“We are questioning whether this will be our last Pocono”. “We were going to have an unbelievable crowd here today”. “It was a lot of fun”.
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Those fans aside, there was a tremendous social media outcry against NASCAR during the red flag portion of the race.
When that didn’t happen, NASCAR red-flagged the race on lap 138 and parked the cars on pit road.
Daly led for 21 laps in search of his first victory after qualifying in the last spot, but he had to pit with six of the 90 laps left. First and foremost, safety matters. While they might not have had as good a auto as Chris Buescher, they definitely had the same strategy and it paid off huge for them.
“It’s been a odd weekend, really, weather-wise”, Smith said.
Buescher emerged from the fog to become a surprising victor in Monday’s shortened Sprint Cup race at Pocono Raceway. But in order to be chase eligible, a driver must have a win and be inside the top 30 in the standings. He is still six points behind David Ragan for 30th. Kevin Harvick was fourth followed by Tony Stewart. But that put him in prime position when the race was stopped, having just taken the lead as those ahead of him completed their next pit stops.
“I just told him, you know, if I couldn’t win, it was cool to see him win”, he said after finishing second. The approximate three-hour window needed for a full 400 miles was closing shut.
“I think we talked about it at the beginning of the season, and the plan was always to try and make the Chase, and that was the goal”, Buescher said. “As Brad alluded to, the cloud kind of came at the right time for us”.
Caution Flags: 7 for 31 laps.
Buescher, who drives for underfunded Front Row Motorsports, was the beneficiary on a rare Monday race postponed a day by rain.
Paul Menard, who qualified third, saw transmission woes early crush his hopes. Neither pitted on lap 16 after NASCAR had a competition caution period due to the huge amount of rain throughout the weekend.
On Lap 118, Dillon moved past Busch to take second place from there moved in on Larson and the two drivers who almost wrecked each other 60 laps earlier were running nose-to-tail. Larson finished sixth and Dillon 13th.
O’Donnell said if that severe storm warning hadn’t occurred, NASCAR would have waited longer to see if the fog would have rolled out.
A rain shower in the morning caused all the rubber from the previous two days of action, both from the ARCA race, Camping World Trucks, and all the practice sessions, to be washed off.
Byron survived a race that saw almost half of its 60 laps run under caution. Of course, the way Monday was going, his luck wasn’t going to last.
The pulse on pit road prior to the race Saturday was that it was Byron’s race to lose.
“Just blew a right front (tire)”, Truex said.
Despite the victory, Buescher is not in position to qualify for the Chase for the Sprint Cup over the season’s final 10 races.
Biffle led until he was passed by Team Penske’s Joey Logano on Lap 33.
By winning his fifth race of the season, Byron is now the sole owner of the rookie wins record previously held by Kurt Busch from the 2000 race season.
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A mix of fog and rain finally ended this race with 22 laps to go around 4 p.m. Later, he struggled when his seat belt came unfastened and had to be rehooked.
