Kyle Larson claimed his first career NASCAR Sprint Cup Series win in the Pure Michigan 400 at Michigan International Speedway on Sunday, clinching a berth in the Chase for the Sprint Cup. Team owner Chip Ganassi breathed a sigh of relief. The team rallied around him.
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I could afford a more expensive option, but I like Stenhouse’s upside through place differential after he qualified 29th.
The win was the first for a Chip Ganassi Racing vehicle since 2007 when Juan Pablo Montoya did it, and it put Larson and his team into the Chase for the Sprint Cup Championship playoffs.
“Man, I was tearing up those last few laps”, Larson told NBCSN. “It was finally going to be it”.
“Bryan didn’t like people who do burnouts”, Larson said after dedicating the victory to Clauson and his family. We’ve been working really hard. “I think it’s a lot harder to have the fortitude as a team to say, ‘Hey, we have all the pieces, we have all the stuff, we’re going to hang in there and keep massaging what we have and work with that'”. We parked it for him, so that’s really cool. Larson was in solid position before losing 59 points the previous two races, finishing 29th on the road course at Watkins Glen and 24th at Bristol.
With a push from Brad Keselowski on the subsequent restart on Lap 192, Larson shot out in front of Elliott for the lead for the nine-lap shoot out. He could have pulled underneath and got by, but he stayed with me and got me the lead. Him and (Managing Director) Mike (Hull) noticed me, got me signed up later that year. So thanks to him.
Elliott led by 2.86 seconds with 28 laps to go Sunday, and it looked as if Larson’s chance to catch him had been derailed when he lost ground passing a lapped vehicle. Elliott returned to the lead, again, after another cycle of green-flag stops completed on lap 170.
As the laps wore down, the # 42 Chevy of Kyle Larson held the lead.
“Just made another mistake, ” Elliott said afterward.
Elliott’s lead, though, was erased by the fourth and final caution of the race inside 15 laps to go.
The 24-year old held off Chase Elliott to win by 1.48 seconds. Soon after, Elliott was able to get back by Keselowski to retake second. “It is about getting a good launch and push”.
“We had a lot of work to do for that first third of the race, and got it done”. Obviously I didn’t do a very good job of that here both trips. Harvick was the first driver to get by Logano on the race track, taking the lead on lap 26. Larson stands 11th in the Chase standings between Martin Truex, Jr. and Tony Stewart.
Bakersfield’s Casey Mears finished 22nd.
The changing face of NASCAR was all over Michigan International Speedway – on the track, where Larson became the first driver to record his inaugural Sprint Cup Series victory since Dale Jarrett on August 18, 1991, and in the design of each vehicle, where NASCAR’s low downforce package continued to strive to find a way to make the racing more competitive and more exciting. That’s a couple of races in a row in a few short months at this place where I had a really good auto and had an opportunity.
The number 88 vehicle suffered from an ignition problem and had to go to garage and reboot the system before heading back to the track four laps down.
“I know it isn’t fun opening a hood of a race vehicle 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. So it comes as no surprise, given what Larson represents to his organization, and racing’s efforts to court a younger, more diverse fan-base, that all involved hope that Sunday is a launchpad to even bigger and better things.
LOW-LOW DOWNFORCE: The race was the third and final tryout for NASCAR’s potential 2017 aerodynamic rules package and also the third straight race officials have used MI for a trial run. There have been 24 races run this season and a Gibbs vehicle has won 11 of them.
Track: Michigan International Speedway (2-mile oval) Race distance: 200 laps, 400 miles. However, he brought the celebration back when he won his first Nationwide Series race (now called the Xfinity Series) in 2014.
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“It’s easy to change, Let’s get somebody new and we’ll change”.
