Posts Tagged ‘Kyle Busch’

After a bad finish at Daytona Jimmie Johnson bounces back to wins his 48th race in the #48 Lowes Chevrolet at the Auto Club 500 in Fontana California.

Johnson led the last 24 laps of the race to beat out a hard charging Kevin Harvick. Harvick chased Johnson down in the last 20 laps, cutting down a two second Johnson lead. With only five laps to go Harvick slid coming out of turn 4 slapping the wall spoiling any chance to get by Jimmie Johnson.

“Life is good, man,” said Johnson, who is pursuing his fifth straight Sprint Cup championship. “We’re right back in victory lane.”

Luck was on Johnson’s side as with 27 laps to go Johnson pitted for his final stop of the race, and the caution came out for Brad Keselowski when he lost control and spun down the frontstrech, Johnson got  off of pit road just in time, so he would start up front on the restart.

“The fact that we were on pit road when the caution came out gave us track position, and we finally got the car turning,” Johnson said.

Harvick was pushing hard and said he lost control of his car trying to catch up to Johnson.

“The 48 saw me coming and moved up,” Harvick said. “I lost the nose of the car and got in the wall and knocked the right front fender in.”

Harvick who got a pit road speeding violation, putting him to the back of the field drove his car top the front to challenged Johnson at the end of the race.

Completing the top five were Jeff Burton, Mark Martin and Joey Logano.

“I think we have a little bit of work to do, although we won the race,” Johnson said. “We’ll just keep working hard. This is a good step in the right direction.”

The race saw a lot of different challengers at the front of the field, that were contributed by NASCAR’s new aero package and a new tire compound that Goodyear brought to the race. It was unbelievable at how many pit road violation there were considering NACAR warned the driver after the Nationwide race. Teams seemed to have more engine failures than normal, mostly thought do to the long green runs and the cooler weather making the engines rev higher and longer.

Kasey Kahne brought out the second caution when he lost control coming out of turn four spinning into the wet infield bending up the left side of the front splitter and right front fender damage.

Johnson, Harvick and Montoya were up front of the field for most of the first half of the race, round half way Montoya’s engine gave way ending the #42 Target’s car day.

A few laps later after spinning his tires on the restart, Ryan Newman blew his engine up big time on the fronstrech ending his day and giving Newman his second DNF of the season.

At lap 70 with bad weather threatening most  of the leaders were forced to make a green flag pit stop.

A light sprinkle bought out a caution with Denny Hamlin leading the race. A few laps into the caution Denny Hamlin was forced to pit giving up the lead to Scott Speed. Speed led a few laps under caution to get his 5 bonus points, hoping the rain would come, but he was forced to pit running low on fuel.

After the rain delay there were only 50 laps to go and Jeff Burton and Kyle Busch lead to field to the green. The crew chief were looking to the sky as more bad weather was threatening.

Carl Edwards and Denny Hamlin got together after the restart causing Hamlin’s left rear tire to go flat.

Jeff Burton was showing the strength of the Earnhardt Childress engines with 42 laps to go looking like Burton had the car to beat.  Unfortunately for Burton the handling went away in the closing laps losing the battle with Harvick for second place. The RCR cars were strong all day putting all three cars in the top ten.

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A race that was pretty much in the hands of Joey Logano ended up going to Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Kyle Busch.

Busch passed Greg Biffle in the last mile Saturday at Auto Club Speedway to win the Stater Bros. 300 Nationwide Series race after the dominant Logano had led 130 laps, consistently rejecting competitions all afternoon.

Logano’s dominance for much of the race turned it  into a snoozer, but the final two laps it was a green white checkered finish making it a tight race to the finish.

Logano led going into turn one on the restart, but Biffle got under Lagano and nudged him , making slight contact with Logano and sending him high in turn two putting Logano back to fourth place as Busch and Brad Keselowski also soared past.

On the final lap, coming out of turn four Busch got to the inside of Biffle, side drafting him and slingshoting past Biffle to win the race, Logano got spin by Brad Keselowski coming to the start finish line, Logano wound up in the infield grass.

Busch, only led  four of the 150 laps was on the tail of Logano most of the race, this gives JGR its fifth straight Nationwide win at Auto Club Speedway.

“That’s crazy,” Busch said. “That’s some racing there.”

Not too surprising was Logano’s reaction at the end of the race,not to pleased with the turn one events. He said he was hit by Biffle in the first turn on the final restart. “I realize it’s tight racing, but he could have done it differently,” Logano said. “You keep doing that, and eventually it’s going to come back and bite you.”

Biffle said Logano made a mistake “and spun his tires and couldn’t get going. He tried to come down and block the bottom, but I already had a run and I wasn’t going to give that up.”

Logano led 47 of the first 50 laps and 68 of the first 71 and was rarely challenged at the front until the closing laps.

Logano had a 1.7-second lead over Busch with five laps to go when Brendan Gaughan produced the last caution of the race with a spinout, setting up the wild finish.

Danica Patrick, making her second start in the series, fell to the rear of the field early in the race and was lapped by the leaders on lap 18. She finished 31st.

Speed TV contributed to this report.

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With a Last lap pass on the backstrech, Timothy Peters takes the checkered flag to win the NextEra Energy 250 Truck Series race at Daytona International Speedway.

“I can’t believe it this thing drove like a Lexus tonight,” Peters said of his No. 17 Toyota Tundra. “We just won Daytona! I was just content where I was at, but the No. 23  Jason White came up and gave me a great run.

“I can’t believe it  I’m going to Disney World!”

Peters’ only previous win in the series came at .526-mile Martinsville Speedway.

“You’re a sitting duck leading,” Bodine said disappointingly . “I saw the replay when I was sitting down there in the mud”, spinning after the checkered flag flew . “Timmy did what he had to do.”

“We’re disappointed. There’s no doubt about it. But second’s nothing to sneeze at.”

Two separate crashes on the pace laps, before the race had started promised an action-filled evening, and, indeed, before the race was a lap old, Aric Almirola took the field three-wide in Turn 3. Austin Dillon, making his first superspeedway start, broke loose between trucks and ignited a nine-truck collision that damaged the trucks of Kyle Busch and Landon Cassill, among others.

“I really don’t know what was happening,” Dillon said after exiting the infield care center. “I was sucking up to Jason White and someone got under me. Just looked like they weren’t being very patient there to start. Just caught in the middle and got banged around there a few times and tried to save it — just nothing I could do there.”

Hornaday was the victim of a 10-truck wreck after a bump from Ricky Carmichael turned him into the outside wall at the end of the backstretch on Lap 32. The same wreck ruined the winning chances of front-row starter Elliott Sadler. Skinner’s race ended early after a tap from Peters launched him into the Turn 3 wall on Lap 62.

All you can day is what a exciting race  it was action packed from start to finish. Just would have like to see the outside lane be able to pull up in the draft at the end.

It was too bad for Austin Dillon in the Tracker Boats #3. It’s nice to see that famed #3 back on the track, in the hands of RCR.

Nascar .com contributed to this report.

RESULTS: NextEra Energy Resources 250

NCWTS DRIVER POINTS: NextEra Energy Resources 250

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Tony Stewart’s stayed up front all day in Saturday’s Drive4COPD 300 Nationwide Series race at Daytona International Speedway his KHI chevy was strong keeping him there.

This will be Stewart’s third consecutive and fifth overall February Nationwide at Dayton that he has won, and showing his dominance on restrictor-plate races in the Nationwide series getting his sixth win. Tying Dale Earnhardt and Dale Earnhardt Jr. for the career lead in that category.

“There were some really good cars that got mangled up Saturday,” Stewart said, referring to crashes that damaged the cars of Earnhardt, Kyle Busch and Brad Keselowski, among others. “We were just lucky to be in front when it happened.”

Kevin Harvick, who owns the No. 4 Chevrolet that Stewart was driving in his only scheduled Nationwide appearance of the year, finished third in his own No. 33 Chevy. Justin Allgaier came home fourth and Brian Vickers fifth.

There was some wild racing and on lap 92, Dale Earnhardt Jr in his #88 Chevrolet went for a wild tumble flipping his car on the backstrech, after Carl Edwards tried to squeeze into a small hole in the outside lane. Edwards made contact with Brad Keselowski spinning him into Earnhardt.

“We were having a real good run, and I felt good about our chances,” said Earnhardt, whose company, JR Motorsports, also owns the car Patrick will drive in selected races this season. “I’ll have to go back and balance the books — it was an expensive day for JR Motorsports.”

After an 11-minute red flag for Earnhardt’s accident, Stewart took command for his 15th win in a stock car at Daytona, moving him into a tie with Cale Yarborough for third all time at the storied track. He now trails only Earnhardt (34 wins) and Bobby Allison (16) for most at Daytona.

“I would trade a couple of them just for a win in a Sunday race here,” said Stewart, who is 0-for-11 in the Daytona 500. He’ll start sixth in Sunday’s main event.

Patrick’s scheduled to run the next two Nationwide races, at Fontana and Las Vegas.

“We’ll go to these other tracks where she’ll literally be driving the car, it’ll be handling good or bad,” Earnhardt said. “Then people can start forming their opinions on what kind of learning curve she has. But I feel pretty confident. She’s been in a tough situation with the media and the pressure and the attention, I couldn’t have done it.”
Nascar.com contributed to this report.