Posted on by Staff Report

A bad start to the season didn’t stop Darren Robertson from winning his second straight championship at Colorado National Speedway last year.

Now, the veteran super late model driver is looking to do what no one has done at the Dacono, Colorado track since it was paved in 1989 — win three straight track titles.

Robertson describes his team’s track title last year at Colorado National — a 0.375-mile asphalt oval near Denver — as “lucky.” The first two races of 2018 did not get the team off to a championship start.

RELATED LINK: Colorado National Speedway

“After 2017 we built a new car. We sold our old car that we won a championship with, so we started last year off with a brand new car and we didn’t have it ready for the first race of the season,” Robertson said. “So we borrowed a car from a good friend of ours and a customer of ours. And we were running third and blew a radiator hose and ended up finishing 19th in the first race with that car. The second race of the season we missed completely and we didn’t even think we had a shot at the championship. And once we got our car out there and going we were fortunate enough to run good every week.”

Darren Robertson

Coming from behind is nothing new for a lifelong racer like Robertson. He grew up watching his dad, Jerry Robertson, race on dirt before moving over the Colorado National when the track switched to asphalt. Darren Robertson said it was only natural that he would also race himself. He never even considered anything else growing up.

“Growing up I always wanted to race so I kind of just knew when the time was right I would start racing,” he said.

It was 2004 when he started racing a modified at Colorado National, winning one main event and finished second overall in the points on the way to a rookie of the year title.

A year later, Robertson’s dad started Furniture Row Racing with Barney Visser. That same year, Robertson started driving his dad’s super late model, winning a second rookie of the year title.

Robertson worked for Furniture Row for about three years before moving to North Carolina to work for Kevin Harvick’s KHI team. He moved back to Colorado after the team shut down, continuing to work in racing with his dad for a business they now run that works on and builds race cars and shocks and maintains short track cars.

Being in the business of race cars has made Robertson more successful with his own.

“It helps when you’re working on them everyday and we’re in the loop of technology being in the business,” Robertson said. “That helps for sure rather than somebody that had a normal daily job and then they do the racing after work on the side. So for sure that helps with being on top of the technical side of it. And also fabricating-wise and building stuff, that gives you a lot of experience. You’re able to get better and better at it everyday.”

RELATED LINKS: Robertson Racing | Facebook

Robertson returns to his home track looking to make history this season, but he admits it won’t be easy, with a lot of cars there he expects to run consistently well and really challenge him.

DarrenRobertson Hero

After traveling across the country to race though, for him there are not many places that stack up to Colorado National.

“There’s a lot of good cars, there a lot of talent out at Colorado National and I think it’s because there’s not a lot of NASCAR local tracks around here so all the talent goes to one track in the better part of the region here,” he said. “The first thing I noticed going to those other racetracks was the fan count wasn’t nearly what we have out here at Colorado National. They do a really good job of packing the stands out here and getting a good fan base. So I feel really fortunate to be part of a track that can get the fans out there like that. It makes the racers have something more to race for when they see the grand stands are packed full.”

Colorado National Speedway will open the season this Saturday with the Sunoco Race Fuels High Octane Icebreaker featuring super late models, modifieds and superstocks beginning at 5:30 p.m.

CNS Schedule | Facebook | Twitter

SOME OTHER OPENINGS THIS WEEK

I-80 Speedway, a 0.4-mile semi-banked dirt track in Greenwood, Nebraska, will hold practice night on Thursday for any and all classes. The track will open its season with back-to-back nights of the Spring Meltdown, with sprints, super late models and compacts on Friday, and NE360s, super late models and hobby stocks on Saturday.

I-80 Speedway will begin its NASCAR weekly series on April 26.

RELATED LINKS: I-80 Speedway | Full Schedule | NASCAR Weekly Schedule

Thunderbird Speedway, a half mile dirt oval in Muskogee, Oklahoma, will hold its first NASCAR Whelen All-American Series points race on Friday with A and B modifieds, super stocks, factory stocks and nex gens.

RELATED LINKS: Thunderbird Speedway | Schedule

Posted on by David Smith

There are three certainties in life: Death, taxes and Denny Hamlin speeding on pit road.

Or so say the jokes on social media platforms following each of Hamlin’s transgressions. The driver of the No. 11 Toyota Camry, popped for speeding last Sunday on Lap 64, has become a popular subject for witty one-liners, but his prominence near the top of the list of frequent pit-road offenders has been exaggerated.

For one, he wasn’t the most frequent speeder among Joe Gibbs Racing drivers in 2017 or 2018. Matt Kenseth (seven) and Daniel Suárez (nine) led JGR in that category the last two seasons. Hamlin incurred 12 such penalties over the last three seasons, in line with current stablemate Kyle Busch’s 11. While JGR drivers aren’t pacing the field for yearlong totals — Michael McDowell earned 13 speeding penalties in 2018 alone — they are among the most penalized. But there’s good reason for it.

RELATED: See full Texas results

It’s an occupational hazard of a deliberate game plan — entering and exiting pit road to the very limit allowed by NASCAR — stemming from the organization’s never-ending quest for clean air and optimal track position.

Busch’s effectiveness in getting on and off pit road during the 2016 season was so much of an advantage, that it stands to reason why all JGR crew chiefs would want their drivers to emulate his effort. Hamlin’s most recent crew chiefs, Mike Wheeler and Chris Gabehart, have reputations for being aggressive on pit strategy. Wheeler proved a contrarian long-pitter early last season, while Gabehart is often credited for encouraging Busch’s knack for pushing the pit road pace while the two were paired together in the Xfinity Series.

As a whole, the four-car operation was caught speeding 48 times dating back to the beginning of the 2017 season, a strategic design apparently still in effect as of two days ago.

MORE: JGR makes history at Texas

Why the willingness to accept a penalty? Monster Energy Series race wins nowadays symbolize automatic berths into the playoffs, making every weekend a zero-sum game. They’re so valuable that the advantage of testing pit road’s speed limit comes with an opportunity cost for which JGR will happily pay. The organization’s resolve in the matter makes sense considering the speed of its cars — at least three of its cars ranked inside the fastest 11 in the series since the end of 2016, fast enough to reacquire most of the positions lost — and the notion that equal penalties have different ramifications.

The timing of a penalty matters more than the maliciousness behind the act in question. A driver caught speeding on pit road under caution is banished to the tail end of the longest line on the ensuing restart with an immediate opportunity to win back the positions lost within a close-proximity pack. Hamlin wasn’t an elite restarter in years past, but he ranked among the top 15 for position retention on preferred groove restart attempts in each of the last two seasons. That’s possibly a good enough stature to green light the gamble.

A speeder under green-flag conditions must come back to pit road during the green-flag run, not only forfeiting track position but also valuable distance from cars higher in the running order, without the safety net provided by a restart.

While Hamlin’s speeding penalty at Texas occurred under green, it was just his fourth such penalty on non-drafting ovals in the last three years — pit-road speeding cost him 15 spots under green in the 2017 Coca-Cola 600, six spots in the first Las Vegas race last year and 15 positions in last year’s spring race at Texas — giant losses, to be sure, but rare instances among 120 total stops during green-flag runs.

It should be noted that during this span he did not receive such a penalty in a playoff race. Perhaps higher stakes prompt a more conservative approach?

Regardless, the impact of Hamlin’s pit-road speeding pales in comparison to its perception, even with the organization-wide modus operandi considered. It must not be a concern for Joe Gibbs Racing or else it would’ve been jettisoned from his team’s playbook. As long as his team’s speed remains consistently great, it shouldn’t be.

Hamlin and JGR likely will provide material to the social media comedians for years to come. The real joke, though, as long as Hamlin’s deliberate aggression helps game track position out of pit cycles, will be on his team’s surrounding competition.

David Smith is the founder of MotorsportsAnalytics.com and co-host of Positive Regression: A Motorsports Analytics Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @DavidSmithMA.

Posted on by Steve Luvender

New iRacing modified on the way?

iRacing teased a scan of an all-new NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour race car, much to the delight of the community, including modified standout and Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series driver Ryan Preece.

 

Bristol Xfinity Practice

Todd Gilliland, Christian Eckes, and newly-announced Xfinity Series driver Harrison Burton have spent some time preparing for NASCAR’s visit to Bristol Motor Speedway this weekend.

 

Luza wins PEAK iRacing Series race at Texas

The eNASCAR PEAK Antifreeze iRacing Series made its fourth stop of the season Tuesday at Texas Motor Speedway.

Hometown driver Ryan Luza took the checkered flag, his second of the season, after a wild final lap.

Tuesday’s race marked the debut of Team Dillon eSports and Letarte eSports.

Check out the video remix recap of the event:

Full race recap on eNASCAR.com

 

Quadruple Duty for Timmy Hill

Timmy Hill had a busy week at Texas Motor Speedway, competing in the weekend’s three NASCAR national touring series races.

However, Hill also started Tuesday’s eNASCAR PEAK Antifreeze iRacing Series race, meaning he was the lone driver to do the quadruple. Unprecedented!

Hill exited the iRacing race early and finished 39th, while FlipSid3 Tactics teammate Ryan Luza had slightly better luck, winning the race.

 

NASCAR Heat World Challenge @ The Glen

With two weeks before the NASCAR Heat World Challenge World Finals, NASCAR Heat racers will show off their road course prowess this week at Watkins Glen International using NASCAR Xfinity Series-style cars.

Plus, 704 Games is giving away prizes to random participants, even if you’re no road-course ringer.

Last week’s fastest racers at Eldora placed themselves into the World Finals.

Xbox:

  1. CURSEDLOBSTER40
  2. REDDOT MODZXX
  3. EDRL TWISTED
  4. STERLOOOOOO
  5. CGM X ROSE

PS4:

  1. AJT_17
  2. CHARLIESUPERD059
  3. X_HYP3R_X69
  4. HEADLINE_22
  5. SCOUTBONK18

 

eNASCAR Heat Pro League Preparation Continues

With the draft in the books, drivers and teams continue to prepare for the launch of the eNASCAR Heat Pro League.

 

iRacing Paint Scheme of the Week

Sometimes, you just want to stay out of trouble. Dan DeNayer assembled this very clever and eye-catching “Don’t Wreck Me” car to warn competitors to steer clear. Does it work? Maybe.

 

Video of the Week

Bobby Zalenski went for a wild ride on the final lap of Tuesday’s eNASCAR PEAK Antifreeze iRacing Series race. Just how insane was it?

Well, iRacing’s video editors may have embellished a tiny bit what happened when Zalenski’s Joe Gibbs Racing machine was launched into the air when racing for a top-10 finish at Texas.

Posted on by Staff Report

Joe Gibbs Racing announced Monday the newest addition to its NASCAR Xfinity Series team as Harrison Burton will join the organization for eight races in the No. 18 Toyota, starting in this weekend’s Alsco 300 at Bristol Motor Speedway.

RELATED: Full Bristol weekend schedule

Burton is currently running full time in the No. 18 Toyota for Kyle Busch Motorsports in the NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series. This is the NASCAR NEXT alum’s first full season of Gander Trucks competition, and he has already produced a top-five finish at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and a top-10 finish at Atlanta Motor Speedway.

Sponsorship for Burton’s efforts will come from DEX Imaging. The JGR No. 18 Supra team has already scored three Xfinity Series wins this season, with Kyle Busch at the wheel.

“I am so pumped to be going to a team that has had so many accomplishments, and great drivers to look up to as I continue to grow in my racing career,” Burton said as part of a news release provided by the team. “I am really grateful for this opportunity.”

Not only will the 18-year-old Burton run double duty in Xfinity and Gander Trucks, but he also competes in the ARCA Racing Series, where he won the Lucas Oil 200 in February at Daytona International Speedway.

Leading up to Burton’s start in the NASCAR national series, he made history in 2014 by being the youngest Division I driver to win in the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series. A year later, he became the youngest to compete in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series West (15 years, eight days old).

Burton is the son of former Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series driver Jeff Burton and nephew of 2002 Daytona 500 Champion, Ward Burton.

Posted on by Staff Report

Driver Austin Wayne Self has been indefinitely suspended from NASCAR for violating the sanctioning body’s substance abuse policy, NASCAR announced Monday.

Self was found to have violated Section 12.1 (actions detrimental to stock-car racing) and Section 19 (NASCAR’s substance abuse policy) of the 2019 NASCAR Rule Book, according to the NASCAR penalty report.

Self has made 66 career starts in the NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series from 2016-19, including three this season. He has one career top-five finish and five career top 10s, including a ninth-place run in this year’s season-opening race at Daytona International Speedway driving the AM Racing No. 22 Chevrolet.

Self, 23, must complete the NASCAR Road to Recovery program before reinstatement.

AM Racing — the Gander Trucks organization owned by Self’s father, Tim — issued a statement after Monday’s penalty news.

“AM Racing respects NASCAR’s decision and will follow their direction,” AM Racing’s statement read. “We expect Austin Wayne Self to return to the seat as quickly as possible. AM Racing will continue to operate as normal with a determination of a driver lineup set in the coming weeks. We expect to emerge from this challenge as a stronger team.”

Self issued a statement from his personal Twitter account Tuesday, a day after the penalty was announced.

Posted on by Staff Report

NASCAR fined John Klausmeier, the crew chief for the No. 10 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford, $10,000 for a lug nut not properly installed following Sunday’s O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 at Texas Motor Speedway.

RELATED: Full results from Texas

Aric Almirola drove the No. 10 Ford to a seventh-place finish as SHR placed all four of its cars in the top 10. It was also Almirola’s sixth top-10 finish in seven Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series races this season.

Posted on by Staff Report

It had been a while since Ron Silk was able to celebrate in Victory Lane.

For the first time in just under three years, the 2011 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour champion is back at the top of his game following a victory at South Boston Speedway on Saturday.

Even though Silk won, the South Boston 150 was filled with storylines — including a near perfect performance by Burt Myers, a return of Chase Dowling to the podium and a track surface that had fans on the edge of their seats for the entire distance.

SOUTH BOSTON 150: Race Results | Race Recap | Photo Gallery

Silk Takes The Checkered Flag Again

It may have been awhile, but Ron Silk looked like he was back in prime form Saturday.

After pitting for tires, he charged through the field and was beginning to inch closer to Myers, who was the leader inside the final 50 laps. When Walter Sutcliffe spun in turn four with 24 laps to go, Silk was lined up to the bottom for the restart — but the bottom didn’t seem like the preferred groove for much of the day.

However, as the field rolled off turn two, it was Silk edging out from Myers — and eventually pulling away. It was the 11th career win for the former series champion and first since his victory at the New London-Waterford Speedbowl in 2016. It was just his second win in his last seven years.

“When I won back in 2016, I ran the rest of that year, but I only ran three or four times in 2017,” Silk said. “The guys have been working hard and building towards this, getting better and better. You just have to be in contention enough times and your time comes.”

Even though he has just 14 starts with Kevin Stuart Motorsports, the experience they have as a team is growing constantly, and their setups have been close each time they hit the track. Previous to the victory, Silk had finished inside the top-10 nine times in the 14 races.

“It’s great. They are very easy-going guys that work hard on the car,” Silk said. “I’ve enjoyed my time with them and hopefully we can have quite a long time together.”

For now, the plan is hopefully to run the entire Whelen Modified Tour slate, which will see Silk return to Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park next — a Connecticut oval that he has four wins at in his 49 starts.

“We came to Myrtle Beach and South Boston and we figured we would go to those two and see how we did because they were the furthest away,”  Silk said. “If we are running well and competitive, the plan is to go to them all. If we get to a point where we are struggling, we will take some time to regroup. But hopefully we can build off of this.”

Dowling Impresses With Tomaino Team

You may have seen the famed No. 99 Jamie Tomaino Modified in the race on Saturday, but it wasn’t the Whelen Modified Tour veteran piloting the car. Instead, it was 21-year-old Chase Dowling who made his first start of the season.

Kyle Bonsignore, driver of the #22 Chalew Performance / Snap-On Tools Toyota, races Chase Dowling, driver of the #99 S&S Asphalt Paving Chevrolet, during the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour South Boston 150 on March 30, 2019 at South Boston Speedway in South Boston, Virginia.

Dowling, who finished second in the championship point standings last year, was without a ride when Rob Fuller and LFR Chassis decided they weren’t going to run the full slate. After spending the early portion of the winter searching for a seat behind the wheel, Dowling pounced on an opportunity to pair up with Tomaino — who has 622 career series starts.

At least for now, the decision to scale back and run part-time with emphasis on select events is working. He ran at the front of the field for much of the distance and passed Burt Myers on a late restart to seal a second-place finish.

“Originally we came to this race today to shake the car down for Stafford, we really want to go there and do our best,” Dowling said. “But I was pretty happy with this for being a brand new car. We had a fluent day. It’s been really fun to be partnering up with Jamie.”

The relationship between Dowling, a rising star of NASCAR’s Modified ranks, and Tomaino, a polished veteran, is one that seems to be growing quickly. The age gap between the two? Forty-one years.

MORE ON SHORT TRACK SCENE: Tommy Catalano ‘Gets Greedy’ in Competitive South Boston Appearance

“When we are in the shop, it brings the fun out in racing. He’s in there telling jokes from back in the day about how hard these guys used to work back then,” Dowling said. “They used to run almost 100 times a year. Having the experience, knowledge and not being stressed out, it really brings out the fun.”

Dowling and Tomaino’s plans will include running the three races at Stafford Motor Speedway, a place where Dowling cut his teeth racing Modifieds. They are also planning to run the two races at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

Burt Myers Comes Oh-So-Close

Experience was paying off in a big way for Burt Myers. Until the caution flew in the final laps.

Myers, who started seventh, ran inside the top-10 for the early stages of the race and positioned himself to attempt a tire strategy unlike most others. Pitting later in the race and trying to blast through the field on the freshest tires seemed like a concrete plan.

Sure, a few cautions went in the air during his 73 laps at the front of the field, but a longer green flag run from lap 90 to 125 set him and his Eddie Harvey team up to make a crucial decision. Give up the lead and try to rush through traffic on a tight, .4-mile oval with just 20 laps to go?

The answer was no.

“We really were going to come in with 25 to go,” Myers told Short Track Scene. “We were talking on the radio and didn‘t realize that pit road had opened. We kind of made our own bed there. Had we not had those last couple of cautions, I think we still had them beat. It is what it is. There is nothing to hang our head about.”

He was eventually passed by Silk on the restart, and a few others, but settling for fifth was the second best effort in Whelen Modified Tour action for Myers. The Walnut Cove, North Carolina, driver is a nine-time champion at Bowman Gray Stadium in North Carolina and a former two-time Whelen Southern Modified Tour champion, and had previous starts at South Boston in Whelen Southern Modified Tour action.

RELATED: Tommy Catalano Scores First Career Pole at South Boston

But, after a repave of the track, Myers felt like the advantage might not even have been there anymore.

“It might have South Boston on the wall, but this is not South Boston,” he said. “As the race got going, you felt some of the characteristics of South Boston where you can lean on your right front, come in the gas early, but not hard to let the car roll.”

“I think the things that helped me a little bit was how it bottlenecks coming off of the corner. I was able to pin some cars down under lapped cars. Maybe that was some experience of racing here before, but it was a whole different place. I sure did love it.”

Track Surface Puts On A Show

The stands were packed for Saturday’s South Boston 150, and with the way the facility is taken care of, there was no surprise in that. After a repave just a short few years ago, Whelen Modified Tour drivers tested prior to the race, and many thought the surface and track had a similar feeling to Bristol Motor Speedway — a place where drivers are nearly flat-out on the edge. The race itself showed that.

In the morning driver’s meeting, Whelen Modified Tour Series Director Jimmy Wilson told teams he was hoping to have them take some laps on the top groove in practice to put some rubber down. A few teams did — and the top groove actually became the preferred lane for a bit at the end of the race.

“After our pit stop, we made the top work really well, I saw Burt was running up there,” Silk said. “When you went out on a new set of tires, you were on edge. Once the race went on and the tires wore out, it was comfortable. The race was great. Obviously they put a lot of hard work and money into this track, so I hope this is a place we can keep coming.”

Tire wear didn’t seem to matter that much, as Myers never pitted for fresh rubber, and although he did drop back at the end, he was able to lead 73 laps at the front while some others behind him had fresh tires.

Up Next

Whelen Modified Tour teams will have no chance to rest, as the series headlines the 45th annual Icebreaker weekend at Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park, on Sunday, April 7.

Doug Coby, driver of the #2 Mayhew Tools Chevrolet, and Patrick Emerling, driver of the #07 Sahlens Chevrolet, lead Timmy Solomito, driver of the #16 RB Ent Ford, and Blake Barney, driver of the #14 Atlantic Sprinkler Chevrolet, during the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour South Boston 150 on March 30, 2019 at South Boston Speedway in South Boston, Virginia.

Posted on by Zack Albert

NASCAR’s top competition official said Monday that the sanctioning body is exploring a return to single-car qualifying for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series at certain tracks.

Steve O’Donnell, NASCAR Executive Vice President and Chief Racing Development Officer, made the remarks as part of his regular Monday morning appearance on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. His comments came after a muddled qualifying session Friday at Texas Motor Speedway.

RELATED: Fabian: We’ll take whatever steps we have to

“The optics of what’s taking place with the teams is not tenable for us with the fans, so we’re going to look at every option, including the possibility of going to single-car qualifying,” O’Donnell told SiriusXM. “The reason we haven’t is that’s on the teams. That’s parts and pieces. We’ve tried to be as efficient as possible going to this method for qualifying, but we’re definitely going to look at it and see what we can do. We’ve got a couple of weeks to do that, but we’ll make adjustments if needed.”

NASCAR introduced group qualifying for its national series on every track ahead of the 2014 season; road-course group qualifying debuted the previous year. Previously, qualifying was conducted in single-car, single-round sessions against the clock.

The advent of a new higher-downforce, lower-horsepower rules package for NASCAR’s top series this season has placed a premium on the aerodynamic draft at intermediate-sized tracks. That’s led to gamesmanship in Busch Pole Qualifying, with teams attempting to funnel off pit road all at once, jockeying for parking spots and the best aero positioning.

NASCAR officials put harsher penalties in place last week to deter teams from waiting until the waning moments of qualifying rounds to make their attempts. Teams still pushed the limits of the qualifying session, leading to logjams and blocking at the pit-road exit.

“I think it’s ridiculous, candidly,” O’Donnell said. “I mean, I know the drivers did not like this qualifying that we were going to do before the season, so part of you says, ‘Are we doing this on purpose to get rid of it?,’ but I know it can be done. I know we have the best drivers in the world who can figure it out and the crew chiefs, but we seem to want to outdo each other, and that results in sitting on pit road, so again that’ll have to be on us.

“We’ll react to it. We’ll make the right call and we’ll get it right. We don’t want to see cars sitting on pit road for eight minutes. That’s not NASCAR racing, and we’ll make the fix there.”

Such a move would not be unprecedented. Competition officials reverted to single-car qualifying runs at superspeedways in Daytona and Talladega in March 2015 as a safety measure.

The next Monster Energy Series race with the same qualifying format and rules — 550 target horsepower, plus ducts as part of the aero package — as last weekend’s event at Texas is scheduled May 11 at Kansas Speedway.

Posted on by Staff Report

FORT WORTH, Texas — Stewart-Haas Racing enjoyed its best results of 2019 at Texas Motor Speedway.

For the second race this season — and the second time on an intermediate track — all four SHR Fords finished in the top 10.

Clint Bowyer led the charge with a second-place finish, his first top-five result since Atlanta Motor Speedway five weeks ago.

“We had to unclog ourselves,” said Bowyer after starting 25th. “Once we unclogged ourselves, we were really good.

“Our Mustangs were fast all weekend long. Took a while for our Mustang to get good. This Rush Trucks Center Cummins car, to be honest, was a little off all weekend long. I was pretty nervous coming into the race. Mike (Bugarewicz, crew chief) and everybody made some good adjustments, and then (you) lean on your teammates.”

RELATED: Race results

SHR placed two drivers on the podium. Daniel Suarez led nine laps before finishing a season-best third place.

“I’m happy,” Suarez said. “The entire weekend was strong for us. We had the speed all weekend long. I feel like we had for sure a top-five car and at times probably the best car out there on the long run.

“We were just trying to find the right balance back and forth, but I’m just very proud of everyone at Stewart-Haas Racing and Ford Performance, and especially from the 41 guys. They worked extremely hard to bring a good piece for Texas and we did it, so I’m grateful.”

Aric Almirola and Kevin Harvick finished seventh and eighth, respectively. With his sixth-consecutive top-10 finish, Harvick moved up to third in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup standings. He trails leader Kyle Busch by 33 points.

Posted on by Staff Report

FORT WORTH, Texas — Team Penske suffered through a calamity of errors at Texas Motor Speedway on Sunday.

After a stellar start to the season, each of the three Team Penske Ford Mustangs ended up on pit road with hoods up throughout the course of the O’Reilly Auto Parts 500.

RELATED: Race results

Brad Keselowski, who entered the weekend with two wins to his credit, was the first casualty on Lap 90. The team took the car to the garage for repairs.

“Something broke out of nowhere,” Keselowski said. “We weren’t going very fast or anything and something in the back of the car broke and it won’t go.”

Keselowski returned to the track on Lap 148 and used the remaining 186 circuits as a test with his car as he was out of contention. He finished 36th.

Joey Logano led eight laps and won the first stage before the hood on the No. 22 Team Penske Ford Mustang became loose in the second stage. He pitted on Lap 172 while pit road was still closed. Logano dropped to 20th, one lap down when the race restarted on Lap 178.

“Something came apart in the bracing underneath the hood, I believe, and then the hood started flaring all over the place,” said Logano, who finished 17th. “The hood was gonna blow off the car if we didn’t get a caution, so we were able to fix it but went down a lap and there weren’t enough cautions to ever get the lucky dog.

“We won a stage. I was proud of the speed that was in the car. Our car was capable of winning the race.”

Ryan Blaney was the last Penske racer to experience an issue — and his issue was terminal. Blaney had led 45 laps when his No. 12 Ford started overheating.

“A part broke off and leaked all the water out, so that’s the way it goes,” Blaney said. “It just seems that’s the way this season is going. We’ve had a shot to win pretty much every race and something happens.

“That’s getting old, but the car is fast. That’s the bright side, but I’m kind of tired of looking at the bright side. I want to actually start finishing where we should. It’s just one of those days.”