Matt Kenseth dominated the field in Sunday’s race for his third Sprint Cup Series win of the season but the racing itself lacked any real drama except briefly after restarts.
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While many are now pointing to the four Gibbs drivers – Kenseth, Busch, Denny Hamlin and Carl Edwards – as favourites to win a first Sprint Cup championship for the team since Tony Stewart did it in 2005, Kenseth was more reticent.
Listen to Joe Gibbs and he will tell you his race teams lagged behind the competition just 10 weeks ago. High-drag seems to not be the answer, so another test of low downforce could lead to more changes for next season. Austin Dillon, driver of the No. 3 DOW Chevrolet, said, ” I think if it was cooler, it would have been a tougher day to pass because everybody would have been a little better”.
Michigan wasn’t a great race; it wasn’t even an OK race.
NASCAR used a special high-drag aerodynamic package for this race and in the Brickyard last month at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Let’s take a look at how the drivers did fantasy-wise in the 2015 Pure Michigan 400 in the DraftKings scoring system. In theory, it could create something resembling pack racing at the beginning of runs and make passing easier up front by the time tires wore down. Kenseth held the pole and led 146 of the race’s 200 laps, and every element of the afternoon clicked in his favor.
“We ere up front the whole time, and that’s what you want, right? We prepared for that”, Kenseth said.
There were eight cautions for 31 laps in the near three-hour race. With pit strategies varying slightly, the final round of green-flag stops was lengthy, but Kenseth eventually cycled back to the lead, with Harvick a distant second. Hamlin finished fifth and Edwards was sixth. “I didn’t have anything for the 20 (Kenseth’s car)”.
Matt Kenseth got front early, and in the first few runs, nobody could come within four seconds of him. “I felt at the end of the day Saturday, we had a auto capable of winning, and I felt like that all day again today”. Ten drivers have secured their spots in the Chase for the Sprint Cup, 11 if you include Kyle Busch, who must finish the regular portion of the season among the Top 30 in the drivers standings.
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That was key for Kenseth, who was able to maintain his lead on a late restart, holding of runner-up Kevin Harvick while doing so. NBC Sports showed a reading of over 150 degrees in the cockpit of Casey Mears’ vehicle.
