Brad Keselowski led all 130 laps of Stage 2 to capture his second stage win at Martinsville Speedway in Sunday’s STP 500.
Keselowski, who has one Martinsville win in his career, collected his second stage win of the season in winning his second stage of the day. He led 254 of the first 260 laps.
Ryan Blaney made a move around Chase Elliott late in the stage to finish second in the stage. Elliott dropped in the final laps to fourth as Denny Hamlin made a move around him for third.
The stage was punctuated by one early caution when the yellow flag came out on Lap 145 for debris on the track — an axle from the No. 15 of Ross Chastain.
Brad Keselowski took the lead from pole-sitter and Team Penske teammate Joey Logano six laps into the STP 500 and held on at Martinsville Speedway for his first stage win of the season.
Keselowski led 124 of the first 130 laps of Stage 1 on Sunday.
Chase Elliott was second in the stage in his No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, finishing just 0.113 seconds behind Keselowski as he closed the gap quickly in the waning laps of the stage.
Defending race winner Clint Bowyer was sixth in the stage, while pole-sitter Logano finished seventh.
The caution came out on Lap 64 when the right front tire of No. 34 Michael McDowell went down and he slammed into the wall coming out of Turn 4.
See where your favorite driver will pit for the STP 500 on Sunday at Martinsville Speedway (2 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
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Martinsville’s most recent winner Joey Logano will start from the pole position for Sunday’s STP 500 (2 p.m. ET, FS1/MRN/SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Does he merit a spot in your lineup? We’ve dissected the numbers to offer a suggested lineup worthy of your Fantasy Live consideration as you make roster decisions.
The majority of my lineup will remain the same. but I made two switches after watching practice and qualifying and looking at long-run speed; I’m taking out Brad Keselowski and Kyle Busch and substituting Aric Almirola and Joey Logano. The Team Penske fleet, considered a favorable group for this weekend, has not put up the dominant speeds that I expected heading into the weekend. Because of its strength at other tracks on the circuit and early handle on the 2019 rules package, I’m opting to save the majority of their drivers this weekend. The exception is Logano, who won the Busch Pole Award for Sunday’s event. Logano’s Martinsville history is strong — he’s finished four of the last five races in the top 10, including a win last fall — but what swayed me was his pit stall selection and starting spot, as that No. 1 pit stall is a valuable asset that will aid him on a tricky pit road.
I put Logano in my lineup in place of Kyle Busch after Saturday’s qualifying session; while Busch was quick in practice and has a gleaming recent history at Martinsville, his struggles in qualifying that resulted in a 14th-place starting position worried me. With the race being impounded, crew chief Adam Stevens won’t be able to make any more changes on the No. 18 before Sunday’s race, leaving the slightest bit of risk that I’m not willing to take with a driver as strong week-to-week as Busch.
Aric Almirola was a surprise surge this weekend; the No. 10 driver was second-fastest on the 10-lap average chart (behind Kyle Busch) in opening practice and also posted the second-quickest lap in that session. While Almirola’s entire body of work at Martinsville hasn’t been his most impressive (he has an average finish of 21.4 at “The Paperclip”) his Martinsville finishes in Stewart-Haas Racing equipment are better — he notched 14th- and 11th-place finishes there in 2018. There’s something to be said for Almirola’s current streak, too; he’s finished the past four races in the top 10, leading multiple laps in three of four of them. His front row starting spot confirmed my early decision to slide the No. 10 in my lineup.
While he’s never won on a short track, Martin Truex Jr. has looked fast this weekend, topping the 10-lap average chart in final practice. He was feet away from his first short-track win last fall at Martinsville when Logano bumped him for the victory, leaving redemption on the table for the No. 19 this weekend. He earns a spot in my Fantasy Live lineup. I’m also taking last year’s spring winner at the 0.526-mile track, Clint Bowyer, who topped opening practice and has possessed good long-run speed this weekend.
Rounding out my lineup is the No. 9 of Elliott and the No. 11 of Denny Hamlin. Elliott led final practice at “The Paperclip” and boasts a solid starting spot (eighth) and has put up strong showing at Martinsville in the past. (Remember his run-in with Hamlin in 2017?) Speaking of which — five-time Martinsville winner Hamlin will also be in my lineup. The No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing driver ranked sixth on the 10-lap average charts for both practice sessions and owns the second-best average running position at Martinsville. The 2019 Daytona 500 champ also paced the field in the opening two rounds of qualifying and looks like he could be a factor for the win Sunday.
Each week in this space, we’ll also highlight two Props Challenge items for players.
1. O/U 11.5 drivers score stage points on Sunday? While we only saw 10 drivers nab stage points in last year’s spring race, the chances of only 12 drivers earning stage points is unlikely. With 20 spots for points in Stages 1 and 2, only 12 drivers earning stage points implies that only two new drivers — ones who didn’t earn points in Stage 1 — will earn points in Stage 2. Too much of a risk for me, so I’m taking the OVER here.
2. O/U 4.5 Ford drivers finish in the top 10 at Martinsville. While I think Ford drivers like Joey Logano, Aric Almirola, Brad Keselowski, Clint Bowyer and Kevin Harvick are definitely capable of running in the top 10 Sunday, I also think non-Fords like Kyle Busch, Chase Elliott, Martin Truex Jr., Denny Hamlin and even Jimmie Johnson or JTG Daugherty drivers could make it into the top 10 by the end of a chaotic Martinsville race. If the line was 3.5, I’d take the OVER. But it’s not, so I’m going UNDER as a safer bet.
MARTINSVILLE, Va. — The No. 24 Chevrolet of driver William Byron failed pre-race inspection Sunday morning at Martinsville Speedway, dropping the car to the bottom of the starting lineup for Sunday’s STP 500 (2 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM).
After the inspection failure for mechanical measurements, NASCAR officials disallowed the car’s speed posted in Saturday’s Busch Pole Qualifying session. Byron was scheduled to take the green flag sixth in Sunday’s 500-lapper, but instead will start 34th.
The right side of Byron’s car was damaged in Saturday’s opening practice when it hit the wall, and he took it to the garage for repairs. Byron’s car passed inspection on its second time through.
Joey Logano won the provisional Busch Pole in Saturday’s qualifying session, marking his fifth pole position at the .526-mile track since 2015. His Team Penske No. 22 Ford was all clear in its pass through the inspection stations.
The No. 77 Spire Motorsports Chevrolet driven by D.J. Kennington also failed the Optical Scanning Station and will start 35th. Kennington qualified 34th on Saturday. The No. 52 Rick Ware Racing Chevrolet of Jeb Burton was the third car marked as TD (time disallowed) on the official lineup sheet, and he will start 36th.
MARTINSVILLE, Va. — It was a happy ending at Martinsville Speedway on Saturday for Ben Rhodes, who finished second in the No. 99 ThorSport Racing Ford after starting 16th in the TruNorth Global 250. That kind of rebound was just what the doctor ordered for the young team in its fourth race of the 2019 NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series season.
Rhodes, who is competing in his fourth full-time season, had been off to a slow start, with a fifth-place showing in Atlanta sandwiched by finishes of 14th in Daytona and 25th in Las Vegas.
Saturday’s runner-up finish marked the start of something good, according to 22-year-old Rhodes.
“This was just a solid rebound to get everybody pumped up and ready to attack the rest of the season,” he said.
But if it wasn’t for the work of the No. 99 pit crew, Rhodes wasn’t “quite sure that we’d get a finish like that after qualifying so bad.”
“My pit crew has done an amazing job,” he said. “I give a lot of credit to the guys on the pit box and the pit crew for getting me my spots today. We came in, they made a really good call and before I knew it I was up front — thanks to them.”
Rhodes’ ThorSport team is made up of guys primarily in their early to late 20s, working together for the first time. Although Rhodes finished fifth in the standings last season and notched his second career victory, it wasn’t a seamless transition to this season.
“I mean, I’m 22, my engineer is 24 and my spotter is, like, 27,” Rhodes said. “This is an all new team, new trucks, everything is different. I feel like we’re logging notes and we’re getting better with our setups as we go. I know what we’ve got to do to get better — it’s just a matter of doing it.”
The Truck Series heads to Texas Motor Speedway next weekend and the momentum of back-to-back race weekends is something that the No. 99 team is eager to capitalize on.
“It makes a difference,” Rhodes said. “Running back-to-back with a young team like mine, we’re all new together, we have to keep this momentum going and that’s what I’m happy about with this finish.”
MARTINSVILLE, Va. – With surgical efficiency, Joey Logano continued his domination of knockout qualifying at Martinsville Speedway.
Saving his car and his tires for the final round of Saturday’s time trials at the .526-mile short track, Logano won the pole for Sunday’s STP 500 (2 p.m. ET on FS1, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) with a lap at 97.830 mph (19.356 seconds). (The results of Logano’s pole win were confirmed when the No. 22 passed Sunday morning inspection.)
Driving the No. 22 Team Penske Ford, Logano edged Stewart-Haas Racing Ford driver Aric Almirola (97.643 mph) for the top starting spot by .037 seconds. Brad Keselowski (97.458 mph) qualified third, followed by Kevin Harvick (97.382 mph), as Ford drivers captured the top four positions on the grid.
The Busch Pole Award was Logano’s first of the season, his fifth at Martinsville and the 21st of his career. Logano ran only three laps total in the first two rounds, allowing him to save his tires for a four-lap run in the final round. His last lap was his fastest.
“It’s awesome to get another pole and hopefully we can top it off with another win,” said Logano, who used a victory in last year’s Playoff race at Martinsville as a springboard to the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series championship. “This is a fun race. I always look forward to coming up here.”
Logano has earned his five of the last seven contested poles at Martinsville over a nine-race span, with two of the qualifying sessions canceled because of adverse weather.
All told, Fords claimed six of the top 12 starting positions, including Team Penske drivers Logano and Keselowski and all four Stewart-Haas Racing drivers — Almirola, Harvick, Daniel Suarez (ninth) and Clint Bowyer (10th). In contrast to Logano’s economical runs, Bowyer had 16 laps on his tires at the end of the final round.
Five-time Martinsville winner Denny Hamlin paced the first two rounds but had to settle for fifth when the starting order for the top 12 drivers was decided. Hamlin and Martin Truex Jr. (eighth) were the only Toyota drivers to make the final round.
William Byron was sixth fastest in the money round, but his car failed pre-race inspection, his time disallowed, and he will start 34th instead. That moved Chip Ganassi Racing’s Kyle Larson up to sixth as the top Chevrolet ahead of Hendrick Motorsports drivers Chase Elliott (seventh) and Jimmie Johnson (11th), who leads active drivers with nine victories at the paperclip-shaped track.
Trying for his third straight Cup win on Sunday — not to mention a weekend sweep of the Martinsville races — Saturday’s NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series victor Kyle Busch will start 13th in the STP 500.
“Too loose — just didn’t have it with track conditions today,” said Busch, who opted not to make a mock qualifying run during practice.
MARTINSVILLE, Va. – A week after locking up his 200th NASCAR national series victory at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California, Kyle Busch took the first step toward the next century mark.
Holding off challenges from Ross Chastain and runner-up Ben Rhodes, Busch survived a late restart in winning Saturday’s TruNorth Global 250 NASCAR Gander Outdoors Truck Series race at Martinsville Speedway.
The race ended under a last-lap caution, after Reid Wilson’s No. 44 Chevrolet spun in Turn 4 and nosed toward the inside wall. Rhodes was running second when the yellow flag waved, with reigning series champion Brett Moffitt third and Chastain fourth.
The victory was Busch’s second at the .526-mile short track in his own Kyle Busch Motorsports Toyota. Busch has won each of his three starts this season and now has 54 victories in Trucks, extending his series record.
“These guys worked really, really hard this weekend,” Busch said of crew chief Rudy Fugle and the No. 51 team. “We unloaded, and I didn’t like where we were at. We made wholesale changes to this thing all weekend long and just tried to keep improving this Cessna Beechcraft Tundra and make it faster. …
“All these guys kept trying to make it turn the center (of the corner) better. At Martinsville, you have to turn the center without getting too loose in or too loose off. … And we had enough tire at the end to hold them all off.”
Busch led 174 of the 250 laps, including the final 66. He passed Chastain for the top spot on Lap 185 and held it the rest of the way through four subsequent cautions before the final restart with three circuits remaining.
“Today we just kind of let the race play out and come to us,” Busch said.
Rhodes had a second-place car but not a race winner — and he knew it.
“It was a good day at Martinsville,” Rhodes conceded. “It was the best finish I’ve had here yet. I was surprised — qualifying 16th. We had a fast Ford F150, but we just needed a little more. We got beat by the best in the business. He knows what he’s doing here.
“It was fun following him and seeing how he was pacing himself. That’s something I’ve struggled with in the past. … Anytime you restart next to that guy, I try to log it in my memory banks so I can just try and get him next time.”
Pole winner Stewart Friesen finished fifth after leading 19 laps, third most behind Busch and Chastain (53). Myatt Snider, Grant Enfinger, Matt Crafton, Johnny Sauter and Bubba Wallace completed the top 10.
French Canadian driver Raphael Lessard finished 14th in his first start in the Truck Series.
MARTINSVILLE, Va. — Joey Logano offers understanding, but no apologies.
After he applied the bumper to Martin Truex Jr.’s Toyota in the final corner of last year’s fall race at Martinsville Speedway, Logano edged past Truex for the race victory and a guaranteed berth in the Championship 4 event at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
In that season finale, Logano went on to win his first Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series title.
Logano understood why Truex was upset at being denied his first short-track win on the final lap. But Logano wasn’t sorry.
Given that the series is returning to Martinsville this weekend for the first time since last November’s memorable race, it was inevitable that the subject of the bump-and-run would come up.
“I mean, it’s in the past at this point,” Logano said. “But I think at that point Martin texted me and, like I told you guys, he was pretty clear that he was frustrated with the move. I understood, and I think he understood why I had to do it, and it kind of played out and worked out, but my move to him was that I didn’t wreck you. I gave the old bump-and-run.
“That happened 15 times a race here at Martinsville, and that one was just a little more popular. I think there’s a fine line. You don’t want to straight out bump somebody on purpose, but you also, when it comes down to the end of the race like that and there’s that much on the line … that was our shot to win a championship.
“So I think every driver has a line that they are OK with and that you can go to sleep at the end of the night and say, ‘I did what I had to do and I’m all right with it,’ and if it happened to me, you have to be OK with that as well. I think that was the situation for me that I was trying to explain to him.”
MARTINSVILLE, Va. — Perhaps the most uncomfortable feeling at any race track comes from stabbing the brakes and feeling the pedal sink to the floorboard.
That’s what happened to Corey LaJoie, whose No. 32 GoFas Racing Ford crashed hard into the Turn 1 wall after his brakes failed in Saturday’s opening Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series practice at Martinsville Speedway.
The car suffered extensive front-end damage, leaving the right front tire barely rolling at a cockeyed angle as LaJoie nursed the car back to pit road.
“I’ll tell you, there is no coffee strong enough that will wake you up like losing brakes into Turn 1 at Martinsville,” LaJoie said after the crash. “It’s not a good feeling, losing brakes. It had like a half-pedal, and then it felt like it blew through the seal or something.
“It’s unfortunate, because small teams like ours, we don’t really bring a backup (car) that’s fully ready to go, so my guys have a lot of work ahead of them. I’ll probably pitch in and help a little bit, but, obviously, our backup is not going to be as good as the car that we choose and bring as our primary.”
Chase Elliott led a Hendrick Motorsports sweep in Saturday’s final Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series practice at Martinsville Speedway, his No. 9 Chevrolet posting a fast lap of 97.543 mph.
A pair of Elliott’s Hendrick Motorsports teammates also rounded out the top three: Alex Bowman was second-quickest in the No. 88 (96.627 mph), while nine-time Martinsville winner Jimmie Johnson laid down a 96.612-mph lap to rank third on the speed charts. Hendrick Motorsports has 24 wins at Martinsville Speedway, the most by one team at a single track in NASCAR history. Johnson most recently won for the organization at “The Paperclip” in fall 2016, the same year he won the series championship.
Austin Dillon became the fourth Chevrolet to post a top-five speed in the final session, his No. 3 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet notching the fourth spot with a 96.548-mph lap. Paul Menard’s No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford completed the top five (96.538 mph).
Reigning race winner Clint Bowyer, who paced Saturday’s opening session, was 12th-quickest in final practice.
Saturday’s final practice ended under caution, as Cody Ware hit the wall hard in his No. 51.
The Monster Energy Series returns to the track for Busch Pole Qualifying at 5:10 p.m. ET on FS1.
PRACTICE 1
Defending winner Clint Bowyer returned to the top of the leaderboard at Martinsville Speedway in Saturday’s opening Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series practice. Bowyer’s No. 14 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford notched a fast lap of 97.674 mph around “The Paperclip.”
He was joined in the top three by two of his Stewart-Haas Racing teammates, as Daniel Suarez (97.257 mph) and Aric Almirola (97.003 mph) ranked second- and third-quickest, respectively.
Martin Truex Jr., who is still searching for his first career short-track victory, came up fourth in the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota (96.939 mph), while Phoenix and Auto Club winner Kyle Busch rounded out the top five in his No. 18 Toyota (96.884 mph).
Martinsville’s most recent winner Joey Logano — who won the series’ Playoff trip to the short track in 2018 — was eighth-fastest.
William Byron hit the wall early, sustaining right-front fender damage on his No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet. He headed to the garage afterward.
Corey LaJoie brought out a caution midway through practice when his No. 32 Go Fas Racing Ford got into the wall. LaJoie said the team was going to a backup car for Sunday’s race.
“That just sucks because we were making it really good,” LaJoie said. “I think we were 20th at the time, but I’ll tell you there is no coffee strong enough that will wake you up like losing brakes into Turn 1 at Martinsville. It’s not a good feeling losing brakes. It had like a half-pedal and then it felt like it blew through the seal or something. It’s unfortunate because small teams like ours we don’t really bring a backup that’s fully ready to go, so my guys have a lot of work ahead of them. I’ll probably pitch in and help a little bit, but, obviously, our backup is not gonna be as good as the car that we choose and bring as our primary.”
The No. 34 of Michael McDowell served a 15-minute penalty at the end of practice for multiple pre-race inspection failures last weekend at Auto Club Speedway.
