“Winning races is great, but when you do it with your friends, it’s even better”.
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Sunday’s race was one of three elimination races in NASCAR’s new playoff system, in which the four lowest drivers in the standings would get the boot. All three entered the Chase without wins in 2015, and spent the majority of the Challenger Round beyond the cut-line. Failing to advance along with Johnson are McMurray, Paul Menard and Clint Bowyer.
That’s what (team co-owner) Tony Stewart said when we went to Homestead past year.
Kevin Harvick, Matt Kenseth and Denny Hamlin earned their way forward with race wins, but the points battle for the remaining nine positions was intense. On that restart, Dale Earnhardt Jr. was able to pass Jamie McMurray to put himself into the next round of the Chase, bumping McMurray out of the next round. 12th.Johnson won at May in Dover for the latest of his 10 career wins on the mile concrete track.
Harvick is 0-for-29 at Dover. An easy title favorite, he finished 42nd in the Chase opener at Chicagoland and 21st at New Hampshire. He was runner-up to Johnson in May in the first Dover race.
And as the checkered flag flew over the field on Sunday afternoon, it was Harvick who crossed under it first. “We still change stuff on it. It seems like every week we’re looking at those things trying to figure out how to make them better”.
The only excitement Friday was found inside Dover’s media center. Gordon, a five-time Dover victor, was feted by the track as he winds down his 23-year career. Gordon received proclamations from the city of Dover and Delawares House of Representatives and Senate. “I think for us, we all knew what we had to do, and it was really no different preparation than what we would do on a weekly basis”. When you look at the sport’s biggest hero gone, you look at millions of race fans that are depending upon somebody to drive that auto and you have 350 people that have jobs and families and you’re their guy, never done it before, but good luck. Scott Brzozowski will move from the No. 24 team to Earnhardts No. 88 team as its starting front-tire changer.
Brown raced to his fifth victory of the season, 36th overall in Top Fuel, and took over the points lead in his bid for a second season championship. Your before just didn’t have any problems today so just really really proud of my group for forgiveness the last little bit out of everything.
“When I first started watching NASCAR I liked Richard Petty”, Crawford said, “but when Jeff Gordon came into the scene I liked him and I just stuck with him”. He now has the JGR team, whose drivers won the first two rounds of the Chase, on the defensive.
Harvick led the field back to green on Lap 46, while Brad Keselowski had a bad restart, dropping from eighth to 16th position within just three laps. He complained that NASCAR was entertainment and unfair after the penalty.
Kyle Busch, driver of the #18 Interstate Batteries Toyota, pits during the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series AAA 400 at Dover global Speedway on October 4, 2015 in Dover, Delaware. Trust me: The only thing that Phoenix and Dover have in common is they are one mile in length.
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Six-time champion Jimmie Johnson was not so fortunate. “I just simply needed a lane to get back on the racetrack”, Johnson said.
