitter for AndroidJimmie Johnson
JimmieJohnson

Cup -- Keselowski's Fuel Strategy Pays Off at Kansas

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Brad Keselowski's fuel strategy paid off with a win in Sunday's STP 400 at Kansas Speedway.  Keselowski got 57 laps out of his final tank of gas and finished 2.813 seconds ahead of Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Just like last week's Sprint Cup race at Charlotte, a long green flag run at the end made it a fuel mileage race.  And also like last week, Earnhardt came up on the wrong end of the fuel strategy game.  Junior ran out of gas on the way to the win at Charlotte and coasted home with in seventh place.  This week, he finished second waiting for Keselowski to run out.

It was Keselowski's second Cup win; he got his first win at Talladega in April 2009, sixty races ago.  His previous best finish at Kansas Speedway was 13th in 2009.

Earnhardt should have had enough gas to move up and put some pressure on Keselowski.  Earnhardt made his last stop on Lap 215, five laps later than Keselowski.  But he was in fuel conservation mode at the end and didn't try to force the issue.  The same was true of  Denny Hamlin, who, like Earnhardt, also ran out of gas at Charlotte.  Hamlin also had to conserve at the end and finished third.

Jeff Gordon finished fourth.  Carl Edwards was fifth.  They were the top finishers among those that had to top off with gas in the closing laps.  (Race results) 

Tony Stewart appeared to have the winning strategy.  He pitted on the same lap as Keselowski and had a big lead, but his crew finally decided they didn't get enough gas in the car.  He pitted for a splash in the closing laps and finished eighth.

Polesitter Kurt Busch dominated, leading 152 of the 267 laps, including most of the latter stage of the race.  He didn't get the caution he was looking for, and his final splash of gas gave him a ninth-place finish.

Edwards's lead in the series points standings got four points larger.  He now leads Jimmie Johnson by 40 points.  Earnhardt moved into third place, just one point behind Johnson.  After an eleventh-place finish, Kevin Harvick dropped two spots to fourth, 43 points behind Edwards.  Kyle Busch is fifth, 60 points back.

Kurt Busch, Matt Kenseth, Tony Stewart, Clint Bowyer and Ryan Newman round out the Top Ten.  Hamlin is eleventh, just one point behind Newman, and Greg Biffle is just five points out.  Jeff Gordon could claim one wildcard spot in the Chase.  Keselowski is now seven points behind Paul Menard to crack the Top Twenty; if so, Sunday's win would make him eligible for the other wildcard spot.

Nationwide -- Allgaier Coasts to Victory at Chicagoland

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

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).

Trucks -- Bowyer Dominates at Kansas

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Kansas native Clint Bowyer dominated Saturday's O'Reilly Auto Parts 250 at Kansas Speedway.  Bowyer led 124 (of 167) laps and cruised to a 1.695-second victory over Johnny Sauter.

Bowyer picked up his third career victory in just his eleventh start in the Camping World Truck Series.  It was his first start at Kansas Speedway.  It was his first victory in front of his hometown crowd in any NASCAR national series.  He has two second place finishes at the track -- one in the 2007 Cup race and one in the 2008 Nationwide race.

Bowyer's only real snag occurred on a restart on Lap 112.  Bowyer pitted and took four tires and enough fuel to finish the race.  With the cars that stayed out and those that took just two tires, Bowyer was mired back in 11th position on the restart, but he moved quickly through the traffic and regained the lead on Lap 122.

Bowyer led the final 46 laps.  He briefly battled for the lead with Sauter on the final restart on Lap 138 before pulling away to the easy victory.

Todd Bodine finished third, followed by James Buescher and Joey Coulter.  (Race results)

Sauter takes over the lead in the series points standings after Cole Whitt's 15th-place finish.  Sauter leads Whitt by 12 points.  Austin Dillon (-30), who finished 12th, moved ahead of Matt Crafton (-32) to take over the third spot.  Timothy Peters (-47) rounds out the Top Five.

A Qualifying Tweek

NASCAR is still fine-tuning the new rules on qualifying order.  On Tuesday they announced a change for the Nationwide and Truck Series effective this weekend.

The order teams qualified used to be set by a random draw.  At the start of the season, NASCAR changed the rules, setting the qualifying order by practice speeds with the slowest cars going out first.  The cars were split into two groups -- the cars that were locked into the race qualified before the go-or-go-homers.  Now, in the Nationwide and Truck Series, starting this weekend at Chicagoland and Kansas respectively, the entire field will be sorted for qualifying based on practice speeds.

Update:  NASCAR later announced that the Sprint Cup Series will also make the change, but it won't happen until next weekend at Pocono.

Tweet of the Week

I hope we can keep it a while! RT @JimmieJohnson: Hey @KevinHarvick, can I have my horseshoe back? Please?Tue May 31 00:11:51 via Seesmic for AndroidKevin Harvick
KevinHarvick

Hope you can follow Twitterese.

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)