Kyle Larson, Matt Kenseth, Jamie McMurray and Kurt Busch round out the top five.
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Kyle Larson will start on the outside of the front row, with Matt Kenseth and Jamie McMurray in the second row.
A race-record 16 cautions slowed the average speed to 85.778 miles per hour, the kind of pace I’m hoping to achieve for the drive back home to Indianapolis on Sunday.
The Lap 363 pileup that ended Newman’s Chase hopes-and ended with Dylan Lupton’s Toyota on the hood of Newman’s car-also locked Buescher into NASCAR’s playoff with the elimination of Ragan from the race.
In one fender bender, Tony Stewart and Ryan Newman tangled with each pointing fingers at the other.
For all the dramatic scenarios coming into the Richmond Chase-setter, only one time has a driver raced his way into the Chase with a victory: Jeremy Mayfield won the Richmond race in 2004 to earn a postseason bid.
“We were second and third so many times it was insane, ” Hamlin said about his consistently good qualifying but inability to win a pole.
“It’s awesome”, Hamlin said. Last race: Martin Truex Jr. cemented his status a legitimate Chase contender with a dominant win at Darlington. We were already on a roll, it seems, over the last two months and this just caps it off. “All I care about right now is getting ready for Chicago”.
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) It was yet another Denny Hamlin runaway for Joe Gibbs Racing on Saturday night in what turned out to be an anticlimactic end to NASCAR’s regular season.
“It was a insane race”, said Buescher, the first driver to represent Front Row Motorsports in the Chase.
Hamlin was one of the fastest cars in both practices before qualifying. “You don’t know what they have at the shop waiting to come racing”.
“Who knows what’s going to happen?” he said. “That could happen. But if the race plays out normal we’ve got a really good auto and can have a really good finish”. “But I like our chances at this point”. Truex’s 193 laps were the most led among the seven drivers who shared time in the lead.
Hamlin celebrates his first win in NASCAR’s Premier Series at Pocono Raceway in June of 2006.
“We were second best for sure”, Jones said.
“Certainly too late for us to do anything in terms of a reaction at-track after you hear the comments from both drivers, disappointing in terms of how that played out and what was said, I think, on the air”, O’Donnell said when asked what NASCAR was thinking after what officials saw and the comments made by both drivers.
“It’s a great team effort for us”.
“Jamie’s been doing this a long time and he’s not going to put himself in any insane situations that he wouldn’t normally get in”. I could pass a few cars every restart which really helped us. “We didn’t even give ourselves a shot at it, that is something I will have regret about”.
And as to Newman’s suggestion Stewart should be retired already?
They got together with 37 laps remaining, sweeping in six other cars and bringing out a 21-minute red flag. Dylan Lupton couldn’t avoid the accident and his vehicle ended up wedged between the wall and on top of Newman’s auto when the crashing finally ceased. “He should be retired the way he drives”. “I think things get a little bit tamer in the Chase because people are aware of the Chase cars”. “Google ‘Tony Stewart.’ You’ll see all kinds of things he’s done”. Look it up on YouTube.
“He’s right. That was the 3rd time he had driven into me during the night”.
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“Early in the race (Newman) ran into me and cut down across my nose”, Stewart said.
