Persistent rain and a pessimistic forecast forced postponement of Saturday night’s scheduled Bank of America 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway until 12:30 p.m. ET on Sunday on NBCSN.
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“What a great vehicle”, Logano said. “Really didn’t know what to expect, but our guys stepped it up and gave me a competitive race auto”.
The race victor was Joey Logano.
“Because the pressure that a lot of these drivers are going to have on them, and we had on us when this race started, to get through to the next round is big”, Logano said.
Chase drivers had the six fastest times.
It’s also the last at the Speedway for Michael Waltrip Racing. Yet he goes into Saturday winless in his final season, and all too aware what one last trip to Charlotte’s victory lane would mean. From the time practice was over on Friday until this morning we were texting about the setup and what we were going to do and what we had to do.
“If those are the off days, we’ll be just fine”, Harvick said.
Joey Logano had previously led only 20 laps at Charlotte before he dominated for the win in Sunday’s Bank of America 500, leading 227 laps on his way to the checkered flag under clear skies. We know we can beat them. I went around the speedy dry where they laid it on the track and man I flew into the fence.
Carl Edwards, in sixth, didn’t suffer significant damage after contact with Dale Earnhardt Jr. and had a respectable finish.
During a caution, Busch seemed to want to go into the pits, but then pulled up to either fake out his opponents or wait a little longer before pitting.
Martin Truex Jr. finished third – his career-best eighth top-five of the season – but wasn’t breathing any easier about his Chase hopes.
Earnhardt was the second Hendrick Motorsports driver to see his chances of a race win fly out the window because of a tire issue. Earnhardt was able to pit for repairs under the yellow and go only a single lap down, but the #88 was looking distinctly worse for wear as it needed a load of duct tape to hold everything together. What laps Logano didn’t lead were mainly the property of Matt Kenseth, who finished second in attrition by virtue of finishing 42nd to Kasey Kahne’s 43rd. As Kenseth struggled, Logano became the class of the field. A slow pit stop when his jackman slipped and others remaining on the race track relegated Kenseth to 13th for the restart.
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On lap 177, Kenseth came down the track, not realizing that the 31 of Ryan Newman was there.
