But amid all the differences of Bristol past, Harvick’s message was a familiar one: He took advantage of having the best auto late in the race and the opportunity for the win.
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“I wanted him (Stewart) to go on a Victory Lap with me and say goodbye to his fans one last time, but that was pretty cool doing burnouts with him”, Harvick said of the double burnout with Stewart. “[My crew chief] doesn’t really like to do it that way, but I think it’s fun to pass cars”. “And to have Busch Beer on the vehicle – we’ve had crummy luck with these guys on the auto, and so I’m just really happy for Busch and Jimmy John’s and really proud of these guys on the No. 4 team”. Another cell caused a almost seven-minute red flag with 66 laps remaining. Coupled with some trouble for Ryan Newman, he advanced to 13th in the standings, which gives him a one-spot cushion over the Chase bubble with three races remaining.
“It’s been one of those deals where things have just not gone exactly right”, the Stewart-Haas Racing driver said. Fighting with scattered rain showers, NASCAR was forced to dry the half-mile Bristol Motor Speedway three times before the start of the event, including once for a shower that popped up during driver introductions. Harvick took the checked flag almost 24 hours after the scheduled green flag thanks to two days of rain delays. Denny Hamlin, Austin Dillon and rookie Chris Buescher rounded out the top five.
And after Busch went around, he got tagged hard by Justin Allgaier, all of which left Busch understandably unhappy â not only with Allgaier for failing to slow down before hitting him, but also with his JGR group because of the parts failure. “I don’t know if a late caution would’ve meant we win the race, but we would’ve given it all we had”, Stenhouse Jr. said. Keselowski said Busch got loose, and “by the time I saw it, I was already making contact with him”. Busch threw his helmet and called both Allgaier and his spotter the “biggest moron (s) out there”. “That is the worst possibly scenario when the leader spins out and you hit them”, Allgaier said. Stewart said that he would miss Bristol the most when he retires.
This was supposed to be Bristol Motor Speedway’s annual night race.
Sunday’s rain-delayed Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race is underway after morning showers caused a delay of nearly four hours. “We had a lot of short run speed and we were hoping the race would play out that way at the end and we would have had a shot at it, if that was the case, but instead we’re here in the garage”. It was his first victory since he won at Phoenix in Week 4. I got really loose and I was just trying to catch it. Busch will look to hit the reset button this week at MI and get back inside the Top-10 finishing positions. “I’m still on the pole”.
Busch restarted with the lead when the race resumed Sunday evening and led a total of 256 laps before he spun trying to get onto pit road just past lap 360.
When action got back under way Sunday night, the field lined up in the order it had been running Saturday night when the rains came. When the race finally got under way just after 9 p.m., drivers completed only 31 laps before the rain returned.
Aleshin turned a fast two-lap average of 220.454 miles per hour on Saturday in his No. 7 Schmidt Peterson Motorsports Honda to edge Josef Newgarden for the pole.
Top qualifier Antron Brown smoked his tires at Brainerd International Raceway in Minnesota, opening the door for Brittany Force to collect her third win of the season.
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Takuma Sato will start third, followed by Helio Castroneves, Carlos Munoz, Aleshin’s teammate James Hinchcliffe, Alexander Rossi, Will Power, Tony Kanaan and Ed Carpenter.
