A year ago in the Chase, this race was the second of three in the Contender Round, and it caused a lot of heated “discussion” among a few drivers in the garage. There were cars getting hit on the cool down lap, then again on pit road, and even in the garage area, with people all around that could have been in harms way.
That is what the Chase format provided a year ago.
Fast forward to the 2015 season, it’s a slightly different story. It’s still the action on the track that is making headlines, but it’s not incidents between drivers that’s causing it. Instead, it’s the drivers you would not expect to have difficulty at some of their strongest tracks that actually did.
Take last week, it was Jimmie Johnson who ended up in the garage with a broken rear seal, at a track he has won 10 times at, that cost him a chance at a championship. This week at Charlotte, the Joe Gibbs duo of Matt Kenseth and Kyle Busch each had on-track incidents that put them into the wall, with Kenseth eventually wrecking a second time and causing him to finish next-to-last.
Then if you add in the fact that Dale Earnhardt Jr. ran into trouble of possibly running over fluid that was either missed or not seen by the track cleaning crew, that’s three drivers in the Chase already in a hole once again in the second round.
Obviously with the demon that is Talladega looming, which has shown to be anything except predictable, no driver wants to enter that track in a must-win situation. Sure that worked out last season for Brad Keselowski but at the same time, the odds are greatly not in the favor of those that are in the Chase.
So now with one race down in the Contender Round, three drivers are already in a deep pit, with one already a full race out from the lead. Next week at Kansas now takes on a whole different look for a few drivers. This will be mightily interesting if those outside the top-8 cannot make any ground to lock into the next round. Time to watch and see.
RESULTS: 1-Logano 2-Harvick 3-Truex Jr. 4-Hamlin 5-Kurt Busch 6-Edwards 7-Dillon 8-Gordon 9-Keselowski 10-Almirola
NOTABLE FINISHES: 15-Newman 20-Kyle Busch 28-Earnhardt Jr. 39-Johnson 42-Kenseth
CAUTIONS: 9 for 44 laps. Lap 2-4 (Debris-FS); 27-30 (Competition); 62-65 (#5 accident-T2); 76-80 (#88 slow on track); 169-173 (Debris-BS); 178-181 (Smoke from #20); 183-189 (Oil on track from #51); 195-200 (Oil on track); 241-246 (#20 accident turn 3).
LEAD CHANGES: 14 among 10 drivers. M. Kenseth POLE; Kyle Busch 1-4; M. Kenseth 5-76; J. Logano 77-121; J. Johnson 122-123; K. Larson 124-126; C. Edwards 127; J. Logano 128-231; A. Dillon 232; J. Gordon 233; C. Bowyer 234; S. Hornish Jr. 235-241; J. Logano 242-284; S. Hornish Jr. 285-299; J. Logano 300-334.
TIME OF RACE: 3 Hrs, 35 Mins, 5 Secs.
AVERAGE SPEED: 139.760 MPH
MARGIN OF VICTORY: 0.703 Seconds
CHASE GRID: 1. Logano, 3048 points*; 2. Harvick, -6; 3. Truex Jr, -7; 4. Hamlin, -8; 5. Kurt Busch, -9; 6. Edwards, -9; 7. Gordon, -11; 8. Keselowski, -13; 9. Newman, -19; 10. Kyle Busch, -23; 11. Earnhardt Jr, -32; 12. Kenseth, -45; 13. McMurray, -918; 14. Johnson, -956; 15. Menard, -965; 16. Bowyer, -966.