NASCAR Goes Road Racing
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NASCAR returns to road course racing this weekend, with the Sprint Cup heading west to the Infineon Raceway in Sonoma and the Nationwide Series heading to Elkhart Lake, Road America.
Joey Logano overtook Mark Martin four laps from the finish to claim victory at the Pocono 400 as the Aaron’s Dream Machine driver suffered yet another near-miss in Long Pond, Pennsylvania
Jimmie Johnson continued Hendrick Motorsports’ hot-streak by taking his seventh win at the ‘Monster Mile’ of Dover.
Kasey Kahne marked his 300th career start with his first win of the year in the Coke 600 at Charlotte on Memorial Day. The win was Kahne’s first since joining Hendrick Motorsports, who have now scored three wins in as many races after Jimmie Johnson’s victories in the Southern 500 at Darlington and last weeks million dollar All-Star race.
Juan Pablo Montoya may not have won a race since Watkins Glen 2010, but was this week crowned the All-Time Greatest Chip Ganassi Racing driver by fans.
Despite it not counting for points, there were a million reasons why Jimmie Johnson was thrilled to take his second win in as many events.
Jimmie Johnson sealed Hendrick Motorsports’ 200th win with a composed drive at Darlington Raceway, After several near misses, not least when Johnson and Jeff Gordon looked set to finish 1-2 at Martinsville in April before a mistimed lunge by Clint Bowyer took both out, the Hendrick team finally reached its landmark milestone, having been stuck on 199 since Johnson’s last win at Kansas last year.
For the first time in their short history, BK Racing will be running three cars when the NASCAR circus moves to Darlington, South Carolina. The ex-Team Red Bull squad, which currently has both Landon Cassill’s no. 83 and the no.93 in the top 35 owner’s points, will debut the no. 73 this weekend with Travis Kvapil behind the wheel.
Eric McClure will skip the Nationwide Series event at Darlington this Friday as he continues to recover from his horrific accident at Talladega last weekend.
Given that he was the leader on the last lap, it looked very unlikely that Brad Keselowski would be able to repeat his famous Talladega victory from 2009, achieved by wrecking Carl Edwards on the run to the flag. But on this occasion, conventional wisdom didn’t prevail and Kyle Busch was unable to make the decisive pass which would have given him his second win in succession.
After Kurt Busch’s dramatic victory for Kyle Busch Motorsports on Friday in the Nationwide Series, his younger brother, the eponymous team-owner Kyle Busch, wrapped up a perfect weekend at Richmond by defeating Dale Earnhardt Jr. in the premier Sprint Cup. It was Kyle’s fourth consecutive victory in the spring event at Richmond, and lifted him back into Chase contention after a trying season so far with only two top-10 finishes.
Denny Hamlin took his first victory at Kansas Speedway after beating the dominant Martin Truex Jr. to the chequered flag, with Jimmie Johnson a distant third.
Extreme sports star Travis Pastrana is set to finally make his NASCAR debut next weekend at Richmond, driving for RAB Racing in the Nationwide Series.
Greg Biffle took his first win of the year under the lights at Texas Motor Speedway to consolidate his lead in the point standings. The Roush-Fenway Ford driver was a constant threat during the 334 lap race, and was deserving of his 17th career win, the second of the weekend for team-owner Jack Roush after Ricky Stenhouse Jr. won the Nationwide race.
Ryan Newman made the most of a chaotic green-white-checker finish in Martinsville to win his first Sprint Cup race of the season, usurping the dominant Hendrick duo of Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson who had led throughout.
Kevin Harvick fired a warning shot to his Sprint Cup competitors with a dominant victory in the Kroger 200 Camping World Truck Series race at the Martinsville paperclip. Harvick, 36, led a record 248 laps aboard his no.2 Tide Richard Childress Chevrolet Silverado and was comfortably able to hold off team-mate Ty Dillon, younger brother of last year’s Truck championAustin, after a late restart, duly collecting the trademark Martinsville grandfather clock for his efforts.
Tony Stewart battled past Kyle Busch to take his second win in three races at a rain-hit Auto Club Speedway. For Stewart, who has won 7 of the last 15 races, including at Las Vegas two weeks previously, his latest visit to victory lane owed a great deal to new-crew chief Steve Addington, who outfoxed Stewart’s former crew chief Darian Grubb, now with Denny Hamlin’s no.11 Joe Gibbs Racing team.
