“They’ve been giving us rockets for the past couple months”. With three races until the Chase, the tricky.5-mile concrete oval is a definite wild card race, and you can bet Chase bubble drivers will be on pins and needles through the 500-lap event on Saturday night. He beat Jeff Gordon by. And Maggie just so now we’ll be able holds some momentum here and get into the chase that is very hard to do.
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Kenseth and Dillon battled back and forth for the lead before Kenseth finally took command of the position just before Kenseth gave up the lead to pit under green for the final time on lap 164.
This is the second consecutive year the pole-winner has won the Pure Michigan 400.
Joe Gibbs has won championships and big-ticket races in NASCAR, but his team rarely has shown the kind of consistent domination his drivers have exhibited over the course of this summer.
LEAD CHANGES: 16 among 8 drivers.
Sunday’s race at Michigan marked the third win this season for Matt Kenseth, and the second in three weeks.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. turns 41 in October. “If not, if it’s a bigger issue, we will change the motor for Sunday“. “Honestly, the toughest one was with the 3 (of Austin Dillon)”, Kenseth said post-race. There was nothing tiresome about that, especially when the end result is winning.
All he has to do is not wreck and continue to race well and he will keep his spot and not have to worry about the points anymore.
BETTER WEATHER: Kurt Busch won the June race at Michigan, but it was shortened because of rain.
The day wasn’t a total loss for Busch. Sure, it can be argued that he was points racing and just playing with the hand he was dealt, but he’s supposed to be Kyle Busch, The man that takes an average day and makes it spectacular!
HEATING UP: Speedway temperatures hovered in the mid-80s during the race, but temperatures inside the race cars were measured at 150 degrees.
MIDNIGHT SUN: Keselowski’s auto drew pre-race attention for another reason. Denny Hamlin rounded out the top-five. “We’ve come back to a point where I think now we’ve got a chance in races”. NASCAR said it worked with the team during prerace inspection and asked the team to err on the safe side. The only challenge to Kenseth at Michigan came from Chevy driver Austin Dillon on a midrace restart.
Kenseth had a comfortable lead before a caution, with 17 laps left, tightened things up, but he had little trouble holding off Harvick after the restart. No one had much for him, Kenseth giving Gibbs its fifth win in the past six Sprint Cup races.
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Still, Johnson is coming off his worst race of the season Sunday amid a curious slump at Hendrick Motorsports.
