The 16 drivers who qualified for the 10-race playoff will all start at the front of the field.
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Kyle Larson posted the top speed of 183.299 miles per hour in the final practice session Saturday for the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup opener at Chicagoland Speedway. He has won five races in 2016 while placing in the top 5 in three others.
After Stewart drove Newman down the backstretch and the two ended up with mangled race cars, Newman said he guessed Stewart “thought he was in a sprint auto, he couldn’t control his anger”, in a reference to the 2014 incident where Stewart struck and killed Kevin Ward in a dirt track race. Jimmie Johnson, a six-time series champion, has yet to be in contention going into the final race.
Busch has picked up right where he left off last season. Here are some drivers we like to contend for the win.
NASCAR didn’t announce any punishment for either Newman or Stewart in its Wednesday penalty report.
Busch will begin his title defense in Sunday’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 400 at Chicagoland Speedway. The reasons for not fining Newman for his comments are obvious; the fine would take away a lot of attention from Sunday’s start of the Chase and his comments weren’t disparaging NASCAR directly.
He put himself in position Saturday to also capture the NASCAR Xfinity Series championship and solidify his status as a rising star.
Busch is seeking his second straight Sprint Cup title. If the season ended today, his 15.3 average finish would tie for the lowest of his career (2014).
Johnson has never won at Chicagoland and hasn’t made it out of the second round in the two years of the elimination format. “We just need to deliver consistently and execute at the track”. “We thought if we could figure out a way to get ourselves in we could make a serious run at the championship”.
Don’t count out Kevin Harvick in this year’s Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.
Kyle Larson, Ryan Blaney and Kyle Busch completed the top 10. Though he has never won this race before, he is still a consistent victor when he competes. Seasoned vet Joey Logano (26) is entering his fourth Chase.
Team Penske is on the verge of closing out a dominating romp through the IndyCar season with a new champion in Simon Pagenaud and a stranglehold on the top of the series standings.
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In addition, Larson is the first NASCAR Drive for Diversity graduate to make the Chase, and he and Elliott are the first grads of the NASCAR Next program to make the playoffs. He’ll need to get past two elimination rounds to get into the group of four drivers eligible going into the last race November 20 at Homestead. Drivers get three bonus points for each win, giving Larson and Buescher three bonus points for the Round of 16 since they both visited Victory Lane once. The BKR driver didn’t win any races to this point in the season, but he’ll have the overall seventh seed in the truck series Chase for the Cup based on his points. “Even previous year there were a couple where we did well at”.
