The Axalta “We Paint Winners” 400 at Pocono Raceway was postponed Sunday until Monday at noon. Busch came practically out of nowhere to take the lead on lap 129, and shortly after he accomplished that feat, Klausmeier broke the news that the auto likely didn’t have enough fuel to win the race if there were no more caution flags.
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Busch led 32 laps in winning his 28th career Cup race, tying Hall of Famer Rex White for 25th on NASCAR’s career list.
Earnhardt is still seeking his first victory of the season and remains 12th on the provisional Chase Grid, 47 points ahead of the playoff cutoff.
With regular crew chief Tony Gibson sitting at home thanks to a one-week suspension for a lug nut violation, Klausmeier – a 35-year-old engineer – calmly guided his veteran driver to a fuel-mileage win at Pocono Raceway.
Busch and Klausmeier posed arm-in-arm for a picture in victory lane and left just enough space in between them to insert a picture of Gibson. In turn, both Earnhardt and Elliott were nearly immediately passed in one swift move by Busch, driver of the No. 41 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet who claimed his first win of the 2016 season.
Earnhardt blamed himself for a sloppy restart when he got loose after a run by Elliott, allowing Busch to slip into the lead. “I wish I had been a little more patient and given ourselves a better chance, but you live and you learn”. “But we ended up getting tight and not really having anything anyways right at the end of the race, and [Busch] saved enough”.
“We just kept him informed on everything that was going on, and he took it and ran with it”, Klausmeier said. I felt like we could come in here and run good, and I think we learned a lot that we can understand how to get better for the next race. Busch said of the radio call from Klausmeier. “I know Gibson can do it just the same, but when you have a new guy or you’re not at your full strength, there’s something that happens to everybody on the team”.
The race, originally scheduled for Sunday afternoon, was postponed a day because of rain and dense fog at the track. Brad Keselowski is on the pole and Truex starts 17th in Pocono’s first Monday race since 2009. I’m just glad that the restart panned out perfectly for us. He finally passed Elliott for third with 10 to go, then set his sights for Kurt Busch and Earnhardt. That slowed us up some. He not only had fuel to finish the race, but did a cool-down lap and a long burnout in front of the main grandstand.
“He (Elliott) made a mistake, washed up, the 88 (Earnhardt) checked up”, Busch said.
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Of course, so has Busch, whose career was in jeopardy at the start of the 2015 season when he was suspended indefinitely by NASCAR for “conduct detrimental to stock auto racing”, after reports of a physical incident with an ex-girlfriend became national news. “I think it was Las Vegas”, Gordon said.
