NASCAR takes 16 Cup engines for annual testing

BROOKLYN, Mich. -- Following the Michigan race weekend, NASCAR took 16 Cup Series engines back to its Research and Development facility in Concord, N.C., for annual dynamometer testing.

The test session will involve virtually every team in the garage, from championship contenders to go-or-go-homers. The engines taken back Sunday were those of Jimmie Johnson (Hendrick Motorsports), Tony Stewart (Stewart-Haas Racing), Kevin Harvick (Richard Childress Racing), Juan Montoya (Earnhardt Ganassi Racing), Denny Hamlin (Joe Gibbs Racing), Reed Sorenson (Red Bull Racing), Martin Truex Jr. (Michael Waltrip Racing), Carl Edwards (Roush Fenway Racing), Kasey Kahne (Richard Petty Motorsports), Sam Hornish Jr. and Brad Keselowski (Penske Racing), Marcos Ambrose (JTG Daugherty Racing), Joe Nemechek (NEMCO Motorsports) and Patrick Carpentier (Latitude 43 Motorsports).

Also, the engines of J.J. Yeley (Whitney Motorsports) and Scott Riggs (Prism Motorsports) were taken after they failed to qualify on Friday.

One interested observer will be Hamlin, who believes his Gibbs team has a horsepower deficit when compared to Earnhardt Childress Engines, which builds the power plants of points leader Harvick, among others.

"I'd love to see it," he said. "We heard that they were coming with the engine stuff this week. We're not the best out there. I think the RCR camp has the best engines. So, I mean, we'll see with the dyno numbers."

Logano, Newman trade barbs

An accident in Turn 4 on Lap 148, the result of hard -- perhaps overly hard -- racing between Joey Logano and Ryan Newman, sparked an angry exchange between the drivers after the race.

"Give someone an inch, man," Logano said.

"No, I gave you the whole race track," Newman said.

"I was on the bottom and you door-jammed the crap out of me," Logano said. "There's six lanes up top."

Newman would have none of it.

"I was six lanes up, and I steered up and tried to miss you, because you couldn't control your damn race car," he said.

"Because I was freaking sideways because you were on my freaking door," Logano said. "All right, I'll door-jam you every freaking time I get around you."

With that, the drivers traded shoves, with Logano delivering the first push.

After the two drivers were separated, Newman delivered a parting shot.

"I'm good," he said. "I'm just trying to teach the little kid how to drive."

Engine failure sidelines Kurt Busch

Harvick, Hamlin and Edwards finished 1-2-3 and all got momentum boosts heading toward the Chase. Kurt Busch -- not so much.

An engine failure on Lap 31 relegated Busch to a 40th-place finish and dropped him from fourth to 10th in the Cup standings.

"The engine just let go in Turn 3," Busch said. "It was a big surprise. We've had great reliability with the Penske engines over the years. It's tough, because we wanted to do well here in Michigan and get our Dodge in Victory Lane. You never want big, catastrophic failures like that, so hopefully we can learn from this.

"We wanted a good race [Sunday]. We've got some good tracks coming up -- Bristol, Atlanta and Richmond. We'll be fine. It's one of those deals where we're comfortable in points [215 ahead of 12th-place Mark Martin], but it's not nice when you have something like this happen."

Sporting News Wire Service contributed to this report.