Following Sunday’s Bank of America 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, a number of drivers were quite vocal about oil on the track late in the going.
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Although he and his Team Penske group aren’t likely to coast in upcoming second-round races at Kansas Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway, Logano can afford to relax a bit. Only a victory guarantees a driver will advance to the next round. He finished second, but he failed to lead a lap, leaving Logano to enjoy top-dog posture.
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Kyle Busch had a similar run-in with the wall mid-race, which he also blamed on oil. With cars impounded by NASCAR overnight, teams had to scramble to adapt their chassis to warmer, sunny weather during the afternoon event.
Kasey Kahne hit the wall on lap 58 and went behind the wall. His crew chief will take the auto he won with and not run it again the rest of this year.
Earnhardt was running in the top 10 when Carl Edwards tapped his rear bumper, forcing him into the wall. Kyle Busch Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Despite a miraculous save, a cut tire eventually put him two laps down.
“With Ryan [Newman], I honestly don’t know”, he added.
Hendrick Motorsports’ struggles this season carried over to Charlotte Motor Speedway on the Sunday in a key race in the Chase for the Sprint Cup. “This helps us recharge our batteries and get ready for the next round”. “He did an wonderful job saving it and I have a ton of respect for him so it stinks that it ruined his day”.
NASCAR officials applied oil dry during the caution after the Allgaier issue, but Earnhardt said it was not as thorough as it should have been. He could breathe easy the next two races, knowing that his performance the next week at Charlotte didn’t really matter and a wreck at Talladega wouldn’t ruin his championship hopes.
“We don’t have to go to Talladega and be nervous like those guys that are going to have to play it safe”, he said. We hit fluid, flew in the wall freaking hard, that’s not Speedy Dry. “We’ll continue down the path that we’ve got because we know we’re building better race cars every day”. “It’s tough and we’re going to have to battle through with what we’ve got right now”. It’s a bummer – we had a fast race vehicle. The other Busch brother wasn’t as lucky, getting caught up in a weird collision with Kyle Larson after changing his mind about entering pit road under caution. At the last second, Chris Heroy told Larson to pit even through the driver was almost past the commitment cone. “They don’t deserve to be put in these situations year in, year out, but we are for a few reason”, Busch said. “I don’t know if they want to argue about it, and I’m not saying they want to, but they shouldn’t want to argue that because all them cars hit the wall down there”. I’m real happy with eighth.
For his part, Newman finished 15th.
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“That definitely hurt our Caterpillar Chevrolet”, Newman said of the contact with Kenseth. Having advanced on points previous year to runner-up in the championship, on this day Newman lost points primarily because his Richard Childress Racing Chevy just wasn’t quick enough on restarts.
