It also broke a 99-race drought for Chip Ganassi Racing, dating to Jamie McMurray’s victory at Talladega in October 2013.
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He still has a lot of work to do even though he is now in the Chase, but after winning his first race of the season Kyle Larson can start focusing on the bigger picture; the Sprint Cup Series Championship.
The weekend was successful in the top three series of NASCAR where each found a first-time victor at each track.
Larson, a former sprint-car star who had everyone waiting on whether he’d ever fulfill his promise, posted his first Sprint Cup victory.
The emotions of the moment, however, were magnified by the recent death at age 27 of Bryan Clauson, who was fatally injured in a midget auto accident on August 6 in Belleville, Kan.
Larson and Clauson were both avid dirt racers. It was the 99th attempt for the California-born driver of the No. 42 Target Chevrolet.
After speeding beneath the checkered flag for the first time, Larson unleashed a madcap celebration that included a thick smoke-inducing burnout on the front stretch punctuated by him removing his steering wheel and hanging it outside the window before his No. 42 auto came to a complete stop. He led 24 of the last 25 laps and brought home the No. 2 Chevy to victory lane. “This one was for Bryan Clauson”.
“We really struggled badly most of the day”, Edwards said. Hopefully we can go back and have another good run. “We parked it for him, so that’s really cool”. Michael McDowell claimed his first Xfinity Series win at Road America on Saturday and Brett Moffitt drove to victory lane at MI after the Camping World Truck Series race, also on Saturday. Thanks to everyone on this team. The state connection goes further, as the crew chief for the No. 88, Greg Ives, is from the Upper Peninsula. We got Jamie in there past year and now we got Kyle in there. Elliott began to pull away after the two encountered traffic while navigating around the 2.5 mile tri-oval. “Obviously I didn’t do a very good job of that here”.
With a hard push from third-place finisher Brad Keselowski, Larson took the lead on the final restart on Lap 192, as Elliott spun his tires and lost momentum in the outside lane.
Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo finished second. It was a similar situation to the one Elliott was in at MI back in June with the same result.
“Bummer again here”, said Elliott, making no attempt to hide his disappointment.
“I think it’s important to understand that these guys are not robots”. For the second time, this has happened.
“I know it isn’t fun opening a hood of a race auto that is as hot as it is and trying to work on it”, said Buescher, a development driver for Roush/Fenway Racing who competes in the No. 34 Dockside Logistics Ford for Front Row Motorsports. “Unfortunately, I didn’t do my part again”.
“I knew everyone was impressed with the runs we were having and really happy, but for my sake, I needed to go out there and win”. I was able to give him a push, a really hard push and got sideways, there, and was able to get the lead. Need to do my restarts a little better. Tony Kanaan and points leader Simon Pagenaud finished close behind and at one point, four laps from the finish, all four cars were running side by side.
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The rest of the 16-car field will be made up by points and Elliott is still in search for that elusive win, sitting 14th place with a 27-point lead over Ryan Newman who is now on the outside in 17th place. And, yeah, he had fallen into a slump over the last eight races with a highest finish of 13th at Watkins Glen. Buescher is seven points ahead of David Ragan for 30th place on the season. Buescher must remain in the top 30 after the next two races to parlay his Pocono victory into a Chase berth. We could have raced.
