Posted on by Staff Report

Buescher, Dillon have not fared well at Phoenix

The so-far unsinkable Matt Crafton takes his road show to the desert this weekend with a sizable 46-point lead in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series standings.
 
His rivals might have a snowball’s chance in the Sahara of gaining ground on the series leader at Phoenix International Raceway, but plenty can happen with two races left that could either seal Crafton’s coronation or ensure that the 2013 championship fight goes down to the wire.

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If he can build his lead to a 49-point cushion in Friday night’s Lucas Oil 150 (8 p.m. ET, FOX Sports 1), Crafton will register an early clinching of his first series title in his 13th full year of truck competition. But he’ll have to do it at a relatively flat, one-mile track where he has just three top-five finishes (his best, a third-place effort in 2004) and has yet to lead a lap in his career.
 
Neither of his closest competitors, however, has inspiring Phoenix performances or experience on their side.
 
Defending series champion James Buescher (46 points back) hasn’t achieved a top-10 finish in three career starts at the Arizona track, and bowed from victory contention last season with right-front damage that left him settling for 17th place.
 
Ty Dillon — last weekend’s winner at Texas Motor Speedway — sits third in the standings, 47 points behind Crafton. In his only truck series start at Phoenix, however, Dillon limped to a 15th-place finish last year with similar damage.
 
According to the preliminary entry list, Sprint Cup Series regular Travis Kvapil, the 2003 truck series champ, is set to drive the Pam Sieg-owned No. 93 Chevy. This will be Kvapil’s first truck series start of the season.

Cale Gale, who edged Kyle Busch in a fender-clanging duel in the 2012 season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway, is entered in a fourth Turner Scott Motorsports Chevrolet. This will be just his second truck series start of the season.
 
John Hunter Nemechek, the 16-year-old son of NASCAR veteran Joe Nemechek, is scheduled to make only his second truck series start after placing 16th at Martinsville Speedway on Oct. 26. Steve Wallace, a former Nationwide Series regular and son of NASCAR Hall of Famer Rusty Wallace, plans to make his third truck series appearance of the season.

 

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Posted on by Staff Report

Who’s who for the tailgate tour’s annual trip to the desert

Click here for the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series entry list for the Lucas Oil 150 at Phoenix International Raceway.

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Forty-one cars entered for 35th race of the season

Click here to see the entry list.

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The Sprint Cup Series returns to Phoenix, where Carl Edwards won in March

RELATED: Full Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup coverage

Click here for the full entry list for the Sprint Cup Series race at Phoenix International Raceway.

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Posted on by George Winkler

Texas crash dashes hopes for fifth title as No. 24 falls three spots in standings

Updated standings | Full Texas coverage

Three up

Three down

FULL SERIES COVERAGE

Pos.

Driver

Pts back

+/-

1.

Jimmie Johnson

—

+1

2.

Matt Kenseth

-7

-1

3.

Kevin Harvick

-40

+1

4.

Kyle Busch

-52

+1

5.

Dale Earnhardt Jr.

-62

+2

6.

Jeff Gordon

-69

-3

7.

Clint Bowyer

-69

-1

8.

Greg Biffle

-73

0

9.

Joey Logano

-91

+2

10.

Kurt Busch

-96

-1

11.

Carl Edwards

-116

-1

12.

Ryan Newman

-118

0

13.

Kasey Kahne

-133

0

IN THE GREEN

Jimmie Johnson (Change: Second to first)
Johnson has a seven-point lead over Matt Kenseth in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup after a dominant performance at Texas where he led 255 of 334 laps en route to his sixth victory of the season. The news gets even better for the No. 48 because Johnson’s 116.4 Driver Rating at Phoenix in the past eight years towers over that of every other driver, including Matt Kenseth (87.0). However, Johnson entered the final Phoenix race last season in the same position, seven points up on Brad Keselowski, and couldn’t close the deal on a sixth title. So he’ll be the first one to say this Chase isn’t over yet.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. (Change: Seventh to fifth)

Earnhardt Jr. posted his third second-place finish in the Chase with another strong run at Texas. Junior now has 13 top-10 finishes in 23 career Sprint Cup Series races at Texas Motor Speedway. However, one wonders where he’d be if he had avoided that 35th-place finish at Chicagoland to start the 2013 Chase. Other than that blip, he has been strong in the postseason with six top-10 finishes in the seven races following Chicagoland. Perhaps he’s closing in on his first win of the season.

Joey Logano (Change: 11th to ninth)

Compared to the drama that unfolded around the Penske Racing team the last time the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series was in Texas, this had to be a breeze for Logano, who finished a career-best third at the track. Remember, Logano barely made it to the grid on time for the spring race in Texas but battled back to finish fifth. Afterward the rear housings for Logano and Brad Keselowski failed inspection, leading to penalties for both teams. Fast-forward to the fall and Logano was all smiles after moving up two spots in the Chase standings as he tries to build momentum.

IN THE RED

Jeff Gordon (Change: Third to sixth)

Even if you aren’t a Gordon fan, you had to feel for what happened to the four-time champ at Texas. Seventy-four laps into the AAA Texas 500 he blew a left front tire and hit the wall in Turn 1, damaging the right side of the No. 24. Gordon admirably returned to the race but finished in 38th place, 187 laps down. Down 69 points with two races to go, Gordon’s chance for a fifth title is basically done. If that turns out to be the case, it was a dramatic ending to a run that had plenty of drama to start with when Gordon was allowed in as the 13th Chase driver following the Richmond incident.

Carl Edwards (Change: 10th to 11th)

Entering Phoenix, Edwards has the second-best Driver Rating (100.6) in the past eight years there, and he won the Phoenix race earlier this year. But a strong finish to the 2013 season is all the Roush Fenway Racing driver can shoot for after being officially eliminated from title contention following Texas. Edwards won the Coors Light Pole award, but lost his engine during the race and finished 37th. That prompted Edwards, who was driving the No. 99 Aflac Ford, to say: "Aflac has coverage for just about everything, but I don’t think they cover sick engines."

Kurt Busch (Change: Ninth to 10th)

After starting the Chase strong with a fourth-place finish at Chicagoland, Busch has settled into the middle of the pack for the subsequent races — save for Kansas, where he was second. Busch’s 17th-place showing at Texas continued a string of finishes outside the top 10 during the Chase. And although Busch is 96 points behind the leader, he is eliminated from title contention by virtue of a tiebreaker he’d lose to Johnson.

MISSED CHANCES

Matt Kenseth (Change: First to second)

A pit-road speeding penalty pushed Kenseth to the middle of the pack during the AAA Texas 500, but it didn’t take him long to get back in the top 10, and eventually he finished fourth. It was a good effort, but when the man you’re battling for the championship finishes first, it’s not quite good enough. Kenseth is a master of 1.5-mile tracks, so pundits generally expected him and not Johnson to grab a lead in the Chase coming out of Texas. Now the fight switches to Phoenix, a 1-mile track where Kenseth hasn’t been as prolific.

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Five-Time puts seven points on Kenseth as Chase contenders whittled down

RELATED: Race results | Buy winner’s gear

FORT WORTH, Texas. — The speed in Jimmie Johnson‘s No. 48 Chevrolet was positively jaw-dropping.
 
Able to pull away from his pursuers with apparent ease, Johnson finished three positions ahead of Matt Kenseth in Sunday’s AAA Texas 500, breaking a tie for the lead in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. But make no mistake — Johnson’s performance amounted to a brutal bludgeoning of Kenseth and the rest of the opposition.
 
Kenseth hurt his own cause with a pit road speeding penalty, but not even a perfect day on pit road likely would have overcome the dominance of the five-time champion, who led 255 of 334 laps en route to his third victory at Texas Motor Speedway, his sixth of the season and the 66th of his career.

With two races left in the Chase, Johnson heads to next Sunday’s event at Phoenix with a seven-point lead over Kenseth, who rallied from the speeding penalty he incurred on Lap 173 to finish fourth.
 
Similarly, Johnson left Texas last year with a seven-point lead over Brad Keselowski — and lost the title. But the emphatic nature of Johnson’s win on Sunday sent an unmistakable message.
 
"We came here and tested and did an awesome job of understanding what I needed in the car and what was going to create speed," Johnson said after the race. "We came back and had a very smooth qualifying session and practice sessions, and just kept putting more and more speed in the car.
 
"It paid off today. Obviously, we need a lot of speed in the car and a win to get any points because Matt is there in the top five. Nice to gain just a few points on him. But just a dominant day for this Lowe’s team."
 
Despite the emphatic whipping he administered to the rest of the field, Johnson is anything but overconfident.
 
"I’ve been watching a lot of MMA fighting lately, and you’ll fall into a rhythm and think that somebody has got the fight won, and it doesn’t end that way," he said. "That’s how this is going to be. Matt didn’t have maybe the best day and still finished fourth. This thing is going to go to the last lap at Homestead, and it is going to come down to mistakes.
 
"I’m very excited about our performance and what we did here. We’ll enjoy this, but there is still two weeks of very hard racing ahead of us."
 
Dale Earnhardt Jr. ran second, 4.390 seconds behind his Hendrick Motorsports teammate. Joey Logano came home third.
 
Neither Earnhardt nor Logano, however, had a prayer of beating Johnson, and they knew it.
 
"The 48 was in another class, and nobody had anything for him," Earnhardt said. "He was just super good all through practice and the race."
 
"Overall, we can’t be disappointed with a third-place finish," Logano added. "Just the 48 car was ridiculously fast."
 
Johnson is the first back-to-back winner of the fall race at Texas since the race became part of the Chase in 2005. Johnson also tied Carl Edwards for most NASCAR Sprint Cup Series victories at the 1.5-mile track.
 
Kasey Kahne finished fifth, followed by Keselowski, Denny Hamlin, Kevin Harvick, Ryan Newman and Clint Bowyer. Harvick climbed to third in the series standings, but at 40 points behind Johnson and 33 behind Kenseth, it will take a miracle to put him back into the championship picture.
 
The race was a disaster for Jeff Gordon, who entered the event third in the standings but blew a tire, hit the wall on Lap 74, finished 38th and saw his hopes for a possible fifth title diminish. Gordon fell to sixth in points, 69 behind Johnson.
 

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Posted on by Holly Cain

Veteran’s hard wall hit leads to 38th-place finish

FORT WORTH, Texas — Devastated. That’s how Jeff Gordon described his emotions as he watched his team work furiously to repair his No. 24 Drive to End Hunger Chevrolet in the Texas Motor Speedway garage only 74 laps into the 334-lap event Sunday.

Gordon, who came into the race ranked third in the Sprint Cup Seres standings — 27 points behind co-leaders Matt Kenseth and Jimmie Johnson, blew a left front tire and crashed hard into the Turn 1 wall badly damaging the entire right side side of his car. And even though he managed to return to the race an hour later, Gordon only gained a handful of positions. He ended up scored 38th, which dropped him three spots in the championship standings to sixth — a hefty 69 points behind the new leader and Sunday’s race winner Johnson.

"Just had a left front tire go down, not really sure why yet, trying to figure that out, but that’s a shame," Gordon said from his garage as the crew worked behind him to at least the make the car drivable enough to collect what championship points he can. "I don’t know if I ran over something or we just had a failure. I felt it go down and even had time to go on the radio and say, ‘Oh you-know-what’ because I knew I was getting ready to hit the wall hard."

"It’s a shame. This team has worked so hard to get ourselves in this position and we can’t have things like this happen. This is going to hurt."

Gordon said the team hadn’t had a chance to determine what exactly caused the tire problem but that he was happy with the car following an eighth-place qualifying effort and looking forward to a long run where he was confident in showing some of the speed.

"We had something similar to this happen to the 5 car (Kasey Kahne) in Homestead testing (last week) so we were very conservative with camber and air pressure, but it puts so much strain on the left side tires to make these cars work these days," Gordon said. "It doesn’t matter now though, it happened. We’re going to take a huge hit in the points and all we can do is get as many points as we can and go to the next two races."

Gordon’s fall in the standings was the largest shakeup among the 13-driver Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup field. It was particularly disheartening for him because he was the final driver who qualified for the Chase, added by NASCAR Chairman and CEO Brian France at the last moment because of a controversial outcome in the regular-season finale.

"It’s devastating," Gordon said. "You know how things have to go your way to stay close to those guys or even make up a gap. We had a fast car on the long runs, we just got stuck in the outside lane on every restart so we kept losing positions after we had gained them all back. I was looking forward to getting a restart on the inside and having a couple long runs because I really thought we could make some ground up.

"We have to put this behind us and go race hard the next two weeks."

Team owner Rick Hendrick was equally as dejected for his veteran driver even as he had celebrated Sunday’s race win with Johnson moments earlier.

"Jeff was leading this race earlier this year and had a bearing failure, which we never have," Hendrick said. "You know Jeff was just really pumped up about being in the Chase and winning Martinsville last week. I hate it for that team because they have really come together. You just can’t help stuff like tire problems or things that happen to you.

"I feel for Jeff because he had really shown what that team can do, I hate it for him."

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Posted on by Holly Cain

And if numbers mean anything, it will be tough for either co-leader to gain an edge

RELATED: Full coverage from Texas |  Chase page: More on closest race

FORT WORTH, Texas — The closest Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup in history with three races remaining would not appear to be any less dramatic when the checkered flag falls in Sunday’s AAA Texas 500 at Texas Motor Speedway.

That is if you’re a big believer in statistics and history.

Sprint Cup Series championship co-leaders Matt Kenseth and Jimmie Johnson carry similar statistics into the race and their two closest challengers Jeff Gordon and Kevin Harvick boast heady numbers as well at the challenging 1.5-mile high-banked Texas oval.

Kenseth and Johnson both have a pair of wins and their average finish here is 8.5 and 9.1, respectively. Kenseth has five top-five finishes in the last six Texas races and Johnson has three top-six finishes in that time.

Kenseth finished 12th in the April 500-miler while Johnson is the defending winner of the fall race.

"It’s definitely a tense period of time," Johnson said, "Actually it’s a lot of fun once I can really slow things down and pay attention to it. Having another to race so hard for it and fight for each and every point as we have is, in most situations, a lot of fun.

"It’s not over yet. There is still a lot to go. It’s going to be this way to the end."

Not only are the front-runners bunched up in the point standings, but they also will be cozy on Sunday’s starting grid.

Johnson’s No. 48 Lowe’s Chevrolet rolls off third, Kenseth’s No. 20 Home Depot Toyota starts sixth.

Gordon, who is third in points — 27 points behind — will start his No. 24 Drive to End Hunger Chevy eighth. Harvick — who trails the leaders by 28 points and is the only one of the top four ranked drivers without a win here, will start his No. 29 Budweiser Chevy 19th.

While statistics can certainly be used by teams to fine-tune future performance, they don’t serve as a can’t-miss determination in the Chase as far as Johnson is concerned. And certainly they haven’t in this year’s championship run.

Historically, for example, Kenseth hasn’t fared well at the Martinsville, Va., half-miler, but he finished second there last week — a little too close for comfort for eight-time Martinsville winner Johnson, who crossed the finish line sixth.

All bets are off in the Chase where the contenders have repeatedly raised their game.

"You can’t look at past history and say that you can count on a 15th-place average at Martinsville for Matt," Johnson explained. "I think the championship battle brings the very best out of people and he and his people are bringing their best each and every weekend.

"I feel in order to win the championship you have to be up front racing for the win. I expect to see the No. 20 there each and every week."

Gordon is of a similar mindset. He says he doesn’t believe in statistics for the long-haul, but thinks most recent results are better predictors, particularly considering the introduction of the new track-record making Gen-6 car this season.

 "I base everything off what the team has done in the previous race not previous races. Tires change, cars change and certainly this year a lot has changed. I base it off what I saw in the test.

"Jimmie was strong testing and strong today (in qualifying) so you expect him to be fast and his is and the 20 (Kenseth) is, too. We actually closed the gap on them so I’m happy with that (qualifying).

"As long as statistically you are in, it’s a five- and six-man race. But we have to make up some gap to realistically be in that fight. A lot will clear up when this race is over. Or maybe not."

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No. 18 finishes 13th after speeding on pit road

RELATED: Full race results | Updated standings | Chase coverage

FORT WORTH, Texas — Another championship contender bites the dust — or does he?

Kyle Busch‘s Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup championship hopes took a major hit with a 13th-place finish at Texas Motor Speedway, seeing the Joe Gibbs Racing driver move up a spot in the standings to fourth, but his points deficit to leader Jimmie Johnson increasing from 36 to 52. If Jeff Gordon‘s surprise challenge to the points leaders after last week’s victory at Martinsville is any indicator, the story of Busch’s 2013 Chase could still have chapters left to be written.

For a good portion of the race it looked as if Busch, who declined post-race comment, was going to come back from an early run-in with the wall to salvage a top-five, possibly a top-three, finish. A late pit road penalty for speeding relegated the driver of the No. 18 Toyota to a disappointing result with his toughest competition (Johnson and Matt Kenseth) each placing in the top five.

"Kyle feels terrible today because he sped on pit road late in the race — but this is a team, and we got his back," said crew chief Dave Rogers. "(The early wreck wasn’t too bad), but it was bad enough where it could’ve ruined our day. He gave us all he had to give us the best finish possible and we took a little bit more than what was there. Like I told Kyle after the race, on a team, everybody is giving 100 percent. And when everybody is giving 100 percent, sometimes they give 100.1, and that point one gets you in trouble."

Unfortunately, it may take Busch giving a constant 100.1 percent at the final two races to overcome the hole he dug at Texas. While his numbers at Phoenix are among the best in the series — a win and 10 top 10s in 17 starts — his Homestead numbers aren’t as glistening. In six of eight starts at the Miami track he’s finished 19th or worse. That said, in last season’s finale he placed fourth after leading 191 of 267 laps.

Still, it might take a little bit of luck on his part — and more than a little bad luck for the 48 and 20 cars — to make up some of the ground lost.

"Realistically at this point, with two races left, you’re probably not going to out-race the 48 and the 20 to accumulate more points than them to win the championship. But anything can happen," said Rogers. "They can speed on pit road. They can have a failure. They can have a wreck. So we’re going to give the next two races 100 percent and if them guys stumble a little bit hopefully we can capitalize."

"Over the years, I’ve learned from experience as soon as you hope for bad luck for someone else, you’re on the hook. You never hope for bad luck for a competitor; you want to beat them on the race track."

Even if Busch is unable to catch the power duo at the top, there’s still a silver lining to 2013 for the 18 team. Third place may be the consolation prize right now, but it’d be Busch’s highest finish ever — just a year removed from missing the Chase completely. Considering the five-time champion Johnson didn’t rein in title No. 1 until age 30, the 28-year-old Busch still has plenty to rest his laurels on if his first doesn’t come this year.

"I don’t really ever count someone out if there’s any kind of outside chance," said team owner Joe Gibbs. "They could get in third still which is a big deal. Then you look at what could happen."

Despite a rough end to what could have been a solid day, nothing changes for how Busch and his crew will approach Phoenix and Homestead.

"It’s the same as what we said in the beginning of the Chase. We’re going to run as hard as we can for 10 races and at the end we’re going to see where the points put us and hopefully it’s good enough to be first."

 

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Posted on by Staff Report

Moments that changed the course of the eighth race in the 2013 Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup

JOHNSON DOMINATES TO WIN, TAKE POINTS LEAD
Able to pull away from his pursuers with apparent ease, Jimmie Johnson finished three positions ahead of Matt Kenseth in Sunday’s AAA Texas 500, breaking a tie for the lead in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, but — make no mistake — Johnson’s performance amounted to a brutal bludgeoning of Kenseth and the rest of the opposition.

Similarly, Johnson left Texas last year with a seven-point lead over Brad Keselowski—and lost the title. But the emphatic nature of Johnson’s win on Sunday sent an unmistakable message.

“We came here and tested and did an awesome job of understanding what I needed in the car and what was going to create speed,” Johnson said after the race. “We came back and had a very smooth qualifying session and practice sessions (Saturday), and just kept putting more and more speed in the car.

“It paid off today. Obviously, we need a lot of speed in the car and a win to get any points because Matt is there in the top five. Nice to gain just a few points on him. But just a dominant day for this Lowe’s team.”

Despite the emphatic whipping he administered to the rest of the field, Johnson is anything but overconfident.

"I’ve been watching a lot of MMA fighting lately, and you’ll fall into a rhythm and think that somebody has got the fight won, and it doesn’t end that way,” he said. “That’s how this is going to be. Matt didn’t have maybe the best day and still finished fourth. This thing is going to go to the last lap at Homestead, and it is going to come down to mistakes.

“I’m very excited about our performance and what we did here. We’ll enjoy this, but there is still two weeks of very hard racing ahead of us."

UPS


KENSETH SPEEDS ON PIT ROAD, LOSES POINTS LEAD
Kenseth hurt his own cause with a pit-road speeding penalty, but not even a perfect day on pit road likely would have overcome the dominance of the five-time champion, who led 255 of 334 laps en route to his third victory at Texas Motor Speedway, his sixth of the season and the 66th of his career.

With two races left in the Chase, Johnson heads to next Sunday’s event at Phoenix with a seven-point lead over Kenseth, who rallied from the speeding penalty he incurred on Lap 173 to finish fourth.

GORDON’S BLOWN TIRE COSTLY TO TITLE SHOT
Devastated. That’s how Jeff Gordon described his emotions as he watched his team work furiously to repair his No. 24 Drive to End Hunger Chevrolet in the Texas Motor Speedway garage only 74 laps into the 334-lap event Sunday.

Gordon, who came into the race ranked third in the Sprint Cup Seres standings — 27 points behind co-leaders Matt Kenseth and Jimmie Johnson, blew a left front tire and crashed hard into the Turn 1 wall badly damaging the entire right side side of his car. The setback may be enough to eliminate him from title contention unless frontrunners Kenseth and Johnson have similar misfortune.

"Just had a left front tire go down, not really sure why yet, trying to figure that out, but that’s a shame," Gordon said from his garage as the crew worked behind him to at least the make the car drivable enough to collect what championship points he can.

"I don’t know if I ran over something or we just had a failure. I felt it go down and even had time to go on the radio and say, ‘Oh you-know-what’ because I knew I was getting ready to hit the wall hard."

"It’s a shame. This team has worked so hard to get ourselves in this position and we can’t have things like this happen. This is going to hurt."

NASCAR.com’s Holly Cain and the NASCAR Wire Service contributed to this report.