The top-19 finishers led a total of 26 laps as the cars that dominated most of the race – namely Joey Logano and Kyle Busch – fell by the wayside when their gas tanks ran dry at the end.
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Instead of a trip to Victory Lane, the two drivers were left to lament what happened. Busch has now won at least one race in all three of NASCAR’s national series for the 10th time in his career.
Busch is 23 points away from cracking the top 30 in the standings. Busch must finish there in order to qualify for the Chase for the Sprint Cup over the season’s final 10 races.
Busch was credited with “running” at the finish of the race because he was still on the track at the finish, NASCAR said. “We keep getting so close to these wins”.
Logano started third and led four times for 73 laps in his No. 22 Ford. The green flag returned on Lap 70, but came back out nearly immediately, as Cole Whitt bumped Earnhardt Jr., sending him around and bringing out the caution.
As the remaining laps ticked down, Logano was told by crew chief Todd Gordon that he should have enough to gas to make it to the end with half-a-lap to spare.
“It’s fun to change the mindset a little bit”, he said. “We were playing cat-and-mouse out there”. He’s still on track to make the Chase by the time it begins at Richmond, but if he misses it, Sunday’s race will be seen as a big reason why.
But as the old saying goes, “To be The Man, you’ve got to beat The Man”. But when lapped cars started passing Busch in turn 1, it was clear he, too, had run out of fuel.
Soon-to-retire Jeff Gordon was asked Friday if he’d consider driving the occasional one-off Sprint Cup race beyond this season.
“Honestly, when (Logano) ran out, I was like, ‘Alright, cool, we’re gonna run third, ‘” Kenseth said. “Hopefully, it’s got 16 weeks left in it. It’s just fantastic what we’re on”. And everybody can never feel moderates on all over you know saving fuel we did talk Bob out. “We had a lot of wins in 2013 and we were pretty spoiled”. “It is really frustrating”.
Doctors encouraged him that the prognosis was better than that, particularly if Busch was persistent about his rehabilitation. Busch said he didn’t realize he was that close to running out, otherwise he would’ve saved more.
But Busch then ran out of gas on the frontstretch as he took the white flag. “He wants to be there so much that, I don’t know if it’s osmosis or his luck, but it’s just rubbing off on us”. “I don’t know how to explain it. We just had to put it in the right perspective for the three corners of this racetrack”. “Once we got to 3, I figured I was good”. Hornish continued but slammed into Kurt Busch, who had led 13 laps before contact with Paul Menard in Turn 1 on Lap 66. He received a push from another vehicle, which is illegal and earned him a penalty from NASCAR.
Former Daytona 500 champion Trevor Bayne wound up with someone else’s tailpipe somehow, some way, impaling his radiator on lap 67. He was fourth in the final practice at 174.771 miles per hour and has finished second in the last two races at Pocono. “It’s been unreal”, Busch said.
The fastest non-Toyota driver first thing was Kyle’s brother Kurt in the #41 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet, with Richard Childress Racing’s Ryan Newman also looking quickly up to speed in sixth place just a fraction over two tenths of a second slower than Edwards on the 2.5-mile tri-oval.
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Pit road proved a unsafe place even for the crew that call it home.
