Point is, the sport is in good hands with such talented racers waiting to replace today’s legends.
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Knox became the first player to win a World Golf Championship in his debut when the 30-year-old Scot was flawless on the back nine of Sheshan global and closed with a 4-under 68 for a two-shot victory over Kevin Kisner. He wrecked because of a flat tire in the opener at Chicagoland and lost a gamble on fuel at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. There were seven cautions within the first 167 laps that took up a total of 32 laps.
In many ways, it’s not different than the years after Richard Petty, David Pearson, Bobby Allison and Cale Yarborough retired from driving or the years that followed the loss of Dale Earnhardt, Darrell Waltrip, Rusty Wallace and Bill Elliott. A wet track cancelled both practice sessions scheduled for Saturday, limiting the time teams could experiment with air pressure. As a result, drivers pit much earlier than their anticipated fuel window.
In further trouble for Gibbs, the front splitters were confiscated from the cars of Edwards, Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch before the race.
With 45 cars entered, the two drivers failing to make it onto the 43-car grid for Sunday’s 334-lap, 501-mile race were Joey Gase (Go FAS Racing) and Reed Sorenson (RAB Racing). After sweeping all three races in the second round, Logano appeared to be on the way to another victory last week at Martinsville. The top-ranked Serb made light work of Murray in the Paris Masters final, beating the second-seeded Briton 6-2, 6-4 for his 10th title of an outstanding year that now includes a record six Masters titles to add to his three Grand Slam wins. That’s how this goes with the changing conditions and the competition the way it is, you have to get every last little thing. The two bumped doors, slowing Truex but allowing Johnson to mount a rare challenge for the lead. Jimmie Johnson and Ryan Newman have each started 502 consecutive races since the 2002 Daytona 500.
When the green flag dropped, Jimmie Johnson kept pace with Keselowski and what ensued was a terrific fight for the lead.
Johnson continued to pull away from Keslowski to seal his first win since Dover in May.
Gracious in defeat, Keselowski credited Johnson for executing and took responsibility for not closing the presumed win out.
The victory was the fifth of the season for Johnson but first since the 13th race of 2015.
Also gone was Keselowski’s place as one of four drivers eligible for the championship in two weeks at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Jeff Gordon is the only driver who has already clinched a spot in the Championship 4, and is not dependent on how other drivers do this weekend in Arizona. Certain drivers like Kurt Busch and Carl Edwards have been in the top-10 in most 1.5-mile races during the Chase, which is the reason why they still find themselves fighting for a spot at Homestead.
“Jimmie’s got a win at Texas for all but one day of the week”, Gossage said. Bryant finished with 18 points.
Johnson failed to survive the opening Challenger Round as he was not one of the twelve Chase drivers to advance to the Contender Round. Joey Logano, who had been dominating, suffered another week of woes. Conversely, Keselowski’s post-race comments suggested the adjustments made by his team during that round of pit stops might’ve hurt the car’s performance.
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“We don’t need to win, but we would love to win”.
