Buescher passes Busch late for Michigan win

Posted on August 17, 2013 by

Defending series champion wins first race of 2013

Related: Full race results | Standings

BROOKLYN, Mich. — With six laps left in Saturday’s Michigan National Guard 200 at Michigan International Speedway, Kyle Busch appeared destined to win his first NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at the two-mile track.

But James Buescher, the reigning series champion, rewrote the script with a daring three-wide pass on Lap 97 of 100 and held on to win his first NCWTS event of the season and the fifth of his career.

Busch finished second at Michigan for the fourth time in the Truck Series. Ty Dillon ran third, followed by Joey Logano and Miguel Paludo.

Buescher had planned to pass Brendan Gaughan, who was running second at the time, into Turn 3 on Lap 97. But when he saw a chance to pass both Gaughan and Busch in the same corner, he took it, with authority.

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"It started on the exit of Turn 2," Buescher said. "I was catching Brendan and Kyle and was trying to push Brendan up to Kyle, and coming off 2 I had a gap between the 62 (Gaughan) and I. Brendan was also catching the 51 (Busch), so when I got the run on the 62, my plan going into Turn 3 was to pass the 62.

"It just worked out to where I passed the 62 and the 51. Kyle went down to throw a block, and he got loose entering as low as he did, and the position that my truck was probably didn’t help his loose. I stayed committed, kept my foot in the throttle and came out the other end in front of them both."

Busch acknowledged that Buescher, who was running fifth with four laps left, wasn’t on his radar until he challenged for the lead, but Busch’s version of the decisive pass mirrored that of the race winner.

"I figured that, once I could get out front, I felt like I could hold everybody off, because it was hard to pass," Busch said. "The 62 got a run a run on me down the backstretch, and I pulled a little bit low to block, and then I heard the 31 was on the inside of him.

"How the 31 can get a run on the 62, who’s got a run on me, is beyond me. It blows my mind."

Paludo grabbed the lead with a two-tire pit stop on Lap 57 and held it through a pair of cautions — until Busch got the upper hand moments after a restart on Lap 79.

But at a track where the aerodynamic draft played a huge role in the performance of the trucks, Paludo stayed close to the bumper of Busch’s No. 51 Toyota until debris from Brett Moffitt’s blown tire caused the seventh caution of the afternoon on Lap 90.

After a restart on Lap 95, Busch kept the top spot until his Tundra got loose in Turn 3 as he was trying to protect the lead in the three-car battle with Buescher and Gaughan.

Buescher climbed one position to third in the Truck Series standings, 52 points behind leader Matt Crafton, who finished ninth Saturday. Pole winner Jeb Burton, who ran 10th after getting mired in traffic, is second in points, 51 back of Crafton.

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Posted on August 17, 2013 by Staff Report

Jeb nabs fourth pole of season

Related: Qualifying results and lineup

Jeb Burton is getting used to starting from the front of the pack. For the fourth time this season Burton won the Keystone Light Pole in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, this time doing it at Michigan International Speedway in preparation for the Michigan National Guard 200 (100 laps, 200 miles) on Saturday at 12:30 p.m. ET on FOX Sports 1.

Burton will start on the front row alongside Brendan Gaughan, whose speed of 184.120 mph was behind Burton’s mark of 185.759. James Buescher, Max Gresham and Ty Dillon round out the top five. Ryan Blaney, who won in last Truck Series race at Pocono, was 19th.

Nelson Piquet Jr., who won at Michigan last season, is not participating this year because he is competing in the NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.

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Posted on August 17, 2013 by Staff Report

Allmendinger takes second; Dillon, Ambrose to start at rear

Related: Full qualifying results

LEXINGTON, Ohio — Michael McDowell surged to the pole position for Saturday afternoon’s inaugural NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, turning a lap of 96.256 mph in Saturday morning qualifying.

McDowell, making just his fifth Nationwide start of the year, secured the second Coors Light Pole Award of his career in the Nationwide Series. It was his first pole since June 25, 2011, when he was the fastest qualifier at Road America. He’ll start first in the Nationwide Children’s Hospital 200 (2:30 p.m. ET, ESPN), driving the No. 18 Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing.

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AJ Allmendinger, a winner at Road America in his only other Nationwide start this season, will take the green flag second in the No. 22 Ford for Penske Racing after turning a lap of 96.243 mph around the 13-turn, 2.258-mile road course. Owen Kelly, Kyle Larson and Nelson Piquet Jr. completed the top five.

Series points leader Austin Dillon and Marcos Ambrose will start at the rear of the 40-car field after missing qualifying. Both drivers were at Michigan International Speedway in the final two morning practices for Sunday’s Pure Michigan 400 (Sunday at 1 p.m. ET, ESPN) for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.

Jason Bowles qualified the No. 3 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet with the 11th-fastest time for Dillon, who is substituting for the injured Tony Stewart in the No. 14 Chevy at Michigan. Ryan Truex qualified the No. 9 Richard Petty Motorsports Ford forAmbrose, setting the 19th-fastest time.

As is customary on road courses for NASCAR’s three national series, drivers took to the track in groups from slowest to fastest based on a combination of lap times in Friday’s two practice sessions. The field was divided into eight groups of either five or six cars for qualifying.

TJ Bell, Dexter Stacey and Tim Cowen failed to qualify. Cowen nosed his No. 86 Ford into the Turn 9 barrier during Friday’s final practice and the team was unable to repair the car in time for Saturday morning’s qualifying.

NASCAR officials notified teams before Saturday’s qualifying that their over-the-wall crewmembers would be allowed to lean on the pit wall instead of crouching before pit stops. The change is designed to allow crewmembers to better clear Mid-Ohio’s metal pit wall, which measures almost a foot taller than the concrete pit wall at other NASCAR tracks.

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Posted on August 17, 2013 by Staff Report

Harvick nabs fastest lap; Johnson shows consistency

BROOKLYN, Mich. — Kevin Harvick was fastest for a single lap, while Jimmie Johnson was the most consistent as NASCAR Sprint Cup Series teams hit the track at Michigan International Speedway Saturday morning.

Harvick paced the day’s first practice, a 55-minute affair, with a lap of 202.577 mph in the No. 29 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet.Hendrick Motorsports teammates Kasey Kahne (202.338) and Johnson (202.304) were second and third.

Completing the top five were Earnhardt Ganassi Racing teammates Juan Pablo Montoya and Jamie McMurray.

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Johnson had the best 10-lap average in the morning session at 200.006 on the 2-mile oval. A five-time series champion, Johnson will belooking for his first MIS win when Sunday’s Pure Michigan 400 gets underway.

Joey Logano, whose 2003.949 mph lap on Friday established a track qualifying record and put the Penske Racing driver on the pole, was 15th Saturday while Kurt Busch, the No. 2 qualifier, was sixth on the scoreboard.

A final practice session is scheduled for teams beginning at 11 a.m.

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Posted on August 17, 2013 by Zack Albert

Runner-up finish gives pole-sitter best finish of season

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LEXINGTON, Ohio — You can usually find Michael McDowell smiling, but after Saturday’s first-ever Nationwide Children’s Hospital 200 at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, he was especially buoyant.

After all, McDowell started on the pole and kept all four corners on his No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota after a swashbuckling race on the 2.258-mile road course. Even better, he was thankful to have steered clear of NASCAR’s handful of summons to the Nationwide Series hauler for rough driving.

“Oh wait,” McDowell said. “Maybe I am and I just haven’t gotten over there yet.”

It was easy to joke after a brilliant second-place finish. In just his fifth Nationwide start of the season, he came away with his first Coors Light Pole Award in two years and came within a few car-lengths of challenging AJ Allmendinger for his first victory in the series.

Coming that close made the result slightly bittersweet.

“It’s a great weekend and I don’t want to feel disappointed at all, but it is hard. You want to get that first win,” McDowell said. “We were close. We didn’t have the best car, but we had opportunities at the lead and AJ throughout the race. We just didn’t quite have enough.”

Part of the opportunity arose when Kenny Habul ran off course just before the white flag was to be unfurled, forcing the final caution period and setting up a wild overtime finish. With it, Allmendinger’s relatively comfortable lead over McDowell evaporated.

While the potential for a breakthrough victory for McDowell was there, a snug fuel window, the potential for disaster and lining up outside the preferred lane for the restart were potentially conspiring against him.

“It was a little bit of mixed emotions,” McDowell said. “I knew that it would give us another opportunity at maybe having a shot to win, I knew it also gave us the opportunity to be buried in the sandtrap and finish 20th.”

McDowell has competed in all but two Sprint Cup races this year for the reduced-budget Mike Curb-owned No. 98 team, recording a career-best ninth in the Daytona 500. Saturday, he showed what he could do in his second start of 2013 with the Gibbs team, holding his own for the operation that has nine Nationwide triumphs in 22 races this season.

While McDowell said he would love to expand his racing schedule, the ability to contend for the winner’s laurels still holds the most appeal.

"My desire is just to be competitive, whether that’s in the Nationwide Series, truck series or Cup series,” McDowell said. “The Cup program that I do, we don’t get to race often, but it keeps me around for opportunities like this. I would love to be able to able to move into a full-time position in the Nationwide Series with Joe Gibbs Racing, it’s just a tough place; they’ve got a lot of great drivers, as you know. When you can pull Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch and Matt Kenseth from your roster to run Nationwide, it definitely makes it hard to fit into that. We’re working hard at it; it just takes sponsorship. Fortunately, we’ve had some good runs.”

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Posted on August 17, 2013 by Zack Albert

Nationwide Series road course race turns into game of ‘who wrecked who?’

Related: Full results | Updated standings

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LEXINGTON, Ohio — The chaotic green-white-checkered finish that most everyone expected in the inaugural NASCAR Nationwide Series event at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course came to pass Saturday afternoon. The byproduct was passes made with the help of a front bumper and bruised tempers in a chaotic garage area afterward.

While AJ Allmendinger kept his car clean on the way to victory in the Nationwide Children’s Hospital 200, dust and bent fenders erupted behind him.

Parker Kligerman turned Marcos Ambrose around on the cool-down lap, then got an earful from Regan Smith as he exited his car in the paddock. Kyle Larson spun Max Papis after the checkered flag, then joined Kligerman in the Nationwide Series hauler for a talking-to from NASCAR officials.

Earlier in the race, Smith endured the first of his handful of spinouts on the day coming off the nose of Elliott Sadler. The incident spurred speculation that Sadler had exacted his revenge for Smith’s contact with him late in last month’s race at New Hampshire.

That day, Sadler vowed to Smith, “You will not win this championship, mark my word.” Saturday, Smith dipped to a tie for fourth in the standings after a 15th-place finish while Sadler jumped two spots to second after running sixth. But was the contact along the way intentional?

“You’ll have to ask him,” Smith said as he left the property. “I’m going to presume that we’re on an even slate for the rest of the year, though.”

Sadler wasn’t around for comment, dousing himself with water after dismounting before bolting for the exit gate. As happy as all the drivers said they were to be at the 2.258-mile road course for the first time, they were just as happy to leave it once their battered cars pulled to a stop.

Larson brushed off reporters and left shortly after his impromptu disciplinary hearing, but tweeted afterward, "Got used up a lot today by the ‘ringers’ … Our team fought hard and I want to thank them a bunch. Deserved a better finish!" While the 21-year-old Larson has drawn praise as a driving prodigy with speculation rising that he’ll take Juan Pablo Montoya’s place in the Earnhardt Ganassi Racing No. 42, the veteran Papis suggested he still had plenty to learn.

“He spun me after the checkered flag, he moved me after getting to the last corner, and I would’ve not pushed him around if he had not done that,” said Papis, who brought the No. 33 Richard Childress Racing Chevy home fourth. “I guess he’s still a young kid who’s got to learn, but I was not expecting a kid who looked cool like a cucumber to lose it that much.”

Because of the clandestine nature of the NASCAR hauler, it’s not known whether Larson and Kligerman were given a joint lecture by officials or separate consultations. The difference between the two is that while Larson was not in a mood to discuss his reaction to the race’s closing two-lap shootout, Kligerman sure was, expressing his displeasure on Twitter and in his post-race interview.

Kligerman said he had little issue with Smith, despite their run-in earlier this season at Road America. Sprint Cup Series regular Ambrose, who made his first Nationwide start since 2011 on Saturday, was a different matter.

“We put ourselves in a position to maybe run top three, saving fuel and hanging in the top five,” Kligerman said. “Then these guys they call road-course ringers, which aren’t faster than us, they’re not any better, they’re actually worse in a lot of ways, they don’t know how to drive and just come in here and wreck everything and ruin the day for points guys like ourselves.

“They put us in positions where we need to go and get points back so we end up running into each other. Everyone here you talk to is like, ‘It’s X road ringer or X road ringer.’ I think they’re talentless hacks and they don’t belong to be here.”

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Posted on August 17, 2013 by Nascar

Even after early struggles that included a botched pit stop, the No. 3 sails across the finish line in third

BROOKLYN, Mich. — Ty Dillon overcame a problem-filled pit stop just past the halfway point of Saturday’s Michigan National Guard 200 at Michigan International Speedway to score a third-place finish in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series event.

“We had an issue …” Dillon said of the stop that took place after he hit pit road under the day’s fourth caution. The jack dropped, and “the tire wasn’t there."

“We had quite a few issues going on there, but I still felt like we had a chance. We still had plenty of laps left and I knew our truck was plenty fast. The way we race around here in these trucks at Michigan, anything can happen.”

Second behind race leader Kyle Busch before the stop, Dillon’s Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet restarted outside the top 20. He was running 12th five laps later when John Wes Townley spun to bring out another yellow, until another stop left him 16th on the ensuing restart.

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“I don’t think you’re ever OK with (a pit problem),” Dillon said. “When you go in second and come out 22nd or whatever …. My guys work hard so I can’t beat up on them too much. They never have things like that happen.”

It was a “rare instance,” he said. “You get frustrated at first, but what can you do about it?”

Another incident, this one involving German Quiroga, saw Dillon finally break back into the top 10, and with 15 laps remaining, he was just outside the top five.

One final restart that saw Busch, Miguel Paludo, eventual race winner James Buescher, Brendan Gaughan, Timothy Peters and Dillon scrambling for real estate shook out without incident, and allowed Dillon to grab third.

The finish gained Dillon one spot in the points standings, from fifth to fourth, after 12 races. He trails third-place Buescher by 10 and is 62 behind points leader Matt Crafton.

“Our restarts weren’t too good all day … we tried some stuff with our transmission to try to find and advantage and it ended up hurting us,” Dillon said.

“Anybody that was on the bottom would lose a lot of spots (on restarts) and we lost a lot every time it felt like. We came back and had such a fast (truck) that we were able to pass a lot of (trucks).”

• Crafton, penalized for an uncontrolled tire during the same stop that Dillon had his issues, finished ninth. It was his 12th consecutive top-10 finish this season and he now leads Jeb Burton by 51 points.

“You have to have track position,” Crafton said. “It was everything. The 31 (Buescher) got one run on the restart — he started right in front of me — and then all of a sudden he wins the race.

“It was all just about a momentum restart, and we just never had really good ones there toward the end.”

• Ryan Blaney took the day’s biggest points hit, falling five spots from third to eighth with a last-place finish. The Brad Keselowski Racing driver spun and crashed after contact from Darrell Wallace Jr. on the first lap of the race.

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Posted on August 17, 2013 by Nascar

Veteran dismisses talk of driving the No. 14 or No. 42

BROOKLYN, Mich. — For a driver that runs a limited schedule, Mark Martin has suddenly become a full-time topic of conversation in NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series.

In scenarios that put him in the No. 14 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet while co-owner/driver Tony Stewart continues to mend from a broken leg, to serving as a mentor for Earnhardt Ganassi Racing development driver Kyle Larson next season, Martin finds his name thrust into the mix.

While the 54-year-old Martin was quick to put the brakes on any such scenarios, he didn’t completely dismiss the ideas at Michigan International Speedway.

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Officials with SHR have been scrambling to fill the driver’s seat of the No. 14 entry after Stewart suffered a broken right leg while competing in a sprint car race Aug. 5 in Iowa. The following week at Watkins Glen International, road racer Max Papis finished 15th in a relief role; for this weekend’s Pure Michigan 400, former Camping World Truck Series champion and current Nationwide Series competitor Austin Dillon will handle the driving duties.

On Friday, SHR’s Greg Zipadelli said the organization hopes to iron out details in the coming week that will see two drivers fill the seat until Stewart’s return.

Martin’s schedule calls for him to drive the No. 55 Toyota for Michael Waltrip Racing in 10 of the remaining 14 Cup races, including Sunday’s stop. Brian Vickers, recently announced as the team’s full-time driver for 2014 and 2015, is scheduled to be in the car next week at Bristol, as well as at New Hampshire and Martinsville later this year. Co-owner Michael Waltrip is slated to race at Talladega.

Could Martin, then, fill the seat for SHR at Bristol and Martinsville, if not for the remainder of the season?

It’s something that had not been discussed, he said, in part because the focus was to wrap up negotiations for 2014 with Vickers and sponsor Aaron’s.

“That’s where most of the energy has gone the last couple weeks, getting all that put to rest and announced,” he said.

Martin said he has not heard directly from Stewart, a three-time Cup champion, “but obviously the question came up early on.

“It’s just really complicated, it’s more complicated than it looks at face value,” he said.

MWR fields Toyota-branded cars while SHR has support from Chevrolet. Aaron’s, the primary sponsor for the No. 55, signed on with Vickers for 2014 and beyond, but has expectations that Martin would be in the car for select races this season.

“It sounds logical, but there’s a lot of complications that go with that,” Martin said. “As of right now, I’m driving the Aaron’s Dream Machine and tickled to death. I love (crew chief) Rodney Childers and everybody at MWR and that’s what we’re doing.”

Logic might also indicate that Larson moves into the No. 42 being vacated by Juan Pablo Montoya, but such a scenario is complicated as well. Larson, 21, has six starts in NASCAR’s Camping World Truck Series, winning at Rockingham (N.C.) earlier this year.

He is eighth in points in the Nationwide Series, where he has posted five top-five finishes this season for Turner Scott Motorsports. He has no Cup experience.

A standout in the open-wheel sprints, Larson is considered one of today’s top young talents. Stewart tabbed him a star of the next generation, saying earlier this year, “you can bet the farm on it.

“I guarantee it,” he said. “If not, you can take everything I own because I’m that confident.”

Martin said he has not been approached by anyone from EGR. But a return to competing full time “won’t happen.

“I wouldn’t do it for the world,” he said.

With 40 career wins, Martin has driven for some of the series’ most successful teams, notably Roush Fenway Racing and Hendrick Motorsports. He is 29th in points while making just 15 of 22 starts this season.

“Here’s the thing … the reason I haven’t talked about 2014 is because I felt like the landscape was probably going to change and it’s starting to change rapidly. I have no idea. I promise, no one has talked to anyone on my side from (EGR). I know that it’s really churning out there, but there really hasn’t been the first discussion about that.”

As for serving as a mentor for Larson?

“This Ganassi rumor that’s going around, I heard that at Indy and I laughed because they better start talking to us,” he said. “… I’m not saying they might come talk to me tonight, I don’t know. I haven’t even heard anything. I suspect they might already have something up their sleeve.”

While he has no firm grasp on where he will be next season, Martin said he is confident that he will continue to “be involved in NASCAR racing.

“I’m as big of a fan of it as all you guys,” he said. “It’s been my life and I will be around, I’m just not in a hurry to even start to move forward about ’14 because there’s some good racing to go here yet.”

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Posted on August 17, 2013 by Nascar

Five-time champion will start from the rear in search of first Michigan win

Related: Practice results, lineup

BROOKLYN, Mich. — Five-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson, fastest in Saturday’s second and final practice at Michigan International Speedway, will start at the back of the field for Sunday’s Pure Michigan 400.

The Hendrick Motorsports driver wrecked his primary car during the final practice session, and only quick work by the No. 48 crew enabled Johnson to get in a handful of laps in his backup car before the practice came to an end.

Once the damaged car was returned to the garage on the back of a wrecker, a handful of crewmen worked quickly to cover the car as others rushed to prepare the team’s backup.

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“I’m a little puzzled as to why I spun out going in, because I’ve had great entry stability — even on that run I had great entry stability,” Johnson said before climbing into the backup car and heading back out onto the track.

“I got a little close to the No. 27 (of Paul Menard) but then again it’s not like I was right on him.

“To me it felt like I lost downforce just from the traffic scenario. I’m not really sure; either way we have a torn up car and we will have to work hard to get this one ready to go.”

Because Johnson’s incident occurred after qualifying (he was scheduled to start third), he will now have to drop to the rear of the field prior to the start of the race.

Michigan is one of five tracks on which Johnson has yet to win. He’s also winless at Chicagoland Speedway, Homestead-Miami Speedway, Kentucky Speedway and Watkins Glen International.

It will be the second time this season he has started from the rear of the field. At New Hampshire earlier this season, Johnson’s No. 2 qualifying time was disallowed when the front of his car measured too low during post-qualifying inspection. Johnson went on to finish sixth in the race.

Before Saturday’s crash, which saw Johnson spin and make contact with the wall in Turn 4, he had turned the fastest lap of the session at 199.457 mph. He had been third in the morning session, while posting the best 10-lap average before turning to his backup car.

"Very good backup car went out and put down an eight- or 10-lap run there at the end that I would put up against anybody’s time," Johnson said. "I hate the extra work load, but we are trying to figure out what really happened because I had no sign of loose and certainly spun out and crashed. The No. 88 (Dale Earnhardt Jr.) came over and he said that he felt there may have been some oil down and he slipped real bad going through there."

Juan Pablo Montoya (Earnhardt Ganassi Racing) was second Saturday morning at 198.758 mph while Greg Biffle (Roush Fenway Racing), Kurt Busch (Furniture Row Racing) and Jeff Gordon (Hendrick) completed the top five.

Earnhardt Jr., 13th on the chart, had the fastest 10-lap average in the closing session.

Kevin Harvick paced the day’s first practice, a 55-minute affair, with a lap of 202.577 mph in the No. 29 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet. Hendrick teammates Kasey Kahne (202.338) and Johnson (202.304) were second and third.

Completing the top five were Montoya and teammate Jamie McMurray.

Joey Logano, whose 203.949 mph lap on Friday established a track qualifying record and put the Penske Racing driver on the Coors Light Pole, was 15th in the morning session and 22nd in the final practice.

Posted on August 17, 2013 by Staff Report

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