You know people who who got me into the cup series.
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The Pure Michigan 400 was full of high speeds and a handful of cautions, but that didn’t stop the race from seeing several different leaders and a new driver emerge with his first win of the Sprint Cup Series. There is no better track on the schedule to look back at the history of the sport than at Darlington as the odd egg-shaped oval began hosting races in 1950.
Larson, 24, did just that Sunday at Michigan International Speedway, earning his first career Sprint Cup victory. Four laps later, Michael Annett blew a right front tire, and NASCAR called the fourth and final caution.
The victory came in Larson’s 99th career start and was the first win for Chip Ganassi Racing in 99 races.
Larson secured a spot in the Chase for the Sprint Cup with two races left in the regular season. “As some of them retire, and we are working with our team owners to bring guys in like Chase Elliott and Kyle Larson, it really bodes well for the future”.
Knoxville native Trevor Bayne sat at 24 to start the day and finished in the same spot. “We were building. We’ve been building over the years”.
Elliott finished second at MI in June as well, losing to Joey Logano.
It came down to a couple of good drivers unfamiliar with victory lane. They did exactly what I asked them to do. “Obviously I didn’t do a very good job of that here”.
Elliott, a rookie, was going to be the next first-time victor and Larson was going to be forced to discuss another race that got away. Runs smoothly or maybe the best vehicle but from us today we’re third place auto we kind of finish her reserve and and at the end there I gave how really get pushed my case quite exhausted a little bit and next thing you know we’re off to races I got the second I just wasn’t as fast is it case is in the binding house in the driveway.
“I couldn’t quite catch my breath there after I got out of the auto because I spent two minutes screaming because I was so pumped up”.
“I was pretty calm for a couple laps”, said Larson, holding his young son Owen on his lap after the race.
The 23-year-old Bowman was filling in for Dale Earnhardt Jr., who hasn’t raced since July with concussion-like symptoms.
Buescher’s situation is still uncertain, so there could end up being as many as four drivers making it in on points. Larson has been cool under pressure in races he hasn’t won, even saying he wouldn’t wreck a driver in order to accomplish that (as he did when he didn’t move victor Matt Kenseth out of the way at Dover earlier this season). He was running second on Lap 45 and then took the lead on Lap 58 by passing Kevin Harvick. It was the fifth top-10 finish for him in the past seven races. Kyle Busch is second at 51. Buescher must remain in the top 30 after the next two races to parlay his Pocono victory into a Chase berth. We could have a good run there or bad run, whatever.
“Man, I was tearing up that whole last few laps because I could just feel it, it was finally going to be it”, Larson said. We love doing it.
INSPECTION: Keselowski’s No. 2 Ford failed post-race laser inspection. Six-time Sprint Cup champion Jimmie Johnson was impressive as well. His lead is at 35 points over Bayne, while Larson is tied with Kasey Kahne, 39 off the pace.
This is Hendrick’s longest losing streak since a 22-race dry spell from 1993 into 1994.
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Edwards finished seventh, Hamlin ninth, Kenseth 13th and Busch was 19th after spinning early in the race.
