CP MOTORSPORTS - ROWDY MAKES ANOTHER CHASE STATEMENT WITH KENTUCKY WIN
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Nearly a month ago, Kyle Busch walked away from Michigan International Speedway with a 43rd place finish. His chances of achieving Chase eligibility looked quite grim.
Fast forward three weeks and Busch's season has done a complete 180-degree turn.
Busch dominated in Saturday night's Quaker State 400 from Kentucky Speedway, leading 163 laps on his way to capturing the checkered flag. Busch now has two victories in just seven races since returning from injuries sustained at Daytona in Xfinity series competition earlier this season. In addition to Busch's now two wins, he also must remain in the top 30 in the points standings to become Chase eligible at the end of the season.
Saturday night's race also marked the first race with a new, revised rules package mainly pertaining to aerodynamics. Busch believes it went a long way to making the racing better but doesn't think the sample size is large enough to get an accurate reading.
"Obviously the night went real well for us but in general," Busch said. "It was really, really good to get out there and race like that tonight and to run up front and put on a good show I hope for the fans that were here in Kentucky Speedway and on TV but most importantly I can't say enough about Adam Stevens, my team, everyone that did such a great job for me and gave me a great race car to go out there and perform like I did and just to be able to put it all together throughout 400 miles like that's was really good.
"To come back from a couple late restarts there where everybody was battling so hard and cars were everywhere and not knowing where to go, what to do to get myself moving in the right direction and then to finally get up towards the front and get that win, that feels really, really good. So to pass Joey like we did at the end of the race there, it certainly means a lot more to come up through there and pass the guy late in the going to take the win."
The win is now the 31st on Kyle Busch's career and his second career victory at Kentucky Speedway.
Joey Logano held the lead on the race's final restart but could not hold off Busch late in the run. Logano, however, still managed to walk away with a second place finish, his 13th top ten finish of the 2015 season.
Logano hasn't won since this February's Daytona 500 and believes the changes NASCAR made improved the quality of the racing for the better.
"I thought the racing was good, I thought we were closer than what we were," Logano said. "The cars were definitely sliding around a lot especially on restarts. This track is a bumpy track and we have a hard tire for what we want to have here but I thought it was an improvement. I felt like we could enter behind each other and be effective. Being behind a car wasn't as big, so I think that's big. You're never going to get rid of that completely, we're going too fast. I think directionally it was correct.."
On top of Kyle Busch's victory, Joe Gibbs Racing enjoyed arguably its most successful race of its existence by placing all four team drivers inside the top five.
Team owner Joe Gibbs was pleased with his team's improvements on intermediate tracks and the results under the new rules package. Gibbs hopes it's an indication of future success on mile and a half race tracks.
"If you follow this sport, you know for about a year and a half we've had a tough time on mile and a half, intermediate tracks," Gibbs said. "So I think a lot of credit goes to all the guys back home. The aero department, the engineering group, the fab shop and all those guys working so hard and we have been hard paced trying to catch up. I think we've worked extremely hard and hopefully tonight's a sign that we've caught back up with everybody at intermediate tracks. I'm thrilled for us."
JGR mainstay Denny Hamlin was able to overcome a pit road speeding penalty early to drive his No. 11 FedEx Toyota to a third place finish. Hamlin believes there will be differing opinions of NASCAR's mid season rules adjustments but he thinks it created a much better on track product.
"You're going to hear both sides of this story," Hamlin explained. "You're going to hear guys in the front say they like it and guys in the back say they don't. But I came from two laps down and passed a ton of cars throughout the day and there was a pass for the lead with under 15 or 20 laps to go, so can't really complain a whole lot about that especially since this is a pretty tough racetrack to pass on anyways and like Joey (Logano) talked about, we don't even have a tire honed in for this racetrack yet."
Carl Edwards finished in fourth place while Matt Kenseth snagged a fifth place finish.
Brad Keselowski led 62 laps in the race but lost a number of positions following a uncontrolled tire penalty during a round of pit stops. Despite the pit road misfortune, Keselowski grabbed a sixth place finish.
Jeff Gordon finished in seventh place in his final start at Kentucky Speedway, the only track which he hasn't won at in his storied Sprint Cup career.
Defending Sprint Cup champion and current Sprint Cup points leader Kevin Harvick finished in eighth place with Jimmie Johnson and Kurt Busch rounding out the race's top ten finishers.
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Race Number 18
Unofficial Race Results for the 5Th Annual Quaker State 400 Presented
By Advance Auto Parts - Saturday, July 11, 2015
Kentucky Speedway - Sparta, KY - 1.5 Mile Paved
Total Race Length - 267 Laps - 400.5 Miles - Purse: $5,104,114
Leader
Fin Str Car Driver Team Laps Pts Bns Driver Rating Winnings Status Tms Laps
1 9 18 Kyle Busch M&M's Crispy Toyota 267 48 5 148.4 $209,316 Running 4 163
2 4 22 Joey Logano Shell Pennzoil/AutoTrader Ford 267 43 1 123.3 $161,118 Running 1 23
3 8 11 Denny Hamlin FedEx Office Toyota 267 42 1 117.1 $125,335 Running 2 13
4 20 19 Carl Edwards Comcast/Minions Toyota 267 41 1 112.6 $124,295 Running 1 1
5 16 20 Matt Kenseth Dollar General Toyota 267 39 104.9 $142,111 Running
6 2 2 Brad Keselowski Miller Lite Ford 267 39 1 124.6 $140,656 Running 2 62
7 3 24 Jeff Gordon AARP Member Advantages Chevrolet 267 37 101.7 $135,176 Running
8 15 4 Kevin Harvick Budweiser/Jimmy John's Chevrolet 267 36 104.6 $137,640 Running
9 6 48 Jimmie Johnson Lowe's Pro Services Chevrolet 267 35 93.0 $132,151 Running
10 13 41 Kurt Busch Haas Automation Chevrolet 267 34 92.7 $102,715 Running
11 17 17 Ricky Stenhouse Jr. Fifth Third Bank Ford 267 33 74.4 $95,890 Running
12 12 43 Aric Almirola Smithfield Ford 267 32 88.3 $123,951 Running
13 28 6 Trevor Bayne AdvoCare Ford 267 31 81.2 $126,790 Running
14 7 1 Jamie McMurray Cessna Chevrolet 267 30 83.2 $116,156 Running
15 14 27 Paul Menard Quaker State/Menards Chevrolet 267 29 73.5 $93,915 Running
16 27 16 Greg Biffle Ortho Ford 267 28 69.2 $116,523 Running
17 5 78 Martin Truex Jr. Furniture Row/Visser Precision Chevrolet 267 27 90.1 $111,035 Running
18 25 55 David Ragan Aaron's Dream Machine Toyota 267 26 82.3 $111,479 Running
19 30 15 Clint Bowyer Hughes General Contractors/Casey's Toyota 267 25 70.5 $118,123 Running
20 26 31 Ryan Newman Caterpillar Chevrolet 267 25 1 74.3 $121,290 Running 1 2
21 10 88 Dale Earnhardt Jr. Nationwide Chevrolet 267 23 63.6 $99,365 Running
22 18 9 Sam Hornish Jr. Advanced Auto Speed Perks Ford 267 22 68.7 $109,660 Running
23 21 13 Casey Mears GEICO Chevrolet 267 21 54.2 $109,248 Running
24 32 51 Justin Allgaier Fraternal Order of Eagles Chevrolet 267 20 55.3 $106,998 Running
25 11 3 Austin Dillon DOW Styrofoam Chevrolet 267 19 69.0 $119,526 Running
26 24 47 AJ Allmendinger Kroger/Scott Products Chevrolet 267 18 59.0 $111,423 Running
27 19 5 Kasey Kahne LiftMaster Chevrolet 266 17 74.3 $97,090 Running
28 36 40 Landon Cassill(i) CRC Brakleen Chevrolet 266 0 49.3 $82,065 Running
29 34 38 David Gilliland Love's Travel Stops Ford 266 15 45.2 $101,523 Running
30 29 46 Michael Annett Pilot/Flying J Chevrolet 266 14 46.3 $83,290 Running
31 31 7 Alex Bowman Advance Auto Parts/Quaker State Chevrolet 266 14 1 44.2 $90,772 Running 1 2
32 38 34 Brett Moffitt # Dockside Logistics Ford 266 12 40.1 $80,115 Running
33 22 14 Tony Stewart Rush Truck Centers Chevrolet 265 11 54.5 $105,779 Running
34 23 10 Danica Patrick GoDaddy Chevrolet 265 10 51.6 $86,515 Running
35 1 42 Kyle Larson Target Chevrolet 265 9 74.7 $112,373 Running
36 42 62 Reed Sorenson Chevrolet 264 9 1 33.6 $78,410 Running 1 1
37 33 35 Cole Whitt Kentucky Fried Chicken Ford 264 7 36.7 $78,352 Running
38 40 32 Will Kimmel III CorvetteParts.net Ford 263 6 29.9 $73,752 Running
39 41 23 JJ Yeley(i) TraqGear/Coolshirt Toyota 260 0 30.4 $69,680 Running
40 43 33 Alex Kennedy # Chevrolet 247 4 25.4 $65,680 Running
41 35 26 Jeb Burton # Maxim Fantasy Sports Toyota 175 3 35.0 $61,680 Suspension
42 39 83 Matt DiBenedetto # Anest Iwata Toyota 145 2 30.5 $57,680 Accident
43 37 98 Josh Wise Big Red Ford 17 1 24.2 $54,180 Accident
Race Comments: Kyle Busch won the Quaker State 400 presented by Advance Auto Parts, his 31st career NASCAR Sprint Cup Series victory. Prior to the start of the race, no cars dropped to the rear of the field.
Failed to Qualify: (3) 21, 95, 30.
Time of Race: 3 Hrs, 05 Mins, 42 Secs. Average Speed: 129.402 MPH Margin of Victory: 1.594 Seconds
Caution Flags: 11 for 49 laps: Laps: 20-23 (#23, 98 accident turns 3 & 4 [32]); 32-35 (Competition [33]); 82-86 (Debris turn 4 [None]); 100-104 (#41 spin turn 4 [6]); 123-128 (#23 accident turn 4 [11]); 137-140 (#88 accident turn 3 [51]); 144-146 (#14,17, 26, 83 accident turn 2 [13]); 153-156 (Debris turn 4 [62]); 187-191 (Debris turn 3 [34]); 208-212 (#10 accident turn 4 [46]); 221-224 (#42 accident turn 2 [None]).
Lead Changes: 13 among 8 drivers: 0; B. Keselowski 1-32; R. Sorenson 33; Kyle Busch 34-94; B. Keselowski 95-124; Kyle Busch 125-188; R. Newman 189-190; Kyle Busch 191-208; A. Bowman 209-210; D. Hamlin 211-212; C. Edwards 213; D. Hamlin 214-224; J. Logano 225-247; Kyle Busch 248-267.
Chase Grid Outlook: 1.J. Johnson 624 (4 wins);2.K. Harvick 692 (2);3.D. Earnhardt Jr. 616 (2);4.J. Logano 624 (1);5.M. Truex Jr. 596 (1);6.B. Keselowski 559 (1);7.M. Kenseth 540 (1);8.D. Hamlin 522 (1);9.C. Edwards 449 (1);10.J. Mcmurray 556 (0);11.J. Gordon 537 (0);12.K. Kahne 513 (0);13.P. Menard 509 (0);14.R. Newman 497 (0);15.C. Bowyer 490 (0);16.A. Almirola 473 (0).
3M Lap Leader : Kyle Busch, #18 163 Laps American Ethanol Green Flag Restart Award : Carl Edwards, #19
Coors Light Pole Award : Kyle Larson, #42 0 mph Coors Light Pole Award : Not Awarded, #
Duralast Brakes "Brake in the Race" : Brad Keselowski, #2 Freescale "Wide Open" : Matt Kenseth, #20
Ingersoll Rand Power Move : Ryan Newman, #31 3 positions Mahle Clevite Engine Builder of the Race : Toyota Racing Development (TRD), #18
Mobil 1 Driver of the Race : Kyle Busch, #18 Moog Chassis Parts Problem Solver of the Race : Carl Edwards, #19 D. Grubb, .302 sec
Sherwin-Williams Fastest Lap : Carl Edwards, #19 Sunoco Rookie of the Race : Brett Moffitt, #34
(i) Ineligible for driver points in this series
Next Race: Jul. 19, 2015 - New Hampshire Motor Speedway
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