Top 10 consecutive-lap averages for Chicagoland

Posted on September 16, 2017September 16, 2017 by Staff Report

Pos	Car	Driver	From Lap	To Lap	Avg Speed
1	4	Kevin Harvick (P)	1	10	175.784
2	18	Kyle Busch (P)	1	10	175.667
3	24	Chase Elliott (P)	1	10	175.363
4	78	Martin Truex Jr. (P)	1	10	175.119
5	11	Denny Hamlin (P)	1	10	174.739
6	3	Austin Dillon (P)	1	10	174.717
7	22	Joey Logano	1	10	174.548
8	2	Brad Keselowski (P)	1	10	174.534
9	14	Clint Bowyer	1	10	174.517
10	42	Kyle Larson (P)	1	10	174.397
11	19	Daniel Suarez #	1	10	173.903
12	77	Erik Jones #	1	10	173.620
13	1	Jamie McMurray (P)	1	10	173.572
14	41	Kurt Busch (P)	1	10	173.293
15	43	Aric Almirola	1	10	172.617
16	17	Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (P)	22	31	172.289
17	31	Ryan Newman (P)	16	25	172.255
18	13	Ty Dillon #	1	10	172.175
19	48	Jimmie Johnson (P)	9	18	171.998
20	10	Danica Patrick	25	34	171.493
21	95	Michael McDowell	1	10	171.415
22	47	AJ Allmendinger	15	24	171.188
23	27	Paul Menard	21	30	170.531
24	32	Matt DiBenedetto	11	20	170.245
25	34	Landon Cassill	19	28	169.357
26	33	Jeffrey Earnhardt	1	10	168.000

Practice 2 results

Pos	Car	Driver	From Lap	To Lap	Avg Speed
1	24	Chase Elliott (P)	1	10	176.416
2	2	Brad Keselowski (P)	1	10	176.303
3	20	Matt Kenseth (P)	1	10	175.846
4	31	Ryan Newman (P)	1	10	175.640
5	1	Jamie McMurray (P)	1	10	175.359
6	18	Kyle Busch (P)	11	20	175.215
7	3	Austin Dillon (P)	1	10	174.829
8	4	Kevin Harvick (P)	20	29	174.798
9	27	Paul Menard	1	10	174.131
10	43	Aric Almirola	1	10	174.035
11	41	Kurt Busch (P)	21	30	173.956
12	11	Denny Hamlin (P)	20	29	173.943
13	19	Daniel Suarez #	23	32	173.840
14	10	Danica Patrick	1	10	173.612
15	14	Clint Bowyer	9	18	173.221
16	17	Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (P)	19	28	172.149
17	13	Ty Dillon #	20	29	172.052
18	95	Michael McDowell	15	24	171.917

Practice 1 results

Pos	Car	Driver	From Lap	To Lap	Avg Speed
1	24	Chase Elliott (P)	6	15	175.347
2	32	Matt DiBenedetto	8	17	170.560

P — indicates Playoff eligible; # — indicates Sunoco Rookie of the Year candidate

Posted on September 16, 2017September 16, 2017 by Staff Report

See where your favorite Monster Energy Series driver will pit for Sunday’s Tales of the Turtles 400 at Chicagoland Speedway (3 p.m. ET, NBCSN, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).

RELATED: Starting lineup

Posted on September 16, 2017September 17, 2017 by Nascar

JOLIET, Ill. – Fast facts and figures ahead of the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs opener at Chicagoland Speedway.

At a Glance

What: Tales of the Turtles 400 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Race No. 27

Where: Chicagoland Speedway, 1.5-mile tri-oval in Joliet, Ill.

Green flag: 3:06 p.m. ET

TV/Radio: NBCSN, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR

Forecast: A 40 percent chance of showers/thunderstorms mainly after 1 p.m.; Mostly cloudy, high near 83; south wind around 5 mph. (NOAA.gov)

National anthem: Jim Cornelison

Grand Marshal: Greg Cipes, voice of Michelangelo character from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Honorary Starter: Mark Epstein, Senior VP Partner Marketing Nickelodeon

Race distance: 267 laps, 400 miles

Pit road speed: 45 mph

Caution car speed: 55 mph

Stage lengths: Stage 1 ends at lap 80; Stage 2 ends at lap 160; Final stage scheduled to end at lap 267.

Posted on September 16, 2017September 16, 2017 by Staff Report

Coors Light Pole winner Kyle Busch backed up his show of speed in Friday qualifying by leading Saturday’s final Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series final practice at Chicagoland Speedway.

Busch propelled the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 18 Toyota to a best lap of 180.252 mph in the 50-minute final session. He’ll lead the field to the green flag in Sunday’s Tales of the Turtles 400 (3 p.m. ET, NBCSN, MRN, SiriusXM), the first event in the 10-race Playoffs for NASCAR’s top division.

Austin Dillon posted the second-fastest lap at 179.438 mph in the Richard Childress Racing No. 3 Chevrolet. Brad Keselowski, who provoked a social-media war of words with Busch this weekend, was third-fastest (179.289) in the Team Penske No. 2 Ford.

Chase Elliott completed a sweep of the top four positions by Playoff-eligible drivers. Clint Bowyer rounded out the top five as the fastest driver ineligible for the championship. Playoff-qualified drivers took 11 of the top 13 spots.

A sizable number of time deductions impacted Monster Energy Series final practice (2 p.m. ET, NBCSN, NBC Sports App) as a result of multiple failed technical inspections from last week’s event at Richmond and Friday’s preliminaries at Chicagoland.

Five teams were forced to sit out 30 of the 50 minutes, including the playoff-eligible Hendrick Motorsports No. 48 Chevrolet of seven-time series champ Jimmie Johnson and the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 20 Toyota of Matt Kenseth. The other 30-minute holds were the No. 19 Toyota of rookie Daniel Suarez, the No. 77 Toyota of rookie Erik Jones and the No. 43 Ford of Aric Almirola.

Ten other teams have incurred 15-minute holds for final practice, including regular-season champion Truex Jr. The full list:

Stewart-Haas Racing No. 4 Ford of Kevin Harvick
Hendrick Motorsports No. 5 Chevrolet of Kasey Kahne
Germain Racing No. 13 Chevrolet of Ty Dillon
Team Penske No. 22 Ford of Joey Logano
GoFas Racing No. 32 Ford of Matt DiBenedetto
Stewart-Haas Racing No. 41 Ford of Kurt Busch
JTG-Daugherty Racing No. 47 Chevrolet of AJ Allmendinger
Furniture Row No. 78 Toyota of Martin Truex Jr.
Hendrick Motorsports No. 88 Chevrolet of Dale Earnhardt Jr.
Leavine Family Racing No. 95 Chevrolet of Michael McDowell

Truex tops in Saturday’s early practice

RELATED: Practice 2 results

Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Regular Season Champion Martin Truex Jr. led Saturday’s opening practice at Chicagoland Speedway, guiding his No. 78 Furniture Row Racing Toyota around the 1.5-mile track at 180.650 mph.

Truex Jr. led a group of NASCAR Playoffs drivers who dominated all but one spot in the top 10 on the speed chart.

Ryan Blaney was second in the No. 21 Wood Brothers Racing Ford at 179.802 mph.

Chase Elliott was third in the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet at 179.689 mph. Brad Keselowski in the No. 2 Team Penske Ford and Ryan Newman in the No. 31 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet rounded out the top five.

Aric Almirola, the only driver not in the Playoffs in the top 10, was sixth-fastest in the No. 43 Richard Petty Motorsports Ford.

Pole-sitter Kyle Busch, who topped Friday’s first practice, was 10th at 178.312 mph.

Posted on September 16, 2017September 16, 2017 by Nascar

JOLIET, Ill. – Ben Rhodes survived a pit road penalty and contact with his teammate to earn the final Playoff spot for NASCAR’s Camping World Truck Series here Friday night at Chicagoland Speedway.

The driver of the No. 27 Toyota for ThorSport Racing finished sixth in Friday’s TheHouse.com 225, a result that left him tied in the standings with fourth-place finisher Ryan Truex. But Rhodes had the edge with a tiebreaker (he had a season-best finish of second at Pocono while Truex had a best of third, also at Pocono), thus sending him into the three-round, seven-race playoff that will begin next weekend at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

“They said we were tied but I didn’t believe we had the (tiebreaker) point to get us through,” a still-unbelieving Rhodes said on pit road afterward. “I don’t even know what it is. They gave me the (playoff) hat and I said ‘Are you sure? I’m not putting that on until I see the official word.’

“I can’t believe it; I was kind of desperate out there for whatever we could get. All night long the race wasn’t going our way. We had a couple of pit road penalties. Ever since we unloaded here we struggled. We had to change our package several times and could just never get the truck to come to life for us.

“That kind of set a bad tone for us and then the 16 (of Truex) getting the pole, it seemed like everything was going wrong. We just managed the whole night; thank goodness we had the advantage we did.”

Six drivers were already assured spots in the Playoffs by virtue of having won one or more races this season, including Friday night’s winner Johnny Sauter. Other winners this season consisted of Kaz Grala, Christopher Bell, John Hunter Nemechek, Matt Crafton and Austin Cindric.

Chase Briscoe had a solid enough points advantage over the other non-winners to assure himself a spot in the playoffs.

Rhodes led Truex by only seven points and sat 31 ahead of Grant Enfinger prior to Friday’s race.

Those points gaps grew and shrunk throughout the course of the 150-lap race, with Truex holding the advantage after the completion of the second stage. Enfinger finished fifth, right between Truex and Rhodes. He needed to be ahead of both — much further ahead.

Rhodes had fallen behind when a tire violation during a pit stop on Lap 38 cost him track position. Later, on a restart, teammate Crafton slipped up the track and made contact, nearly cutting down a tire on the No. 27 Toyota. When Crafton spun on Lap 106, Rhodes hit pit road twice as his crew repaired the cosmetic damage.

In spite of the setbacks, Rhodes had more than enough truck and barely enough time to rally in the final stage.

“This was definitely our worst night as far as performance goes,” he said. “It couldn’t have come on a worse night; it stressed us all out.”

Truex posted his fourth top-five finish in his last five starts with the Hattori Racing Enterprises Toyota but needed one more spot to bump Rhodes from the Playoffs.

“We don’t have the speed those top three guys have is really what it comes down to,” Truex said. “My only shot was restarts, if I could get good restarts and get in front of them.

“But they just had so much more long run speed than we did. It sucks. We’re a top-five truck and we’re missing the playoffs. It’s frustrating.”

Posted on September 15, 2017September 16, 2017 by Reid Spencer

JOLIET, Ill. – Johnny Sauter served notice that he’s ready to make a spirited defense of his 2016 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series championship.

Ben Rhodes was happy just to squeak into the final NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Playoff berth — by the skin of his teeth.

Sauter passed regular-season champion Christopher Bell for the lead on Lap 123 of 150 and drove away to win Friday night’s TheHouse.com 225 by 2.005 seconds over Chase Briscoe, who passed Bell for second on Lap 136.

The race within a race between Rhodes and polesitter Ryan Truex was much closer. Fighting for the final position in the playoffs, Truex won the first 35-lap stage and finished fourth behind Bell at the checkered flag. Rhodes came home sixth and snagged the last Playoff berth on a tiebreaker.

With the Playoff spot decided by best regular-season finish, Rhodes won on the strength of his second-place run at Pocono Raceway, where he beat Truex to the finish line by a quarter of a second.

Sauter won for the first time at Chicagoland Speedway, the second time this season and the 15th time in 214 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series starts.

“This truck was unbelievable,” said Sauter, who stayed on the track during a caution late in the first stage and had to battle back through the field. “We had a great truck yesterday (in practice). I was worried with the Cup guys and the XFINITY guys here the track might change a little bit.

“We elected to try to win that first stage there, and we lost a lot of track position, had to fight to get it back. And then I had a horrible restart and lost a lot of track position again. This is what we needed. This is the momentum, the shot in the arm. … This thing was on rails the last run.”

Rhodes edged into the Playoffs despite a performance he considered sub-par. A violation for an uncontrolled tire during a pit stop under caution on Lap 38 sent him to the rear. Later in the race, Rhodes’ No. 27 Toyota developed a left rear tire rub after contact with the No. 88 Tundra of Matt Crafton.

But Rhodes persevered.

“Man, I still can’t believe it,” Rhodes said. “They gave me the hat (for playoff qualifiers), and I’m like, ‘Are you sure this is ours?’ We were tied, and we have the tiebreaker. I can’t believe it. The truck … all night we struggled ever since we unloaded.

“This has definitely our worst performance overall, and it couldn’t have come at a worse week to do it. But I’m glad we’re in, and overall, everything worked out for us.”

Truex expected a close battle for the last Playoff spot and was understandably disappointed to be on the short end of it.

“It’s tough, but it’s racing,” Truex said. “We did everything we could do aside from win. We just didn’t have the speed for the 29 (Briscoe) and the 21 (Sauter). I was good on restarts. I felt like that was my best shot, so I was really, really aggressive on restarts …

“I had a feeling it would come down to this. It’s been so close this whole year.”

Grant Enfinger, whose only path to the Playoff was a victory, came home fifth. Rhodes, John Hunter Nemechek, Noah Gragson,

Kaz Grala and Myatt Snider completed the top 10.

Briscoe, Nemechek, Grala, Crafton and Austin Cindric join Sauter, Bell and Rhodes on the Playoff grid.

Posted on September 15, 2017September 15, 2017 by Staff Report

The field is set and a regular-season champion has been crowned.

One playoff spot was on the line in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series at Chicagoland Speedway and Ben Rhodes claimed it, besting Ryan Truex for the final spot. Rhodes and Truex ended up tied in the standings and the tiebreaker goes to a driver’s best finish in the season. By virtue of Rhodes’ best finish of the season being a second-place result at Pocono verses Truex’s best result of third-place in the same race, Rhodes grabbed the last spot.

Below is the eight-driver field for the seven-race playoff:

Christopher Bell, No. 4 Kyle Busch Motorsports Toyota: 2,040 points
Johnny Sauter, No. 21 GMS Racing Chevrolet: 2,025 points
John Hunter Nemechek, No. 8 NEMCO Motorsports Chevrolet: 2,014 points
Matt Crafton, No. 88 ThorSport Racing Toyota: 2,014 points
Chase Briscoe, No. 29 Brad Keselowski Racing Ford: 2,009 points
Austin Cindric, No. 19 Brad Keselowski Racing Ford: 2,007 points
Ben Rhodes, No. 27 ThorSport Racing Toyota: 2,007 points
Kaz Grala, No. 33 GMS Racing Chevrolet: 2,005 points

The top-seeded Bell also clinched the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series 2017 Regular Season Championship. Bell locked up the top spot in the 16-race regular season, besting 2016 Camping World Truck Series champion Sauter in the standings.

Bell has four wins on the season and earned 25 playoff points over the course of the regular season. He will add the 15 playoff point bonus for the regular-season title to his total when the postseason starts at New Hampshire Motor Speedway next weekend, giving him 40 playoff points to add to the reset total of 2,000.

Posted on September 15, 2017 by Nascar

JOLIET, Ill. – Kyle Busch won the pole but it’s unclear who won the war of words.

Busch will start out front in Sunday’s opening Playoff race at Chicagoland Speedway, the Tales of the Turtles 400 (3 p.m. ET, NBCSN, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), thanks to a blistering lap of 187.963 mph around the 1.5-mile track.

But the remarks between Busch and Team Penske driver Brad Keselowski virtually overshadowed Friday’s qualifying efforts.

A social media volley following the day’s first practice session was still simmering long after Busch had shot his No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota into the top slot hours later.

“We are all in for a rude awakening. Haven’t seen NASCAR let a manufacturer get this far ahead since the 70s,” Keselowski, who drives the No. 2 Ford for Team Penske, posted via Twitter after Toyota teams led by Busch posted the top four times in the day’s lone practice session.

Toyota teams were quick to respond.

“Were you alive in the 70s?” asked Cole Pearn, crew chief of points leader and Toyota teammate Martin Truex Jr.

JGR teammate Denny Hamlin posted: “NASCAR is showing favoritism to @ToyotaRacing when did this start? … Concentrate on your own program bro.”

Busch acknowledged that there “probably” were mind games being played in the garage as teams ramp up for the 10-race, championship-determining Playoffs, but then called Keselowski “any idiot anyways.”

“Overall, I would say the biggest thing is that you don’t hear anyone else complaining like he is – it’s just one guy,” Busch said after winning the pole, his seventh of the season and the 26th of his career.

“We work on what we work on and we weren’t complaining when (Team Penske) were fast and they won the championship knowing what they were doing we had to go to work and figure it out. It just seems like those things aren’t happening. All in all, I just have to give thanks to our guys. They do the work and they do a great job, they build fast race cars and it’s fun to drive fast race cars.”

Busch, the 2015 champion, is third in points entering this weekend’s playoff race; he trails Truex by 24 points and second-place Kyle Larson (Chip Ganassi Racing) by four.

“If you ask Brad he can fix the world’s problems, that’s all there is to it,” Busch said, crediting any perceived advantages to nothing more than hard work and preparation.

“He thinks that somehow the big brother is going to come up and help him,” Busch said. “I don’t know what the point is, we all just work hard and do our jobs, we’ve gotten to where we are and we’re going to keep doing that.”

Keselowski and his No. 2 team won twice this season, at Atlanta and Martinsville, to earn a Playoff berth. He enters the 10-race battle fourth in points, just 10 behind Busch. Friday, he advanced into the third round of qualifying and will start fifth in Sunday’s 40-car field.

Last month, Keselowski intimated that Toyota teams were sandbagging during qualifying at Michigan International Speedway after Ford teams swept the top three positions.

He said his latest comments were the result of what he felt was “NASCAR’s complete inaction to level the playing field.”

“There are natural cycles where cars, teams, manufacturers … go up and down,” he said. “At the start of the year we were at the top of the cycle. And at this moment we are not where we need to be. With respect to that, we were at the top and it seemed like there were a lot of rules changesto slow us down and now you have cars that are so much faster than the field and the complete inaction by anybody.”

Chevrolet teams have won 10 of this season’s 26 races, while Toyota and Ford teams have won eight apiece.

“We could complain, but Kyle Larson runs too good for all the Chevys to complain,” Hendrick Motorsports driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. said. “If Kyle Larson wouldn’t run so damn good then we’d have an argument.

“I think you have to look at more than just are the Toyotas better or the Fords better or are the Chevys better? It’s really how people run their business and I think the Gibbs guys have been working on how they build cars together as a group across the board and how all the teams work together and I think they’ve really got it going on right now.”

Keselowski called the situation “frustrating” but noted that “winning races is (the result of) more than one thing.

“It always has been and always will be,” he said. “You always like to be close but right now we aren’t close.”

Posted on September 15, 2017September 15, 2017 by Reid Spencer

JOLIET, Ill. – Fresh from a Twitter war with Brad Keselowski, Kyle Busch proved a point with his pole run at Chicagoland Speedway—and may just have proved Keselowski’s.

“We are all in for a rude awakening,” Keselowski tweeted two hours before Friday’s knockout qualifying session at the 1.5-mile track, site of Sunday’s Tales of the Turtles 400, the first event in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Playoff (Sunday, Sept. 17 at Chicagoland Speedway at 3 ET on NBCSN). “Haven’t let a manufacturer get this far ahead since the ’70s.”

The tweet was a reference to Toyota’s recent dominance in NASCAR’s foremost series, and after a snarky social media exchange with Keselowski, Busch let his No. 18 Camry do the talking, leading all three rounds of qualifying and capping the session with a blistering 28.792-second circuit at 187.963 mph in the money round.

Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin (186.168 mph) was second in the final round, 0.277 seconds off Busch’s pace.

The Coors Light Pole Award was Busch’s first at Chicagoland Speedway, his seventh of the season and the 26th of his career.

“You’d like to be doing your talking on the race track, and they (Keselowski and Team Penske) were earlier in the year,” Busch said. “They were doing their talking on the race track and again, we kept our head down and went to work and did our job to make our stuff faster.

“Now he’s doing the opposite. As far as having Twitter wars or whatever else, I don’t know. I’d like to not have to. I guess somebody needs to take it off my phone.”

Ten of the 16 Playoff drivers advanced to the final round, with regular-season champion Martin Truex Jr. qualifying third in the No. 78 Toyota. Kevin Harvick was the top Ford driver in fourth, followed by Keselowski in fifth. Kyle Larson in sixth had the fastest Chevrolet.

Joey Logano in seventh and Clint Bowyer in 11th were the only two non-playoff drivers to crack the top 12.

Kasey Kahne was bumped out of the top 24 in the final minute of the first round and was the only Playoff driver who failed to advance beyond that point.

The disparity between the third-round runs of Busch and Hamlin had the latter wondering where his teammate found such blazing speed when it counted.

“It wasn’t because his car was that much faster,” Hamlin said. “He must have done something inside the car better than I did, so I’ll have to look at the data and see what line he took and how much throttle he used, because I know there’s not three tenths between our cars, for sure.”

Busch had a ready answer.

“It’s because I’m in a Toyota—that’s why right?” he said, taking another not-so-subtle dig at Keselowski. “Just great adjustments there, because we were kind of free there the first couple of runs and were trying to get the balance there.

“And the last run, our balance was way better, and we were able to attack it and get the most out of it. That’s all she had.”

Note: Ryan Blaney qualified 12th, failing to make a qualifying run in the final round. The reason? His No. 21 Wood Brothers Ford was out of fuel. Trying to keep the car as light as possible, the team filled the car with just enough fuel to complete three rounds. But a red flag for Erik Jones’ spin in the second round canceled one of Blaney’s laps in progress and forced him to run extra laps—and to run the car out of gas.

Posted on September 15, 2017September 15, 2017 by Staff Report

The NASCAR Playoffs have yet to turn an in-race lap, but the war of words already has started between rivals Kyle Busch and Brad Keselowski.

Keselowski, driver of the Team Penske No. 2 Ford, rekindled his commentary on Toyotas after the manufacturer swept the first four spots in Friday’s opening practice at Chicagoland Speedway.

After a slow start to the season, Toyota has won six of the last nine races heading into Sunday’s Tales of the Turtles 400 (3 p.m. ET, NBCSN, MRN, SiriusXM), the opening race in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs.

We are all in for a rude awakening.
Haven’t seen NASCAR let a manufacturer get this far ahead since the 70s https://t.co/LttpCz9vJZ

— Brad Keselowski (@keselowski) September 15, 2017

That prompted a fiery response from Kyle Busch, who led Friday’s first practice in the No. 18 Toyota from Joe Gibbs Racing.

😭 STFU https://t.co/EjexBIHWwE

— Kyle Busch (@KyleBusch) September 15, 2017

The back-and-forth volley between the former series champions didn’t stop there with an objection from Keselowski.

It’s 2017. When you’re about to lose an argument you call people names rather than face facts. https://t.co/IJnFiQOAXY

— Brad Keselowski (@keselowski) September 15, 2017

Busch then worked in a delightful bit of sponsorship synergy, tied to a new flavor of Skittles.

Ahh yeah!! It’s getting 🔥 in here! 😲 pic.twitter.com/UaBpSEYpdv

— Kyle Busch (@KyleBusch) September 15, 2017

Keselowski’s remarks echoed the comments he made last month at Michigan International Speedway, where Fords swept the first three spots in Coors Light Pole Qualifying to break a five-race streak of Toyota poles. Keselowski hinted that Toyota teams had intentionally dialed back their performance with the looming specter of closer scrutiny in tech inspection.

Those accusations of sandbagging were met with criticisms from Toyota drivers Martin Truex Jr., Denny Hamlin, and ultimately Busch, who replied the next day, saying, “That’s just Brad being Brad, I guess.”

Keselowski and Busch have had their share of on-track run-ins, the most recent being a midrace crash last month at Watkins Glen International. Add that to incidents between the two in national series races at Bristol (2010, 2016), Watkins Glen (2012), Kansas (2013) and Michigan (June 2017) and their rivalry is well stoked.

The mid-afternoon social media squabble spilled over into pre-qualifying interviews on NBCSN.

“They’ve got a lot going for them right now,” Keselowski said. “It’s not really fair of me to say where that is. It’s really NASCAR and their team’s job. It is still pretty obvious. You can BS through it any way you want, but it’s there and we know we’re going to have to out-execute ’em and we need a little bit of luck, because at this point in time, their cars have way more speed.”

Said Busch: “We watched those guys be fast in the beginning of the year. We’ve watched them be fast in years past, even when the Penske guys were with a different manufacturer, they won a championship. We didn’t do our complaining on TV, we just did our complaining in the shop on Tuesdays and we went to work. So that’s where it’s all done, and that’s what we’ve done, and I’ve just got to say how proud I am of all our Toyota TRD teammates and guys and teams, Furniture Row, Joe Gibbs Racing, TRD in Costa Mesa … it’s just, the whole package is there.

“It takes a whole lot of hard work and dedication through a lot of great people, and I feel like right now all he’s doing is slapping his people across the face.”