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It isn’t unprecedented, but it is impressive.
For the first time since 2009, and only the second since 1992, Ford teams have won the season’s first two races in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series.
Meanwhile, six of the top 10 drivers in the point standings come from the Ford camp and this year’s two winners — Kurt Busch and Brad Keselowski — have put themselves squarely in line for the season-ending 10-race playoffs.
Granted, winning early and often isn’t unusual — Chevrolet teams won the first three races of the 2010 season and a whopping 13 of 14 out of the gate in ’07.
Three of the past five seasons have seen a more balanced beginning with each of the three manufacturers — Chevrolet, Ford and Toyota — winning one of the first three races in various orders.
It’s ridiculously early to be calling anything a trend. The two season-opening Ford wins in ’09 didn’t portend of great things for the company that year — only one more win came its way the remainder of the season. But the past year or so has provided much in the way of Ford’s renewed commitment to NASCAR as part of the Ford Performance program.
Meanwhile, the early returns on the addition of Stewart-Haas Racing to the fold have been nothing but positive. In addition to Busch’s Daytona 500 victory, Kevin Harvick managed everything but collecting the trophy in Sunday’s Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 at Atlanta. Harvick won the first two stages and led all but 33 laps of the 325-lap race. Both Busch and Harvick compete for SHR.
Team Penske has shouldered the majority of the workload for Ford in recent seasons while Roush Fenway Racing tries to re-establish itself as a contender. They aren’t the only kids on the Ford block, just the two most successful.
But with SHR so competitive so soon, it’s hard not to notice.
"We’re racers," Greg Zipadelli, vice president of competition for SHR, told NASCAR.com. "We’re old-school racers. Our guys have worked hard to get everything done; I know everyone says that, but they worked long hours and they did it every day" to complete the switch from Chevrolet to Ford.
MORE: Harvick tops Stages 1, 2 | No win, but plenty of success for Harvick
SHR fields four cars at NASCAR’s top level for drivers Harvick, Busch, Clint Bowyer and Danica Patrick. The organization also added one full-time and one part-time XFINITY Series team this year.
More than 100 new employees were added as SHR began building its own chassis and various other machine-shop items. "And anytime you add people, you don’t know how long it will take for everyone to get settled and things start to flow," Zipadelli said.
Team Penske has ruled the Ford roost from almost the time it left Dodge after a championship season in 2012. The majority of the 14 Ford victories in 2014 came from Team Penske drivers Keselowski and Joey Logano; the following year all seven Ford victories came from Team Penske; and a year ago it was seven of eight.
Close-knit alliances often result in improved results on the track for all parties. Toyota-branded Furniture Row Racing obviously benefited from its association with Joe Gibbs Racing last season and should do so again this year; the SHR/Hendrick pipeline saw two drivers win titles in a three-year period with Harvick in ’14 and Jimmie Johnson last season.
Team Penske has stayed to itself, going it alone, however.
"We pretty much played by ourselves, and I think that that’s made us much stronger," said team owner Roger Penske.
But he said he realizes the advantages of working alongside a fellow "branded" organization, and SHR has provided that opportunity.
"We knew coming in with Stewart‑Haas that they were going to be guys that could set a bar for us," Penske said. "In fact, we built some chassis for them before Daytona, some center sections, and we had our cars in the wind tunnel and compared them. So we know what they have and they know what we have."
Seeing an increase in the number of Ford teams running out front and in the top five is a good sign for those organizations. Perhaps the competitive gap has narrowed a bit.
"You know how strong the Toyotas have been and the Chevys have been," Penske said. "This gives (Ford teams) at least a chance to say we’re on par with these guys. Now, with a couple of wins I’d have to say we might be an inch or two ahead."
BUY TICKETS: See the races in Las Vegas
LAS VEGAS — Never mind that Kurt Busch has three Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series victories at New Hampshire — and none at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Busch, a Las Vegas native, was delighted with the Wednesday announcement that Las Vegas would get a second date in NASCAR’s top series — along with accompanying XFINITY and Camping World Truck Series races.
The second Las Vegas event, to be held on a yet-to-be-determined date in September starting in 2018, replaces the fall race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in NASCAR’s 10-race playoff. Busch’s enthusiasm for the additional Las Vegas date was tempered only slightly by the absence of New Hampshire in the playoff.
After all, the most recent of Busch’s victories at the Magic Mile came in 2008.
"That’s big, to have Trucks on Friday, XFINITY on Saturday, Monster Energy Cup Series on Sunday," Busch said in advance of Sunday’s Kobalt 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway (3:30 p.m. ET on FOX, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). "That’s big. And then it’s a playoff atmosphere in September. It will be a little warm, but we’ll see how that plays out, but the way this city continues to grow around sports … there’s an NHL team that’s now here, the Raiders continue to flirt with coming down here. With the way that this town evolves, you see it as a win-win with the entertainment side and the sporting side.
"To lose a date at New Hampshire, I think that will really push the New Englanders out hard for their July race, and there will be much more support around their race then. I haven’t won there in many years, so I’m OK with winning three times early in my career. I haven’t won there as of late, so it doesn’t matter."
The way Busch sees it, the addition of a fall race at Las Vegas also will amplify the importance of the spring event.
"Wherever the date is, you have to be ready for it, and now when you have a springtime race at a track such as Phoenix, Martinsville, Texas — Vegas now fits in this category. All those races are that much more important in the spring because they are playoff races in the fall (at the same tracks)."
Busch’s brother Kyle, the 2015 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series champion, backed his brother’s sentiments.
"It’s a great opportunity for the city of Las Vegas to have another race here and for NASCAR to come to town two times," Busch said. "I look forward to that."
MORE: Atlanta starting lineup
HAMPTON, Ga. — Goodyear and driver Kyle Busch seem to be inextricably linked in the news fodder of the 2017 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season, and that continued to be the case Sunday morning at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
An errant step by a fan in the garage sent oil spilling onto two tires of the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, necessitating a trip to the Goodyear building where the tires were washed and, after careful inspection, returned to the team.
"It’s unfortunate, but look around," crew chief Adam Stevens said, noting the crowded garage area full of race fans and team personnel. "The tires seem to be fine, no issues there, hopefully, so we should be OK."
This year, teams are required to start the race on the tires used during qualifying and at an abrasive track such as Atlanta, the fewer the laps on tires, the quicker the lap times. Teams have two fewer sets at their disposal compared to last season for today’s 325-lap race, the Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500.
Jimmy Makar, senior vice president of racing operations for JGR, wasn’t aware of the situation when asked Sunday morning, but seemed convinced the team would be required and able to start the race on the qualifying tires and would not be provided an additional set to replace those on which the oil had spilled.
Stu Grant, general manager of global race tires for Goodyear, said the tires were cleaned with "mild soap and water, that type of thing."
"You don’t want to put solvent on it because the rubber will absorb the solvent," he said.
Busch will start third for today’s race. He won Saturday’s NASCAR XFINITY Series race, the Rinnai 250, only to learn later that his car had failed post-race technical inspection due to a height violation.
"Maybe they should have checked the air pressure in the front tires first," Busch quipped after being told of the infraction.
The 2015 Monster Energy Cup Series champion was involved in a crash in last week’s season-opening Daytona 500 that was the result of a tire going down.
"You know, obviously Goodyear tires just aren’t very good at holding air," an upset Busch said after the incident. "It’s very frustrating when we have that down here every single year we’ve been here."
Asked about Goodyear’s post-race analysis of the team’s Daytona tires, Grant said there was nothing to indicate that a tire going down caused Busch to crash.
"That would appear to be the case," he said. "But Kyle is a professional race car driver and he spun for some reason; he felt something."
Grant said Goodyear officials studied the two rear Daytona tires at the company’s headquarters in Akron, Ohio, and viewed video provided by FOX, which aired the Daytona 500, as well as video obtained from NASCAR.
A flat spot was found on the right rear, and that only occurs when a tire has air in it, it’s spinning and then locked up, according to Grant.
"The video from FOX showed that," he said. "The car is spinning and the right rear is definitely up."
Grant believes that after spinning and sliding off the steep banking, the right rear was flat-spotted all the way through, which caused the air loss.
He said no cuts were found on the left rear tire based on research analysis, and the NASCAR video verified that the tire was up when Busch’s car began to spin.
"The left rear is up until he is hit by the 77 (of Erik Jones)," Grant said. "The 77 knocks the tire off the flange, it loses air and then the tire gets folded over and that’s how we found it. The tire was folded in half at the center line but again it did not have a cut."
RELATED: Atlanta announces repave plan
HAMPTON, Ga. — Drivers have made their feelings known about Atlanta Motor Speedway’s scheduled repave, lobbying nearly in unison for the project to be delayed. Marcus Smith, president and CEO of track owner Speedway Motorsports, Inc., says he’s listening.
Smith addressed the topic and the possibility of a second Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series event at SMI’s facility in Las Vegas in a meeting with reporters approximately an hour before the green flag of Sunday’s Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 (2:30 p.m. ET, FOX, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) at Atlanta.
The 500-miler is scheduled to be the last on the Georgia track’s 20-year-old pavement, which has drawn rave reviews from drivers. The gritty surface places a premium on tire wear and car control, leading to multi-groove racing and slipping and sliding throughout the field.
Smith said he’s heard the pleas from drivers over the tripleheader weekend to keep things the way they are, to at least temporarily stall the renovation.
“I can’t really say the status has changed, but it’s caused us to think about what we’re doing,” Smith said. “We’ve looked at the track a lot, of course, over the years, and we feel like we’ve gotten about three more years out of the life of the track right now. So the challenges are still there on keeping the track raceable and making it something we can have a race on today and have a quality race.
“But definitely (we) have heard from the drivers saying that they like this gritty surface and so we will look at it after the race today and be able to make a better determination of what we’ll have to do going forward.”
RELATED: Bell wins Truck Series race at Atlanta
Drivers have been nearly unified in their praise of the old surface, taking to their Twitter accounts to campaign for a paving reprieve at the 1.54-mile track. Matt Crafton joined the chorus in his post-race remarks after finishing second in Saturday’s NASCAR Camping World Truck Series event.
“It’s so much fun,” Crafton said. “I think we need to start a drivers’ council. If anybody from Atlanta Motor Speedway wants to come in here and wants to talk about repaving this place, then we need to get all the drivers together and talk about it because that was some of the greatest racing I’ve seen in a long time. … Everyone was all over that race track, and that’s what it’s all about.”
If and when the Atlanta repave occurs, Smith said his team of engineers and paving experts will likely take cues from Texas Motor Speedway, which has completed a resurfacing project ahead of NASCAR’s visit next month to the Lone Star State. The use of different asphalt compounds and artificial aging processes should help to accelerate Texas’ breaking-in period, with Smith indicating that he hopes its new surface will emulate Atlanta’s current state.
PHOTOS: See the Texas repave underway
It’s yet another item on a long to-do list for SMI, which owns eight speedways that host 12 dates on the 36-race schedule for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series. A pressing concern out of the Atlanta weekend is a planned Wednesday meeting for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority board of directors to discuss the possibility of adding a second Monster Energy Series race at SMI’s Las Vegas Motor Speedway as early as 2018.
“We love the support that we get out of Las Vegas,” Smith said. “I think the fans love it, so it’s a great track for us. I think when we see that the community is supportive of racing there, it’s definitely encouraging to us.”
RELATED: Report says Vegas closing in on second premier series date
NASCAR entered into a five-year sanctioning agreement with the 23 tracks that host Monster Energy Cup Series events in October 2015. NASCAR officials have long maintained that they have no intention of expanding the schedule beyond its current 36-race limit.
Adding a second event in Vegas would likely need to occur at the expense of an existing track on the schedule, fueling speculation about whether SMI would shift a race away from its remaining seven tracks — Atlanta, Bristol, Charlotte, Kentucky, New Hampshire, Sonoma or Texas — or whether another venue would surrender a date.
“You know, I’m not big on speculating. I’d rather just tell you when I know, but it’s fun to speculate,” Smith said with a grin. “So we’ll see.”
RELATED: See Las Vegas races live
NASCAR Goes West for the start of a three-race weekend swing that begins with a doubleheader at Las Vegas Motor Speedway for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series and the NASCAR XFINITY Series. Check out the full weekend schedule below.
Note: All times are ET
SUNDAY, MARCH 12:
PRE-RACE SCHEDULE
— 1:30 p.m.: Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Driver/Crew Chief Meeting (Neon Garage)
— 3 p.m: Driver introductions
— 3:30 p.m.: Presentation of Colors by: Nellis Air Force Base Honor Guard
— 3:30:20 p.m.: Invocation by: Kurt Schulke, Chaplain, Las Vegas Motor Speedway
— 3:30:45 p.m.: Intro National Anthem
— 3:31 p.m.: National Anthem by: Night Ranger (Large American flag unfurled by 433rd Fighter Weapons Squadron, Nellis AFB)
— 3:32 p.m.: Fly-By TOT: 2 F-15’s & 2 F-22’s from USAFWS Nellis AFB (Backstretch to Frontstretch)
— 3:37 p.m.: "Drivers, Start Your Engines" by: John Fogerty
— 3:46 p.m.: Start of the Kobalt 400 (267 Laps, 400.5 Miles)
ON TRACK
— 3:30 p.m.: Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Kobalt 400 (267 laps, 400.5 miles), FOX (Results)
PRESS CONFERENCES (Watch live)
— 7 p.m. (approximately): Post-Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race
FRIDAY, MARCH 10:
ON TRACK
— 2-3:25 p.m.: Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series practice, FS1 (Results)
— 4-4:55 p.m.: NASCAR XFINITY Series practice, FS1 (Results)
— 6-6:55 p.m.: NASCAR XFINITY Series final practice, FS2 (Results)
— 7:45 p.m.: Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Coors Light Pole Qualifying, FS2 (Results)
GARAGECAM (Watch live)
— 1:30 p.m.: Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series
— 3:30 p.m.: NASCAR XFINITY Series
PRESS CONFERENCES (Watch live)
— 12:15 p.m.: Chris Buescher
— 12:30 p.m.: Matt Kenseth
— 12:45 p.m.: Kurt Busch
— 1 p.m.: Brad Keselowski
— 1:30 p.m.: Brendan Gaughan and Spencer Gallagher
— 3:45 p.m.: Las Vegas Motor Speedway announcement
— 5:10 p.m.: Kyle Busch
— 9 p.m. (approximately): Post-Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series qualifying
SATURDAY, MARCH 11:
ON TRACK
— Noon-12:55 p.m.: Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series practice, FS1 (Results)
— 1:05 p.m.: NASCAR XFINITY Series Coors Light Pole Qualifying, FS1 (Results)
— 2:30-3:20 p.m.: Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series final practice, FS1 (Results)
— 4 p.m.: NASCAR XFINITY Series Boyd Gaming 300 (200 laps, 300 miles), FS1 (Results)
PRESS CONFERENCES (Watch live)
— 6:30 p.m. (approximately): Post-NASCAR XFINITY Series race
RELATED: FAQ for race format
The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series saw NASCAR’s 2017 race enhancements in action in Sunday’s Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500, with polesitter Kevin Harvick winning Stage 2.
The Stewart-Haas Racing driver was ahead at the end of the 170-lap mark in his No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford and as a result, earned 10 race points and one playoff point for the 10-race championship run.
Harvick won Stage 1 as well (ahead at the Lap 85 mark), and also received 10 race points and one playoff point for that victory. The top-10 drivers also earned points after Stage 1 and Stage 2, as distributed in the tables below.
The race winner will receive 40 points and five playoff points. The top-10 finishers will also earn race points.
What channel is NASCAR programming on this week? We answer that and provide all the weekly NASCAR television listings here.
RELATED: Find NBCSN in your area | See Las Vegas races live
All times ET
Monday, March 6
5:30 a.m., NASCAR Victory Lane (re-air), FS1
6:30 a.m., Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 (re-air), FS1
9:30 a.m., Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500 (re-air), FS2
6 p.m., NASCAR America, NBCSN
Tuesday, March 7
4 a.m., NASCAR Camping World Truck Series: Active Pest Control 200 (re-air), FS1
6 a.m., Beyond the Wheel 2017 (re-air), FS1
5:30 p.m., NASCAR America, NBCSN
6 p.m., NASCAR Race Hub, FS1
Wednesday, March 8
7:30 a.m., NASCAR Camping World Truck Series: Active Pest Control 200 (re-air), FS1
5:30 p.m., NASCAR America, NBCSN
6 p.m., NASCAR Race Hub, FS1
Thursday, March 9
5 p.m., NASCAR America, NBCSN
6 p.m., NASCAR Race Hub (re-air)
Friday, March 10
2 p.m., Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series practice, FS1
3:30 p.m., NASCAR Race Hub Weekend Edition, FS1
4 p.m., NASCAR XFINITY Series practice, FS1
5 p.m., Beyond the Wheel 2017, FS1
6 p.m., NASCAR XFINITY Series final practice, FS2
7 p.m., NASCAR Race Hub Weekend Edition, FS2
7:30 p.m., Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Coors Light Pole Qualifying, FS2
Saturday, March 11
11:30 a.m., 1997 Daytona 500 (re-air), FS1
Noon, Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series practice, FS1
1 p.m., NASCAR XFINITY Series Coors Light Pole Qualifying, FS1
2 p.m., NASCAR Race Hub Weekend Edition, FS1
2:30 p.m., Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series final practice, FS1
3:30 p.m., NASCAR RaceDay: XFINITY, FS1
4 p.m., NASCAR XFINITY Series Boyd Gaming 300, FS1
6:30 p.m., NASCAR XFINITY Series Post-Race Show, FS1
Sunday, March 12
4 a.m., NASCAR XFINITY Series Boyd Gaming 300 (re-air), FS1
Noon, Empty Cup: Quest for the 1992 NASCAR Championship (re-air), FS1
12:30 p.m., Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series final practice (re-air), FS1
1:30 p.m., NASCAR RaceDay (re-air), FS1
3:30 p.m., Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Kobalt 400, FOX
9:30 p.m., NASCAR Victory Lane, FS1
10 p.m., Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Kobalt 400 (re-air), FS1
RELATED: Race results | Standings | Detailed breakdown
SHOP: Keselowski gear
HAMPTON, Ga. – Thanks to the unintentional generosity of the dominant driver in Sunday’s Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500, opportunistic Brad Keselowski won the second Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race of the season.
Kevin Harvick led 292 of the 325 laps at the 1.54-mile track, but a pit road speeding penalty under caution on Lap 311 sent him to the back of the field for the final restart.
That gave Keselowski the chance he needed, and on Lap 319 he surged past Kyle Larson for the top spot and pulled away to win by .564 seconds.
Larson came home second, followed by two drivers—Matt Kenseth and Kasey Kahne—who lost laps early but recovered to run third and fourth, respectively. Chase Elliott overcame a pit road speeding penalty incurred on a green-flag stop on Lap 212 to finish fifth.
Keselowski overcame his own issues to put his No. 2 Team Penske Ford in position to win the race. Keselowski beat Harvick off pit road after stops under caution on Lap 264, but the lug nuts on his left rear wheel weren’t tight, and Keselowski had to return to pit road and give up the No. 1 position for a restart on Lap 270.
But Keselowski persevered, and by the time the final caution flag waved on Lap 309, he had worked his way up to third in the running order. When Harvick drew the penalty on Lap 311, Keselowski restarted third after pitting for tires, got past Kenseth in the first corner and tracked down Larson five laps later.
“We had a lot of adversity today. There’s no doubt about that,” said Keselowski, who won for the first time at Atlanta and for the 22nd time in his career. “These races aren’t easy. They’re 500 miles, and a lot can happen, and when you think you’ve got it, they slip away. I know how it goes.
“This one kind of fell in our lap at the end, and my team put it all together when it counted. They gave me a great Autotrader Ford Fusion, and we were able to get by Kyle there at the end. I knew that he wasn’t going to be easy to pass. His car was great, and I was able to make the right moves to get by him.”
RELATED: See every one of Keselowski’s wins
Larson, who characterized Harvick’s speeding penalty as “a Christmas present,” knew what to expect from Keselowski after the final restart on Lap 315, but he was unable to prevent the winning move.
“I raced around Brad a lot throughout the day,” Larson said. “Any time I was in front of him on short runs, he’d drive around me up top. And so I knew I was going to have to take his line away on that start there for a couple of laps and try it. I just didn’t have enough grip—or not as much as I’d hoped. He did a good job being a lane lower than me and getting to my inside.
“So, it was disappointing not to get the win, but I’m happy about our second-place run at a 1.5-mile (track) where I struggle. I had a blast today. The Target Chevy was good. I ran the bottom a lot, which is not typically something I do. So, it was a lot of fun to learn how to kind of use both feet to get around the bottom and to do a good job with that.”
In the first Atlanta race since NASCAR added more timing lines to measure pit road speed, the sanctioning body gave out more speeding tickets than a county sheriff in a one-stoplight town. Harvick was penalized for the 13th and final speeding infraction of the race.
“Yeah, this place, for whatever reason, I just feel like I’m snake-bitten,” said Harvick, who won his first Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race at the Georgia track in 2001 and hasn’t won here since. “It’s my own doing today. I really didn’t think I was even close on pit lane.
“It gets to bouncing around, and I thought I was being conservative. Apparently, I wasn’t. … I was just pushing it too hard.”
RELATED: Dominant day nets Harvick playoff points | Stage results at Atlanta
On the positive side, Harvick leaves Atlanta with two additional playoff points for winning the first two stages of the race. He also holds the series lead by four points over Stewart-Haas Racing teammate and Daytona winner Kurt Busch.
Keselowski is third in the standings, six points behind Harvick, and he earned five playoff points for the victory.
Note: The No. 47 car of AJ Allmendinger was found to have three lug nuts not secure in post-race inspection. Any resulting penalty will be announced mid-week.
Contributing: NASCAR.com staff