Johnson recalls full-body cramp, can relate to LeBron

Posted on June 6, 2014 by

Driver discusses laying on the floor until getting help from Jeff Gordon

LONG POND, Pa. — Jimmie Johnson may be able to joke about it now, but it was no laughing matter at the time. He remembers lying on the floor of his motorhome, his entire body convulsed in dehydration cramps, and having to knock his cellphone off a table so he could reach it to call for help.

"I don’t know if you’ve ever had a cramp," the six-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion said, "but try dialing a phone like that."

Plenty of people on Twitter were taking shots Thursday night at LeBron James, the basketball superstar who had to be carried off the court after suffering from dehydration cramps during the opening game of the NBA’s championship series. Temperatures reportedly climbed to 90 degrees at court level because the air conditioning was out in the arena in San Antonio. Although NASCAR drivers routinely deal with much hotter conditions inside their cars, you won’t find Johnson knocking James for a condition many non-athletes have never faced and often don’t fully understand.

Cramps are no joke, it’s too late once they happen and you can’t play through them. @23mattsmith23 @Gatorade

— Jimmie Johnson (@JimmieJohnson) June 6, 2014

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He would know from experience. The episode that left him lying on his motorhome floor began with a Grand-Am Series endurance race that Johnson participated in on the same 2007 weekend as the summer Sprint Cup event at Daytona. After a full slate of NASCAR events, Johnson also qualified and practiced the sports car before suffering an electrical problem during the race that knocked out his drinking system. Ten minutes before a scheduled driver change, he headed to pit road — he couldn’t push the brake pedal hard enough to get the car stopped, forcing him to miss a chicane on the backstretch.

"I got out of the car, tried to get cooled down and have some fluids. But about an hour later, I started cramping. And I actually went into a full-body cramp," Johnson said at Pocono Raceway. "I was actually stranded inside my motorhome on the floor. I wish I had a picture of what I looked like. I tell you, every muscle in my body locked up."

No wonder, then, even the fittest drivers can be quite sensitive to the prospect heat-related issues. Carl Edwards remembers his first start in the Camping World Truck Series, at Memphis in June of 2002, when it was so hot he didn’t realize his vehicle was on fire. Days at Indianapolis in July, Dover in June, or even Homestead in November can be particularly trying.

"You just get used to the heat," Edwards said. "I don’t know if there are physiological things that happen, or if all of it is psychological."

To Edwards, the heat is now all part of the challenge. For drivers, conditions are also much better than they used to be — Matt Kenseth said that when he first broke into NASCAR, the seats didn’t fit as well and the cars weren’t as well-vented as they are now, a combination that could wear a competitor out. The 2003 premier-series champion remembers suffering from dehydration at one race at Charlotte in 1999, one year after he had burned a part of his heel about the size of a half-dollar during a Nationwide event at Dover.

Some things never change.

"Even now, I don’t think of it much anymore, but at Dover during the race I was lifting my heels off the floor on the straightaway because it was burning my heel," Edwards said, referring to last week’s Sprint Cup event. "Everybody does that all the time, but the first few times you realize, ‘Wow, I think my heel is burning.’ You don’t realize everything in the car is that hot. Those guys back in the day without the fans and ducts, those were some men. That is tough. It had to be really, really hot."

As for Johnson, on that day at Daytona seven years ago? While he wasn’t carried off in the public manner James was Thursday night, he still needed help. He called his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jeff Gordon, whose motorhome was parked next door.

"As he came to my bus, it took him two or three minutes to stop laughing at me," Johnson remembered. But Gordon got Johnson to the infield care center, where his teammate needed three bags of intravenous fluids before he started to feel better.

Which is why Friday, Six-Time wasn’t busting on LeBron — because he’s been there.

"That was a very, very tough experience for me," Johnson said. "I didn’t cramp in the car itself, but after it got me bad. That was a tough one."

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Posted on June 6, 2014 by

Kurt Busch will join Hamlin on the front row for the Pocono 400

LONG POND, Pa. — A four-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series winner at Pocono Raceway, Denny Hamlin continued to excel on the 2.5-mile triangular layout on Friday, setting a track record in qualifying for Sunday’s Pocono 400 (1 p.m. ET, TNT).

But Hamlin says Pocono is a different animal than the track at which he won his first two Cup races for Joe Gibbs Racing in 2006.

"It’s so different that you could almost rename the race track," said Hamlin, whose lap at 181.415 mph edged Kurt Busch by .007 mph. "The old stats don’t necessarily mean that you’re going to have a great weekend, but this is a great sign."

Driving on a track that was repaved for the 2012 season and retooled in Turn 2 with the addition of an apron for this year’s events, Hamlin was only 24th-fastest during Friday’s mid-day practice session. That’s when Hamlin said his team went to work on his FedEx Ground Toyota Camry.

"This was very similar to what we did our rookie season," said Hamlin, who last went to Victory Lane at Pocono in June 2010. "We just kept making it two- to three-tenths faster ever session. We were definitely not a pole-winning car in practice or even in the first round of qualifying. A little bit (of the improvement) was repetition — me getting all I can out of the race car — and a lot was Darian Grubb (crew chief) making the right adjustments.

"Typically, when you have a car that can get the pole, that tells me you have all the parts and pieces and should be capable of winning. As tough as passing is (at Pocono), it’s better to be up front than having to battle your way through traffic."

Pocono has always been one of Hamlin’s favorite layouts. In addition to posting his first two Sprint Cup victories from the pole, he has posted 10 top-10 finishes in 16 career starts. But success has been more fleeting in recent years. Last August he crashed in Turn 3 early in the race and finished 43rd.

"We haven’t been that strong here since the repave," Hamlin said. "Handling is not as big an issue at this race track since the repave. Now, it has a lot of grip. And we haven’t qualified that well. Back when I was winning in 2006, ’07, 2010, on the old track, you could make up tons of positions. That would never happen today because the cars are running so fast and they’re so equal."

Busch, who will start alongside Hamlin, had previously shattered Jimmie Johnson‘s track record in the second round of Friday’s knockout qualifying at 181.087 mph in his Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet.

"When you don’t get the pole, it’s bittersweet," Busch said. "The sweet side is that you know the car has speed in it. After my (final) lap, I felt I’d left a little change — a little pocket change — on the lap in Turn 1. But I was really surprised we had the speed to contend for the pole today."

Brad Keselowski and Kevin Harvick qualified on the second row, while Jeff Gordon and Kyle Busch also broke the 180-mph mark.

Keselowski will start in the top 10 for the 11th time in 14 races and knew he was close to securing his third pole this season.

"Two-hundredths (of a second) on a 2.5-mile track — that’s pretty dang close," Keselowski said.

Michael Waltrip Racing driver Brian Vickers had the fastest car in Friday’s practice and was fastest — ahead of Kurt Busch and Gordon — in the first round of qualifying.

"We’ve been really strong in the first round but just can’t figure out how to keep that (speed) in the next two qualifying rounds," Vickers said.

Not everyone was so fortunate or so fast on Friday. Johnson, fresh off consecutive Sprint Cup victories, was 20th in qualifying. Series points leader Matt Kenseth failed to advance through the first round of knockout qualifying and will start 26th.

"The driver blew Turn 2," Johnson said. "I just got too greedy and lost the nose in corner exit. I knew it killed the lap. Sure enough, when I came back around, it was only good enough for 20th. I feel bad for my guys, but this one is on me."

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Posted on June 6, 2014 by

Driver’s struggles more pronounced due to success of teammates

LONG POND, Pa. — Hendrick Motorsports has been fast in 2014. Really fast.

Three of the team’s four drivers are second and tied for third in top-10 finishes this season, with Jeff Gordon, Jimmie Johnson and Dale Earnhardt Jr. combining for 25 of them.

But that’s just it — three out of four.

What about Kasey Kahne? He seems to be the forgotten man, brushed away amid a whirlwind of major NASCAR Sprint Cup Series victories in the Daytona 500 (Earnhardt) and Coca-Cola 600 (Johnson), and an I’m-not-ready-to-retire win for Gordon at Kansas.

As an organization, HMS expects to put four cars in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup every year — which it has done the past two seasons — but 13 races into the season it looks like one team is dangerously close to missing that mark.

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"As a group, we want all four cars in the Chase and we need to get Kasey a win," Johnson said Friday at Pocono Raceway. "So that part is still kind of out there. We’re three-quarters of the way there to having a full testing plan focused solely on the Chase, so hopefully we can get the 5 car in soon and let that go the rest of the way."

Upon closer investigation, Kahne’s results — one top-five and four top-10s in 13 starts — are not entirely indicative of his speed. At certain times the 5 team has been exceptionally fast, and he has one of the sport’s best support systems surrounding him.

Between advice he can get from his Hendrick stablemates — all could be future Hall of Famers — and the fact that the compound is working with some of the best equipment in the garage, it puts Kahne in a position to succeed, even if the results haven’t shown it yet in 2014. There’s also the fact that Kahne has had multiple victories in five of his 10 full-time seasons, including last year.

"I know their cars are fast, so it’s kind of a frustration, disappointment that they haven’t been able to capitalize," Johnson said. "We’re all working very hard together and very close with Kasey. We just had a test session in New Hampshire and talked in great detail with our cars and what’s going on. We even considered swapping rides. Things got a little hectic in the afternoon because of some weather so things didn’t work out, but we’re doing everything we can to really elevate Hendrick but also to help those guys get the win."

It certainly appears the Hendrick teams have two clear-cut goals entering this weekend’s Pocono 400 (1 p.m. ET, TNT) — win the race if you can, but help the 5 team if you can’t. The sooner Kahne adds his name to the ring of victors, the sooner the organization can focus its testing efforts on tracks it will see in September through November with hopes of bringing the outlet its second consecutive and 12th overall Sprint Cup title.

"At Hendrick Motorsports, we all want to be in the Chase," said Kahne, who enters the weekend 18th in points. "What Jimmie is talking about is making sure the No. 5 is in. He’s not going to give anything to me, but he’s definitely going to be happy if we pulled it off and won a race. Last time we were here, we won. So I feel good about racing at Pocono."

Oh, that’s right — Kahne’s last win, in fact, came at Pocono in August after starting 18th and weaving through the field to lead 66 laps and pick up his second victory of the season. And not only that, the Tricky Triangle is one of just three tracks (Atlanta, Charlotte) where he has multiple victories.

So while there’s a general sense of worry hanging over Kahne’s camp, the fog isn’t as thick it might appear, despite Long Pond’s elevation of 1,800 feet.

Still, Kahne’s bad luck this season (see: oil spill in the Sprint All-Star Race) has been enough to get under the driver’s skin, even if just a little.

"It’s been a bit frustrating at times, but I think I’ve handled it all pretty well," Kahne said. "In my opinion, I feel like I have. Last Monday was probably the worst Monday I’ve had of the season after a bad result. … I get down a little, but I’ve actually handled it all pretty well and I’m excited to be here and I want to win.

"I think there has been a touch of bad luck and then we just haven’t put together full races. We’ve had great practices over the last month, maybe a little more than that. We’ve been really good in practice (and) great at times during the race, but we haven’t put together the full race. And when we have, it’s been one and then we forget how for the next three, and then come back for the fourth one and run pretty well. That side of it’s been tough and we’re all looking at that together to try to make it better."

Things didn’t exactly get off to a rousing start this weekend, as Kahne’s No. 5 Chevrolet placed 20th in the opening practice Friday afternoon with a best speed of 177.504 mph. He later qualified 27th.

Kahne noted that his car was real tight and got loose to one side during practice, but that crew chief Kenny Francis was on it and the car should be better Saturday.

Even if the win doesn’t come Sunday, Pocono presents Kahne with one of his best opportunities to right the ship and work on building some momentum to finally break through.

"Our stretch of tracks that we run really well at started about three weeks ago," Kahne said. "It goes for another month, so hopefully we can hit on something over this little span that we have. We haven’t yet, but we are in a good group of tracks for myself and Kenny and our team. We just have to do the best we can and hopefully as a group we figure it out and can start putting full races together."

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Posted on June 6, 2014 by

After seven-win season in 2013, Joe Gibbs Racing driver winless in 2014

LONG POND, Pa. — It’s easy to see why Matt Kenseth might be frustrated.

The points leader at the halfway mark of the Sprint Cup Series regular season, Kenseth was pelted with questions asking why he hadn’t won yet during his media availability on Friday.

Those were questions recently asked of six-time champion and defending Pocono race-winner Jimmie Johnson, fresh off a pair of statement victories in the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte and last week’s win at Dover. As Johnson left the media center and Kenseth made his way in, the line of questioning quickly shifted from "How confident are you that you can run away with this, Mr. Johnson?" to "How are you going to fix this, Matt?"

In reality, not much separates the two former champions.

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Just three weeks ago, it was Johnson fielding the "Why haven’t you won yet?" interrogations, despite five finishes in the top 6 before the series even hit Richmond (a total of eight races). Now that Johnson has quieted any doubters, the heat is supposedly on Kenseth, even though the Joe Gibbs Racing driver has led laps in all but three races this season. The No. 20 team is consistently in position to win — even as it continues to fine tune setups and adjusts to the new rules package.

Did anybody ever seriously think Johnson wouldn’t break through for a win before the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup started?

Probably not.

"Some of the stuff about Jimmie finally winning; what was it, 10 races?" said Kenseth, whose 463 points lead the field. "He just got off a championship and he went 10 races without a win. I don’t think he was worried about his job yet."

Yet even so, those questions have been projected on to Kenseth, last year’s runner-up and winner of a series-high seven races in 2013.

Looking at the standings, it begs the question of which position a driver would rather be in at this point — winless and in the points lead as Kenseth is, or 27th in points but with the security blanket of a win at Martinsville, as Kurt Busch has done.

"We’d rather have the win," Kenseth said. "Being in the top 30 in points really shouldn’t be a problem, so of course you’d rather have a win than being the points leader. So yeah, it’s definitely different. We knew (the new Chase system) was a radical change from what we had. You’re sitting here (in the media center) because you’re the points leader, but you open up the paper and they don’t have you in the top 10. So it’s a little bit confusing at times. Hopefully, we can get a win."

While his spotty history at the 2.5-mile Tricky Triangle suggests that the win may not come this weekend in Sunday’s Pocono 400 (1 p.m. ET, TNT), Kenseth has a good chance to visit Victory Lane in the 12 races that follow. Especially if he and crew chief Jason Ratcliff can get things straightened out under the hood.

"There’s been times we’ve had pretty good car balance but haven’t quite had the speed," Kenseth said. "You always try to look over everything. You always try to look over how you can get your mechanical setup better or your aero setup better or your engines better. You just keep trying to work on everything as hard as you can and just trying to improve.

"There’s really nothing you do different. I feel like my team has been doing an unbelievable job this year with adjustments, race strategy, pit stops and all the race day stuff that I think is a lot better than last year. They put me in position to win a few times, we just haven’t had the speed to hang on and get one yet. I feel like we’re making improvements and we’ll keep getting the cars a little bit better and hopefully we’ll keep operating like that and be able to get a couple wins."

One thing that Kenseth and other winless drivers such as Kasey Kahne, Clint Bowyer, Greg Biffle, Ryan Newman and Tony Stewart actually do need to worry about, however, is Johnson’s 48 maintaining its hot streak, picking off race wins and limiting their opportunities.

Considering Johnson won from the pole after leading 128 of 160 laps in last year’s edition of this race, the chances of "Six-Time" becoming the first driver to win three races in a row since he won four straight in 2007 are looking pretty good.

"The thing that brings a lot of optimism to our team is this is Chad’s favorite race track," Johnson said of crew chief Chad Knaus. "He loves the challenge here of trying to figure out how to get the car to go down those long straightaways and in through three much stricter corners.

"I know that we’ve had some great runs and usually when we’re hot it carries from track to track. I certainly hope we can keep it rolling. This is a great place for us."

Conversely, it isn’t a great place for Kenseth.

In 28 career starts in Long Pond, the 2003 Cup champion has just three top-five finishes, none of which were wins and the last of which was in 2006. That said, 26 of those starts came driving for Roush Fenway Racing and as Kenseth’s seven 2013 wins suggest, he found success in his new JGR Toyota at tracks that he previously counted as having no shot at, making a win this weekend not entirely out of the question.

"Pocono is a really different track," Kenseth said. "We did win at some tracks last year that we’d never won at (New Hampshire, Darlington). Certainly there are some tracks that I’ve felt like were my weakest in the past that were some of our strongest last year. I think just with the organization switch it’s just being stronger at certain tracks. Martinsville, New Hampshire, a couple of those tracks. I never thought I’d ever win a race at Loudon, so who knows."

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Posted on June 6, 2014 by Staff Report

No. 88 saves fuel late; Peters loses points lead

FORT WORTH, Texas — Matt Crafton put a definitive end to his 13-year, 26-race winless streak at Texas Motor Speedway on Friday night, stretching his fuel mileage en route to a NASCAR Camping World Truck Series victory in the 18th annual WinStar World Casino and Resort 400.

Crafton and crew chief Carl Joiner gambled on fuel, running the final 61 laps (91.5 miles) without pitting the No. 88 Slim Jim/Menards Toyota Tundra fielded by ThorSport Racing. Crafton, 37, scored his fifth Truck Series victory in 322 career starts and second of the season after winning on the 0.533-mile Martinsville Speedway in March. It’s the first time Crafton has won multiple races in a season.

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"I asked if we could make it all the way (on fuel)," said Crafton, referring to Joiner and team general manager David Pepper. "They said ‘yeah.’ That helped because I could slow down so much. They’d let me run for five laps and then slow down for five laps. That is the hardest thing to do for a driver. But we had the fastest truck.

"It’s awesome to be able to do it in this fashion. We marched through them. We had a brand-new motor package from Triad and they stepped up as well. I’m just lucky enough to drive it. We have an awesome organization. We have every tool to work with and it’s so cool to be in Victory Lane in Texas."

Crafton finished second in both 2009 Texas Truck Series races, and the spring race in 2012. Friday he led a race- and career-high 118 of 167 laps around the high-banked, 1.5-mile quad-oval to finish a massive 13.302-seconds ahead of runner-up and polesitter Justin Lofton. Crafton failed to lead a lap here last year while finishing fourth and 10th in the spring and fall races, respectively, on the way to his first Truck Series championship.

Crafton’s margin of victory set a new series record at Texas, besting the previous mark of 11.817 seconds by Dennis Setzer in this event in 2004. Still, the margin failed to dampen Lofton’s spirit after scoring his best TMS finish in eight starts.

"It’s definitely an exciting day for me," said Lofton, who was making only his second start of the season. "Sometimes a driver just clicks with a track and we had a great truck and qualified on the pole. We made adjustments throughout the race but right at the end we definitely hit on something. As soon as I left my pit box (on his final stop) we were on fuel conservation mode. I wish we could have pushed him (Crafton) to run him out of fuel. He said his truck ran out of fuel when he started his (celebratory) donuts. But we’re here. Our guys did a great job calculating fuel."

Meanwhile, NASCAR veteran Joe Nemechek scored a solid third for his privateer team in the No. 8 MD Anderson Cancer Center/Smoke -N- Sear No. 8 Toyota Tundra. Sid Mauldin, owner of SWM Gun Runners located in Pampa, Texas, and partner in SWM-NEMCO Motorsports, currently is receiving treatment for stomach cancer at MD Anderson in Houston. Nemechek’s unsponsored black truck carried the MD Anderson logo on its hood as a show of support for the facility.

"It’s definitely big," said Nemechek, a former NASCAR Nationwide Series winner at Texas who was making his first Truck Series start the track. "You look at what our team is … seven or eight guys, we’re building everything. We built seven trucks so far this year and trying to get performing better."

In addition, Nemechek is sharing driving duties with his 16-year-old son, John Hunter.

"As a team we’re getting better; this is our first year," the elder Nemechek said. "We’ve never run trucks and I can now tell my son I’ve got a third-place finish and he’s got a sixth (at Dover International Speedway). So it’s all good."

Crafton took over the championship points lead by 11 points over teammate Johnny Sauter, who finished seventh in his No. 98 Nextant/Curb Records Toyota after pitting for fuel under green on Lap 163.

Timothy Peters, who began the night with a one-point lead over Crafton and Sauter, suffered through a miserable night that started with a cut tire that sent his No. 17 Red Horse Racing Toyota to pit road on Lap 8.

Down two laps early, Peters’ night ended on Lap 51 when he got caught up in oil dumped by the grenading engine of German Quiroga in Turn 1 and hit the outside wall. The truck suffered extensive right-side damage, prompting Peters to head directly to the garage area for the night. Peters, who finished 24th, exited Texas fifth in points through six starts, 27 points behind Crafton.

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Posted on June 6, 2014 by Staff Report

Lofton takes top spot in second race of 2014 season

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FORT WORTH, Texas — Part-time competitor Justin Lofton won the Keystone Light Pole Award for Friday night’s WinStar World Casino and Resort 400 at Texas Motor Speedway.

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Lofton topped Friday afternoon’s NASCAR Camping World Truck Series qualifying in his NTS Motorsports No. 20 Chevrolet with a fast lap of 179.677 mph in warm, humid conditions. It was Lofton’s second pole position in his Truck Series career.

Lofton will start first Friday night (9 p.m. ET, FOX Sports 1) in just his second Truck Series appearance this season for the Bob Newberry-owned team. The No. 20 truck has also been driven this season by NASCAR Sprint Cup Series regular Austin Dillon, NASCAR Next driver Gray Gaulding and former Daytona winner John King.

"Team NTS has done a great job building this team up," Lofton said. "They have a solid foundation. Shoot, this is my second start with them, we’re on the pole and fastest here. It’s really awesome."

Defending series champion Matt Crafton will share the front row with Lofton after turning the second-fastest lap at 179.384 mph in the ThorSport Racing No. 88 Toyota. Ryan Blaney, two-time Texas winner Johnny Sauter and NASCAR Next driver Erik Jones completed the top five.

Defending race winner Jeb Burton landed the 11th starting spot for Friday night’s race. Series points leader Timothy Peters will start 15th.

Crafton led the first of three rounds in the group, knockout-style qualifying with a lap of 180.288 mph, becoming the first driver to crack the 180-mph barrier in the two-day event. Darrell Wallace Jr. was the slowest of the 24 drivers to advance past the first round, but his 168.450 mph lap was purposely off the pace to conserve his tires for later rounds. It paid off with the seventh starting spot for Friday night’s 167-lap race.

In the second round, all but one driver waited until the final minute of the 10-minute session to hit the track, touching off a frantic dash to claim one of the 12 berths in the five-minute final segment. Blaney was the fastest at 179.146 mph, edging Lofton’s 179.075 mph lap at the cutoff point.

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Posted on June 6, 2014 by Staff Report

Justin Lofton gets first pick, first box off of pit road

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After winning his third career Keystone Light Pole in his second start of 2014, Justin Lofton and his No. 20 NTS Motorsports team picked the pit stall closest to the exit of pit road for the WinStar World Casino & Resort 400 (Friday, 9 p.m. ET, FOX Sports 1).

Fellow Californian and front-row qualifier, Matt Crafton, chose the first stall with an opening, the eighth stall. One ThorSport teammate, Johnny Sauter, is across the opening from him in the sixth stall. Sauter qualified fourth. The third ThorSport truck, driven by Jeb Burton, qualified 11th and will pit in the 10th stall.

Brad Keselowski Racing’s Ryan Blaney qualified third and chose the next stall with an opening, the 29th box. His BKR teammate, Tyler Reddick, qualified 12th and has the first stall at the entrance of pit road, pit stall 42.

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Posted on June 6, 2014 by Staff Report

Coors Light Pole winner Denny Hamlin will roll off pit road first

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After setting his second track record of the season and the ninth overall in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series in 2014, Denny Hamlin chose the first pit stall at the exit of pit road in Turn 1.

The second-place qualifier, Brad Keselowski, picked the first stall with an opening, the 25th stall, while the third-fastest in qualifying, Kurt Busch, will put in the 31st stall at the opening for the start/finish line. His Stewart-Haas Racing teammate, Kevin Harvick, will put across the opening from him in the 30th stall.

The first stall at the entrance to pit road off of Turn 3 will be occupied by Jeff Gordon.

Watch the race and the races off of pit road when the Pocono 400 goes green on Sunday at 1 p.m. ET on TNT, MRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.

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Posted on June 6, 2014 by Staff Report

Keselowski finishes second in opening practice session

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Brian Vickers topped the speed charts in the opening practice for Sunday’s Pocono 400 at Pocono Raceway (1 p.m. ET, TNT).

Vickers ran a fastest lap of 180.854 mph on the 2.5-mile track. Coming off of a disappointing 43rd-place finish at Dover last weekend, the driver of the No. 55 Aaron’s Toyota is looking to get back on track at Pocono, where he has four top-five finishes in 14 career Cup starts.

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Brad Keselowski finished second in practice with a lap of 180.223 mph in his final practice lap.

Stewart-Haas Racing teammates Kevin Harvick and Kurt Busch used a late surge in practice to take third and fourth in practice. Harvick, a two-time winner in the Sprint Cup Series in 2014, posted a fastest lap of 179.813 mph. Busch posted a fastest lap of 179.226 mph.

Jimmie Johnson (179.183 mph) placed fifth in the opening practice. Johnson is the defending race winner at Pocono and has won the past two Sprint Cup races.

Sprint All-Star Race winner Jamie McMurray (179.172 mph) was sixth, while Dale Earnhardt Jr. (178.884 mph) was seventh. Earnhardt is looking for his first Cup win at Pocono.

Fresh off his best finish with Furniture Row Racing, Martin Truex Jr. was eighth in the opening practice with a speed of 178.884 mph. Clint Bowyer, Vickers’ Michael Waltrip Racing teammate, was ninth with a speed of 178.862 mph. Rookie Kyle Larson (178.735 mph) rounded out the top 10.

There was a brief red flag of about 15 minutes around 30 minutes into the 80-minute session as the tower checked reports of a weeper in Turn 1.

Coors Light Pole Qualifying is set for 4:40 p.m. ET on Friday and will be televised on FOX Sports 1. There are two practice sessions set for Saturday. The first will begin at 9 a.m. ET and last for an hour, and the final practice will be a 50-minute session starting at 11:30 p.m. ET. Both sessions will be televised on FOX Sports 1.

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Posted on June 6, 2014 by Zack Albert

Driver hopes for another full-time shot in Camping World Truck Series

FORT WORTH, Texas — Justin Lofton was just two days away from mixing and mingling with the energy-drink-fueled action sports crowd, joining the X Games in progress just up the road in Austin. But the first item on the weekend’s to-do list was pretty extreme in its own right.

Lofton, making just his second start of the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series season, exited into the arms of a jubilant NTS Motorsports crew Friday night at Texas Motor Speedway after a stellar second-place finish in the WinStar World Casino and Resort 400. The result was made all the more sweet by notching his first Keystone Light Pole Award since July 2012 earlier in the day.

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"It’s pretty awesome. Last year was pretty rough — I only ran a part-time schedule and I came here in November with a broken arm and ran fourth," Lofton said, referring to a thumb injury suffered in a 12-truck pileup last fall at Talladega Superspeedway. "We were competitive all night and to come back and run second here, one of these days I’m going to bring home some cowboy hats and six-shooters, but we’ll get there soon."

Lofton rose up into the top five late by stretching his final tank of gas to the checkered flag, running the same fuel strategy as race winner Matt Crafton. Even though he was unable to pressure the defending series champion into exhausting his fuel supply, Lofton counted the runner-up result as another major stride for his part-time team.

Lofton, 28, has split time behind the wheel of the NTS team’s No. 20 Chevy with former series champ and current Sprint Cup regular Austin Dillon, NASCAR Next driver Gray Gaulding and former Daytona winner John King. The addition of a veteran presence was designed to aid the development of Gray Gaulding and Brennan Newberry, younger drivers in the NTS fold.

"That’s basically why they’ve brought myself and Austin Dillon in to drive these trucks, just to show how really good they are and to give the confidence to the younger kids in Gray Gaulding and Brennan Newberry and Chase Pistone and them, and show them that hey, the trucks are on the right path and they can run up front," Lofton said. "Just trust the crew chiefs, trust the crew, trust the truck and get these Chevy Silverados up front."

The next stop for Lofton is a date with the stadium super truck division of the X Games, the annual action sports festival. The obstacle-laden, full-contact style of racing will draw heavily on his background in off-road motorsports, but Lofton made no bones about his intent to return to NASCAR full time after two seasons of spot duty.

More finishes like Friday night’s, he said, could set his phone to ringing.

"Definitely. I sure love racing here in the Camping World Truck Series," Lofton said. "It’s one of the most fun series I’ve raced in. The stadium super trucks is a lot of fun, and my off-road stuff is definitely a hobby and that’s kind of my roots, like Tony Stewart racing sprint cars, and I think it gives me the confidence to get out here and run 180 mph, but I would sure love to be back here full time."

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