A Toyota team win in the shadow of Detroit was a triumph for the manufacturer – it ended a seven-race winning streak for Ford and Chevrolet teams – and a way for Joe Gibbs Racing to thank the automaker for its commitment to the organization. “We feel comfortable with the package we have set up … but we certainly learned some things at Indy”. In fact, a lot of drivers achieved small victories on Sunday that will give them momentum for the weeks to come. Austin Dillon and Denny Hamlin followed Kenseth in the top five Sunday. “What we’re trying to do right now is not get full of ourselves”. “It seemed like we kept getting in the wrong lanes on restarts”, Truex said. Kenseth pulled away from the race field when the race returned to green, though, just as he did on several restarts throughout the race. “I didn’t have anything for the 20 (Kenseth’s car)”. Hamlin finished fifth and Edwards was sixth.
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As Kenseth cleared the #4 of Harvick coming out of Turn 1, the race was Kenseth to lose.
While Kenseth’s 146 laps led was dominant, Rusty Wallace’s 1989 race at MIS in which he led 162 laps stands as the track-record. The fourth-place finish is the 22-year-old’s best on the Sprint Cup circuit and came after Dillon was sent to the back of the pack to start the Pure Michigan 400 due to an engine change. “I was glad I didn’t mess that up”. Real proud of all my guys and can’t thank them enough for all the long hours they put in last night and this morning to get me prepared and ready with a good piece to go out there and do our best. Slugger (Labbe, crew chief) made a good call at the beginning. “We really worked hard for it today”.
I think we were probably the second-strongest auto, Dillon said. “We were up front the whole time”.
Kenseth continued to wheel through a race that was at times uninspired, and for some drivers was calamitous.
Those were the drivers racing in the top five at the time.
BOWYER BOUNCES: Clint Bowyer, running on the edge of Chase eligibility, had a tough day.
Busch pitted for adjustments nine laps later when NASCAR threw a caution flag for debris on the track. Dillon led 19 laps, more than he had all season. “The first half of the race or so, really struggled with the handling of the vehicle”. Kenseth and JGR teammate Kyle Busch, who finished 11th Sunday, have won six of the past eight races after Busch returned from severe injuries suffered in a crash at Daytona (Fla.) global Speedway in February.
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Mercifully, perhaps, NASCAR announced two days before the race that its summertime experiment with low and high downforce packages will end at the Darlington Raceway in September – two races before the Chase for the Sprint Cup begins. As was said after the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis, NASCAR may need to go back to the drawing board on this one (or perhaps stick with the aero package implemented at Kentucky that was wildly popular with fans and drivers alike). NASCAR already has told the teams that with the exception of possible changes to the restrictor-plate race at Talladega, there will be no additional experiments.
