Four Contender Round drivers finish outside the top 20
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KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Several of the favorites in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup took it on the chin Sunday at Kansas Speedway, site of the Hollywood Casino 400 and the opening race of the Contender Round.
His Team Penske teammate, Joey Logano, was celebrating in Victory Lane when 2012 NASCAR Sprint Cup champion Brad Keselowski climbed from his scarred No. 2 Ford, 36th in the rundown.
"Three points," Keselowski said when asked what was gained by returning to the track after a flat right-front tire sent his car into the wall at Lap 160 of the 267-lap race. "Hopefully we can win one of the next two and those three points don’t matter, but it could come down to one point at Talladega and if it does, my guys deserve a lot of credit for getting us back out."
A winner at Chicagoland in the Chase opener, Keselowski was running fifth when the accident unfolded. He had been out front briefly, leading once for two laps. Nothing unusual about the setup should have led to the problem, he said.
"That would make me feel good if we did because then you know what is up, but no, we didn’t do anything. … It was a game of Russian roulette and it was our turn at the gun."
Keselowski was one of seven Chase drivers that had problems of one sort or another at Kansas. Kevin Harvick, Jeff Gordon, Kasey Kahne, Dale Earnhardt Jr. Matt Kenseth and Jimmie Johnson also dealt with issues.
Johnson took the biggest hit, finishing 40th after contact with Greg Biffle on Lap 85 sent his No. 48 Chevrolet to the garage for an extended stay.
Hendrick Motorsports teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr. was leading when "the surface of the tire unwound all the way across the surface," he said.
Hard contact with the wall sent him to the garage where crewmen were waiting to begin the process of repairing the No. 88 entry.
Like Keselowski and Johnson, Earnhardt Jr. eventually returned to the race. But he finished 63 laps down and 39th in the 43-car field.
Kahne was running inside the top three and closing on the leaders when a tire problem sent him to pit road. "And then we got behind," he said.
Trying to race his way back into contention, Kahne lost the handle and got into the wall on Lap 236.
"I tried to come from 19th and on the outside I passed like five or six cars and was feeling pretty good, and lost the back and hit the wall. My day was over at that point," he said. He finished 22nd.
A crash, the result of contact from Jamie McMurray, knocked Gordon out of contention, although he mounted enough of a rally to finish 14th.
"I knew he had a good car. He’s been running good, but he just got loose and got into me and got me in the wall," said the four-time series champion. "We had a little damage but we just lost all that track position."
And for yet another time, Harvick had a car capable of contending for the win, only to be sidelined by something out of his control. Running third just past the 213-lap mark, Harvick reported a possible flat tire.
"I pitted because you see all the trouble that is going on," he said.
Although the green-flag stop left the Stewart-Haas Racing driver deep in the field, he was able to rally and finish 12th.
Crew chief Rodney Childers said it wasn’t an issue with the tires, but agreed with his driver’s decision to bring the car to pit road.
"He was running along there and all of a sudden he said it felt like the right front went flat," Childers said. "It wouldn’t turn at all. He tried to do the smart thing and bring it to us. We kept watching it on the big (video) screen and it didn’t look flat. At that point I got panicked that it might be something with the left front so we decided to put four tires on it to be safe."
A short time later, he said, Kenseth had what looked like a tire issue, followed by Kahne a few laps later.
"I don’t know what they had going on there," he said. "It’s disappointing for sure to run top three all day and have something like that take you out of contention."
Race No. 2 of the three-race Contender Round, the Bank of America 500, is scheduled for Saturday night at Charlotte Motor Speedway (7:30 p.m. ET, ABC). The process of trying to make up ground will begin for those who stumbled at Kansas.
"A lot of people had trouble today," Gordon said. "So today was a real survival day. We did that."
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