Kyle Larson knew he wasn’t winning the fan vote to get into the Sprint All-Star race.
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“I don’t know how you can get much more compelling racing than what we saw today”, Keselowski continued.
It was the captivating finish the revamped format had hoped to create the organizers will be hoping to see come nightfall in the Sprint All-Star Race. Said Edwards: “When I first heard about these changes, I thought, ‘Oh man, it’s going to be tough”.
The impact paved the way for Logano to take the checkered flag ahead of teammate Brad Keselowski, the driver who helped inspire the format for the race. “What a insane battle for $1 million at the end”. “I didn’t know what was going on”.
“It’s the dumbest damn thing I’ve ever been a part of”, three-time Sprint Cup champion Tony Stewart said after getting caught up in an accident where he felt he should have been higher in the field if not for how NASCAR scored him.
Other drivers were a bit more blunt. “We had a real good run”, Elliott said.
But a loose-handling auto and a hard-charging Joey Logano proved to be his undoing Saturday night at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Dillon took the lead from Elliott on the restart to start the second segment and led only a handful of laps before Biffle took command.
“Brian Pattie (crew chief) is a very, very smart veteran crew chief in this sport, and it was his call”, Biffle said of the decision to pit during a caution late in the first session for two tires and then taking the other two during a mandatory pit stop between the first two segments.
Because he failed to stop, Kenseth was penalized one lap, which then created a scoring snafu with some drivers unexpectedly a lap down but still permitted to pit with those on the lead lap during the break between Segment 1 and 2.
Those who did not pit will be on older tires and at the front of the field. Allmendinger and Landon Cassill restarted second and third for the final segment.
Nonetheless, the duel between Logano and Larson ultimately culminating with Logano passing Larson for the lead with two laps remaining did produce the desired entertaining finish. Plenty of strategy to be had.
That’s where the race essentially derailed because Kenseth was waiting until the end to make his pit stop.
The second segment will also be 50 laps and also require a minimum two-tire pit stop under green before the 35th lap of the segment. Usually, the guy in front has simply held off everybody else in those final 10 laps.
Matt Kenseth waited too long. Logano and Kyle Larson as the laps ticked off in the final segment of the Sprint All-Star Race.
He restarted third for the final 13-lap dash after only two drivers, Jimmie Johnson (Hendrick Motorsports) and Kyle Busch (Joe Gibbs Racing), running 12th and 13th respectively, were re-slotted to the front.
“We’ve had a format that we’ve never done before, and we worked diligently trying to come up with every scenario and an answer for anything that might crop up”, NASCAR’s Vice President of Competition, Scott Miller later told the press when asked about the problems with the new format, “This is not something that we do every day with this type of race”.
Surprise, surprise, Matt Crafton won a Camping World Truck Series race.
In the end, drivers, competitors, viewers and even commentators on occasion were perplexed in trying to figure out the proceedings of the race.
If NASCAR was going to completely change up the rules, they should have given notice in advance and not as late as they did.
Of course, talking about this year’s format is futile.
And Carl Edwards threw out another theory: What if it’s actually not a bad thing to be fifth to eighth place before the final segment?
But, believe it or not, it was the first time he won back-to-back races, as he followed up his win a week earlier at Dover International Speedway with a victory at Charlotte Motor Speedway. What was it that made The Showdown so much better than the main event All Star race later that night? “Maybe we can go for three”.
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Adding dirt to the mix isn’t likely to happen, as can be assumed by how slim the population of dirt racing is on the NASCAR national schedule in the first place.
