Next is Sunday’s New Hampshire 301, a race that is important not so much in itself but in its implications for the track’s September 25 race – the second event in the Chase for the Sprint Cup. Busch won last year’s New Hampshire 301, but Matt Kenseth was the most recent Sprint Cup victor at NHMS, winning the Chase for the Sprint Cup race hosted by the track last fall.
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Behind the Joe Gibbs Racing-affiliated quintet, Alex Bowman very almost found himself scoring his first-ever NASCAR top ten in his 72nd start. Though the accident knocked the speed out of the vehicle, Bowman was able to stay on the lead lap.
After a fiery start to the season that saw Gibbs drivers win seven of the first 12 events of the year, the group had seemingly gone into chill mode in June and July. Meanwhile, Logano and Tony Stewart, way back outside of the top 15 earlier, saw themselves with the dust settled dueling for second down the stretch. “It definitely meant so much more going through the things that I did previous year”. We get the win. “I slid a little deep in the stall, I knew Clint (Bowyer) was coming in there late”. “We started driving through the field together”.
Lap Leaders: J. Johnson 1; Kyle Busch 2-36; M. Truex Jr 37; Kyle Busch 38-88; M. Truex Jr 89-171; Kyle Busch 172-182; M. Truex Jr 183; B. Keselowski 184; Kyle Busch 185-220; M. Truex Jr 221-257; M. Kenseth 258-264; M. Truex Jr 265; D. Hamlin 266-270; M. Kenseth 271-301.
“From inside the vehicle, I feel like I can get closer to cars around me and not have my auto kind of bug-out in traffic”, Johnson said before the mid-March race at Phoenix. “Other than that, just tried to take what it would give us and go from there”. That means that generally what works here in the first race carries over to the second race because the vehicle specs and development cycle is relatively close.
“Jason (crew chief Ratcliff) made great adjustments today”. It’s flat configuration I think it plans to. “I had a lot of fun passing really good cars”.
Can anyone cool off Rochester Hills’ red-hot Brad Keselowski? Of the first 150 laps, Busch led 86 and Truex 63.
“And then, after a couple laps, we were able to roll the middle and get away”.
“We certainly look to come out here this weekend and have a good strong run and get ourselves to victory lane”, said Busch. Busch finished 22nd – and maintained his streak as the only Cup driver to finish in the lead lap in all 19 races.
The young driver was turning in an impressive effort as Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s replacement until he, too, suffered a tire issue.
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The final yellow came with 16 laps to go as Kyle Larson spun on the back straight in his Chip Ganassi Racing Chevrolet, which tangled up a few other drivers including Kasey Kahne, Ryan Blaney and Carl Edwards. These guys, they’ve been working a long time to get to this point, and I’m the lucky recipient of that hard work.
