Relive the action from Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race in Kentucky
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Keselowski tumbles in standings; teammate Logano is big winner
Three up
Three down
In the green
Joey Logano (Change: 14th to 10th)
There’s a Penske Racing driver slotted in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup field, but it’s not the defending champion. Joey Logano’s streak of strong finishes reached six consecutive races Sunday in Kentucky. A fourth-place finish vaulted Logano into the final Chase spot … for now.
Kurt Busch (Change: 17th to 14th)
The No. 78 Chevrolet was all over the track Sunday. That includes the apron, where Kurt Busch tried to make a pass and ultimately bumped Brad Keselowski, causing a seven-car accident that red-flagged the race. In the end, though, the 2004 series champion drove through the field after a final restart and finished sixth.
Jamie McMurray (Change: 21st to 19th)
McMurray finished second at Kentucky, his first top-five since the 2011 fall race at Bristol. Snapping that skid was important, and so was climbing two spots in the standings. Now in 19th, McMurray would be in consideration for one of two Wild Card spots to the Chase. Of course, he still needs to win, but his performance at Kentucky showed that winning isn’t an unreasonable expectation.
In the red
Brad Keselowski (Change: Ninth to 13th)
At one of his favorite tracks and running the tripleheader, this was supposed to be a banner weekend for Keselowski. After finishing second in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race and winning the NASCAR Nationwide Series race, Keselowski had the car — and the mindset — capable of winning his first Sprint Cup race of the season. He was spun out by Kurt Busch, however, on Lap 48 and destroyed his No. 2 Ford. The resulting 33rd-place finish puts the defending champion on the outside of the postseason picture.
Greg Biffle (Change: Sixth to ninth)
Biffle was an innocent bystander when Keselowski was spun, but when the No. 2 Ford careened onto the track, Biffle’s No. 16 Ford got caught up in a big way. To be exact, his car caught on fire. The three-place drop in the standings isn’t quite so precipitous, though, given that Biffle has a win to fall back on.
Paul Menard (Change: 12th to 15th)
Consistent all season, Menard got caught up in the Lap 48 wreck. His 14-point effort tied for his worst outing of the season, and it puts Menard 20 points out of 10th place, a significant blow to his Chase chances.
Missed chances
Carl Edwards (Change: Stays second)
What an up-and-down day for Edwards’ team. Trailing Jimmie Johnson by 25 points in the standings entering the day, it looked like Edwards would put a sizable dent in that lead. Johnson spun out on a late restart and was 24th with 15 laps to go. Edwards was running in the top five and, at the time, Johnson’s point lead was cut to six points. But then the No. 48 charged through the field to finish ninth, and Edwards faltered late to finish 21st. As a result, the gap between him and Johnson widened to 38 points.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. (Change: Stays sixth)
First of all, Earnhardt and his No. 88 team should be commended. Junior drilled a piece of debris just after the caution flag came out early on, tearing up his grille. At the time, Earnhardt Jr. — who was on the Coors Light Pole — was leading the race. The team taped up Earnhardt Jr.’s grille to the point where he didn’t lose a lap, but it wasn’t the same machine after the incident. So although Earnhardt rallied to finish 12th, he missed out on a great shot at his first win since June 17, 2012.
Denny Hamlin (Change: Stays 25th)
This just isn’t Hamlin’s year. Needing wins, he cut a tire early in the race and lost his top-five position. Then he got it back with some great driving. Then he lost it all, for good this time, after losing another tire and slamming into the outside wall. He finished 35th.
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‘Dinger has own experience with being replaced at one-car team
Related: Race lineup | Complete Kentucky coverage
SPARTA, Ky. — AJ Allmendinger doesn’t have 704 consecutive starts in NASCAR’s premier series to his credit. But that doesn’t mean he can’t relate to what Bobby Labonte might be going through.
The 2000 champion is missing the first race of his full-time career this weekend, as his JTG Daugherty team continues to search for ways to remedy a program that currently sits 30th in owners points. The organization is putting Allmendinger into its No. 47 car for several races as a comparative measure, which for Labonte means the end of the third-longest consecutive race streak in the sport’s history.
Kentucky will mark the first race without Labonte since the 1992 season finale at Atlanta, before the Texan landed his first full-time ride with Bill Davis for the 1993 campaign. The only longer consecutive race streaks are Ricky Rudd’s all-time mark of 788, and Jeff Gordon’s current active record of 705. Although Allmendinger also drove the No. 47 car two weeks ago at Michigan, Labonte was able to land a ride in Phoenix Racing’s No. 51 to keep his streak alive.
"What makes it tough is obviously, Bobby’s role in NASCAR for the last several years has been huge to this sport. He’s helped grow the sport."
— AJ Allmendinger
FULL SERIES COVERAGE
Not so at Kentucky. While some fans have reacted angrily to the measure, Allmendinger cautions that he’s trying to make the program better, and that he also knows from personal experience what it’s like to be on the other side.
“It’s not easy,” he said Friday. “There are the emotions of disappointment, and you wish you were in the car. That’s just natural. In this day and age, it’s so tough, because people want to put up ‘AJ versus Bobby,’ or ‘AJ’s taking Bobby’s ride.’ That’s not what it’s about. Bobby Labonte has been such a great ambassador to this sport over the last 20 years, and obviously he’s a champion. So those feelings are just natural. You should have them. There’s nothing wrong with them.”
He knows, because he’s had them himself. In 2008, Allmendinger was a second-year NASCAR driver for a struggling Red Bull team. He failed to qualify for the Daytona 500. Then he failed to make the next event at Auto Club. Then he failed to make the next event at Las Vegas. So for the following race at Atlanta, team management put veteran Mike Skinner in the car. He remained there for five races, trying to help bring the program up to speed while Allmendinger watched.
“We’re race car drivers. Being out of a race car, we don’t like that,” Allmendinger said. “And when you see somebody else in your race car, it’s not a good feeling. That’s the natural feeling. You should be disappointed in that and not be happy about it. But for me, it at least gave me a chance to step out and watch from outside and say, ‘OK, it’s something I can learn from, and I need to learn from.’ And it truly helped me at that point.
“If I’m saying the same thing Bobby is, and in a way I kind of am, that only helps what he’s been saying. So there’s good and bad to both. The race car driver hates it, but it can play out to where it helps the team, it helps the other person, it helps me. But what makes it tough is obviously, Bobby’s role in NASCAR for the last several years has been huge to this sport. He’s helped grow the sport. So I understand it. All I can do is go out and do the best job possible. I understand the people that aren’t happy with it, and at the same point, I can’t control that. I just control myself, and just like life right now, try to live day to day.”
When Allmendinger finally returned to his Red Bull car in 2008, he didn’t just make the race at Talladega, he qualified fourth. Although race results came more slowly, he gradually crept into the top 20, and at Indianapolis scored his first career top-10. Now he’s playing the Skinner role at JTG Daugherty, offering a second opinion that may help the team find where the real problems lie. Friday’s practice sessions were something of a struggle, with Allmendinger placing 30th and 31st on the speed chart.
“Obviously, you go out there and you try to have the best finish possible,” he said. “In the end, that’s what everybody looks at, and that’s what you’re based on. But for me, all I can do is give my best feedback. Come in here and say, ‘OK, this is what I think.’ And maybe it’s the same as what Bobby thinks. Or maybe it’s different. It might be different than what a Jimmie Johnson would feel. But for me, all I can do is go out there and give my best effort, give all the feedback that I can — the good, the bad, what I feel is positive, what I feel we need to work on as a race team in general. And hopefully for me, that’s what helps the race team get better, no matter who’s in the car from here on out.”
Allmendinger is also likely to drive for JTG Daugherty at Watkins Glen, and in two other races where the team needs sponsorship. He’ll compete for Phoenix Racing next weekend at Daytona, when Labonte will be back in the No. 47. Although the two haven’t spoken since Michigan, Allmendinger said Labonte was one of several drivers who was “very helpful” to the former open-wheeler when he returned to NASCAR after a failed drug test last summer.
He can also relate to trying to diagnose problems with a single-car team, and second-guessing whether what you’re feeling is right or wrong. “You kind of get lost in your own thoughts,” Allmendinger said. “Is this what I’m supposed to be feeling, or should it be different? Sometimes you don’t know.” But he knows one thing — he can’t even comprehend the idea of 704 consecutive starts.
“Hell, man, I’m just trying to get week to week,” Allmendinger said with a smile. “Seven hundred and four seems like an eternity.”
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Gordon blends in on trip to Yankee Stadium; Patrick explains driving a Ford
SPARTA, Ky. — It’s hard to believe Jeff Gordon can go anywhere without being recognized.
With the possible exception of Hendrick Motorsports teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr., Gordon has the most readily identifiable face in NASCAR racing. After all, Gordon has co-hosted on television with Kelly Ripa, he has his own brand of wine and his "Q" rating reaches far beyond his accomplishments on the asphalt.
Yet Gordon can ride the train with son Leo from Manhattan to Yankee Stadium and take in a ballgame in relative anonymity, as was the case when Gordon took Leo to a New York Yankees-Texas Rangers game on Thursday.
"I saw one couple looking at me, but they didn’t say anything," Gordon said Friday at Kentucky Speedway. "Nobody said anything to me. I would say 99 percent of the people on that train had no idea who I was.
"At the game, once I got inside, there were several people that came up to me and were really kind and everything, but it wasn’t a distraction from me and Leo being able to have a special moment."
The ride home mirrored the trip to the stadium.
"We got back on the train, and not one single person said anything to me," Gordon said. "And that’s one of the things I love about New York. I go through that on a day-to-day basis up there. When you do get recognized, it’s actually a moment where you’re like, ‘Wow! I can’t believe somebody recognized me in New York City!’"
Perhaps Gordon should rethink selling his 3,500-square-foot Central Park West condo, which he put on the market for $30 million in May.
After all, you can’t put a price on privacy.
BRAND LOYALTY
Danica Patrick received a ration of grief on Twitter last weekend at Sonoma Raceway when a candid photo caught her emerging from a Ford Fusion in the paddock lot.
Patrick drives a Chevrolet for Stewart-Haas Racing, but there was no brand disloyalty involved. In fact, the explanation was as simple as it was predictable. The Fusion was a rental car belonging to boyfriend Ricky Stenhouse Jr., who drives Fords for Roush Fenway Racing.
Because of heavy traffic headed into the track, Stenhouse was cutting it close for a team meeting. Patrick offered to park the car in the paddock lot at the far end of the main grandstand, down a steep hill from the main road into the raceway.
"For those of you who follow me on Twitter, you would have seen that it was taking a really long time to get into the track, and he had a team meeting at the top of the hill," Patrick said. "That was a long walk, and he was going to be late if we parked down in the paddock area.
"So, being the nice girlfriend that I am, I said I would just drive the car down and park it, and you get on with your meetings. So, it was really as simple as that."
As Patrick discovered, however, in the days of omnipresent cameras and instant sharing, nothing is quite that simple, no matter how well-intended.
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Showers on Friday night and Saturday afternoon have soaked the 1.5-mile track
Related: For the updates, visit our Minute-by-Minute blog
SPARTA, Ky. — Saturday night’s Quaker State 400 presented by Advance Auto Parts NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race has been postponed due to rain.
The race is rescheduled for noon ET Sunday on TNT, PRN and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio at Kentucky Speedway.
NASCAR announced that the Sprint Cup Series garage will open at 9 a.m. ET. Speedway officials will open parking lots at 8 a.m. with gates opening at 10 a.m.
The 2012 Daytona 500 was the last race postponed a day by weather. The first prime-time weeknight race for Cup was won by Matt Kenseth.
Originally scheduled to begin at 7:45 p.m. (ET) on Saturday, officials moved the start up four minutes, to 7:41, and announced a Lap-30 competition caution due to rain showers that hit the 1.5-mile Kentucky Speedway Friday night and Saturday afternoon.
But rain persisted in the area, and the track wasn’t dry by 7:41. Driver introductions went through at 7:50 p.m, and the dryers did their work on the track.
Progress made, though, was continually washed out by persisting showers.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. will start on the pole for the series’ 17th race, with Carl Edwards also on the front row. See the entire lineup here.
Friday night’s Feed The Children 300 NASCAR Nationwide Series race ended 30 laps shy of its scheduled 200-lap distance due to rain.
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The No. 29 has been arguably the most consistent of the top four drivers in standings
Lineup | Schedule | Latest news
SPARTA, Ky. — Much more has been written this year about drivers who have done much less.
That fact may or may not concern Kevin Harvick. Given his detachment from anything that doesn’t make his No. 29 Chevrolet more competitive on the race track, it’s unlikely he’s paid it much mind.
For a driver that has won two NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races this season, and currently sits fourth in points headed into Sunday’s postponed Quaker State 400 at Kentucky Speedway (Noon ET, TNT), Harvick appears to have quietly flown under the radar for quite some time.
No doubt the competition has noticed. With the series beginning a 10-race stretch to determine this year’s Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup field, teams are scrambling to set themselves up for a potential playoff run. No team has been more consistent of late than the Richard Childress Racing team of Harvick and crew chief Gil Martin.
Not points leader Jimmie Johnson, who noted on Friday that, “life is pretty comfortable up where we are.”
Not Matt Kenseth, whose three victories this season can’t hide the fact that his Joe Gibbs Racing entry has been saddled with three DNFs as well.
Not even Carl Edwards, No. 2 in points and now apparently getting his No. 99 Roush Fenway Ford on track.
It’s Harvick, having banked six consecutive top-10 finishes, and seven in his last eight outings, that has shown the most consistency.
The 37-year-old will go off 22nd in tonight’s 43-car field, the result, he said, not so much of a poor qualifying attempt as simply bad timing.
“We knew with the early draw that it was kind of going to be hit or miss,” Harvick said, noting that while the result wasn’t what the team had hoped, “that is still four-tenths (of a second) faster than we ran in our mock qualifying run at the end (of practice.)
“We knew it wasn’t going to be very good with our draw. We have a good race car.”
Dale Earnhardt Jr. will start on the pole, thanks to a bit of cloud cover and a track-record lap of 183.636 mph. Edwards will join theHendrick Motorsports driver on the front row, while Johnson, Kyle Busch and Marcos Ambrose will start third through fifth.
Harvick has yet to score a top-10 finish on the 1.5-mile Kentucky track, but tonight’s race will be just the third appearance for Cup teams there. He finished 11th a year ago, 16th the year before.
“This is just a really rough race track,” he said. “There is nothing wrong with the race track; it is just rough.”
The key, he said, will be having the right amount of adjustability in the car, enough to allow Martin and his crew to continue to dial it in as the track conditionschange. Testing at the track earlier gave the group a laundry list of potential changes, but until he’s on track with a full field, Harvick said, it’s difficult to know what to expect.
“You have to have adjustability in your car no matter where you are,” he said, “because you never know what the conditions are going to be like when you start the race in a pack.”
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Catch up on what happened on an eventful weekend at Kentucky
Sprint Cup Series: Race results | Standings
Nationwide Series: Race results | Standings
Camping World Truck Series: Race Results | Standings
Sprint Cup Series
The Quaker State 400 presented by Advance Auto Parts.
Featured Story
Kenseth goes for four
Matt Kenseth is the first driver to get to four victories this season as he takes the checkered flag in the Quaker State 400 at Kentucky Speedway in an action-packed race. | Read the full story
Other news:
— Keselowski involved in big wreck
— Watch wreck video
— Earnhardt keeps his chin up
— Johnson recovers after missed opportunity
— Minute-by-Minute: Relive Sunday
— Race RePlay: Quaker State 400
Nationwide Series
Feed the Children 300.
Featured Story
Keselowski wins by rain delay
Sprint Cup Series regular Brad Keselowski was going for a sweep this weekend. He couldn’t get it done in the Truck race, finishing second, but headed to Victory Lane after a rain delay ended with Nationwide Series race with 30 laps to go. | Read the full story
Other news:
— Dash 4 Cash field set for Daytona
— Crafton’s first showing worth the wait
— Dillon wins Nationwide pole
— Pastrana tops final practice
— Crafton fast in first practice
Camping World Truck Series
UNOH 225.
Featured Story
Dillon wins
Ty Dillon gets his second win on the Camping World Truck Series, pulling away from Brad Keselowski and Kyle Busch, who were both going for the tripleheader sweep at Kentucky. | Read the full story
Other news:
— Blaney pleased with rough-and-tumble showing
— No sweep for Keselowski, Busch
— Gale makes his mark in final truck practice
— Darrell Wallace Jr. tops first practice
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at Kentucky |
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Complete conversation with media at Kentucky Speedway
DANICA PATRICK, NO. 10 GODADDY CHEVROLET SS, met with members of the media at Kentucky Speedway and discussed practice, the learning curve switching from IndyCar to NASCAR, Kyle Petty’s recent comments and other topics. Full Transcript provided by Chevrolet:
Q: How has practice been?
A: “I think that we unloaded a little bit better than we have lately or well, in general. A little bit closer to start and made a nice change the first time and ran a little bit quicker and then we have just been trying to search and find some front grip out there. Made a few good changes. It’s hot and slippery and this is a bumpy old track and it’s slippery, especially as the sun beats down on it and rubber gets laid down and the rubber gets slippery. I think we’ve got a general direction and we’ve been loose in for the most part everywhere we go and this was the first time that we’ve been a little tight in. We’re just trying to address our issues, but then they present new issues.”
Q: Reaction to the Chicago Blackhawks winning the Stanley Cup
A: “I tweeted, ‘Hawks win, Hawks win,’ because who is the Cubs guy that said, ‘Cubs win, Cubs win?’ Harry Caray — that’s why I did it. It was a really good game and it was a good series. They were playing really, really hard that’s for sure. Fast and hard and I’m sure some people lost teeth, but it was exciting to watch.”
Q: Reaction to Kyle Petty’s comments
A: “Read it yes. I just think that it’s funny how he said that I could qualify, but I can’t race because those of you that actually watch what I do would know that I can’t qualify for crap. In the race things go much better. It’s a little bit funny, but the most important thing to me is that I can keep my team happy, we’re moving in the right direction, that Go Daddy is happy and that when you walk out of the garage or walk around the track and meet a little girl that wants to grow up to be like you then you’re doing something right — those are the things that feel right.”
Q: Does it matter what anyone says about you and does it motivate you if people talk negative about you?
A: “Thanks Kyle (Petty) thanks for motivating me. I really don’t care, I don’t, it’s true that there are plenty of people who say really bad things about me, I hear about them or I read about them or read them on Twitter. People want me to die. At the end of the day, you just get over that kind of stuff and all you can do is trust that you’re doing a good job and that’s all that matters and the people around you believe in you.”
Q: Where are you on the learning curve, and how much better do you expect to be?
A: “This is my second full year in NASCAR and it’s in the Cup Series so it’s definitely jumping in the deep end on some level. I’m grateful that I was recommended to do Nationwide before Cup, I think that was a good idea. You talk about the curve and the curve is different for everybody. I think at times on some level I think I am ahead of it and at times I feel like I am behind it. And that is just because the curve is different for everybody and I don’t know at what time it flattens out and you are where you are, but it’s not yet. I know from my perspective that I feel like I am feeling the car better and I think that over time being able to feel the car better is going to result in a car that is set up for me and will allow me to driver harder and faster and to be better. So that what I am learning now, the feelings about the car. Shoot if I got tight off the corner last year, or any other time I drove the car, I would have said it was just ‘tight off’. I would have had no idea the splitter was coming up. Now it just seems simple and straightforward to me. These are the things you learn over time and there is no se amount of time that you get to flatten that curve out, but it will someday. I have no idea when.”
Q: What is it that you have to do to silence the naysayers?
A: “You really think that I will silence naysayers? That is the answer, you don’t. I am sure every driver has them on some level. There are going to be people that believe in you and those that don’t. You surround yourself in people that believe in you. And that is what matters.”
Q: You have raced here with your IndyCar, now you are here in the Sprint Cup car. How do you prepare differently at this track?
A: “It’s a whole different thing. It’s a different line and it’s completely different. For me it’s not about coming here in a different car, it’s about me coming here and spending my first time driving around here in a Cup car for the first time and getting used to how that feels. That is it and there is almost no comparison. You are still driving around the track, but they are completely different animals.”
Q: Curious if you have to change what I assume was Ricky’s (Stenhouse Jr.) car into the parking lot after last week?
A: “I think you just explained the scenario. For those of you who follow me on Twitter, you would have seen that it was taking a really long time to get into the track, and he (Ricky Stenhouse Jr.) had a team meeting at the top of the hill. That was a long walk and he was going to be late if we parked down in the paddock area so being the nice girlfriend that I am, I said I would just drive the car down and park it and you get on with your meetings. So, it was really as simple as that.”
Q: Do you feel that you have an advantage at Kentucky since you are one of the newer drivers and no other drivers have had a lot of experience here?
A: “I suppose there aren’t as many set ups to fall back on and trends of the track and things like that on some level. But at the end of the day, no matter what the scenario is, or what weekend we go to, you tend to see the order fall in a similar fashion. That is just the way it goes, and it takes time to move it, so I guess on some level.”
Q: How eager are you to go back to Daytona next week and how well do you anticipate doing this time?
A: “Well, we lost that poor car at Talladega. So we are going back with our backup, which is a really good car anyway. We tested with it at the beginning of the year and I expect it to go in a similar fashion. I think we will still be pretty fast. Will we qualify on the pole and run in the top-3 or five all day? I don’t know, maybe. But the heat always changes a little bit but it’s a different car, and it’s going to be a different Hendrick engine. All that stuff just leads to a slightly different weekend. But I expect it to be somewhat similar at least from a good standpoint in my head.”
Q: Do you find it enjoying to learn a new type of car or do you find it frustrating?
A: “It’s frustrating. It takes time and you always want to get to the ultimate where you kind of end up running well every weekend. I would imagine if you asked the guys that run up front if they would like to be back in their first years and learning again if they find that more fun than to be running where they are at, then I would imagine they would say they were having more fun running up front. It’s a process and that is what makes doing well feel so good — is the improvement that you have. It’s far more exciting to run better every weekend.
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Truck Series points leader takes third as rain ends race
Related: Feed the Children 300 results
SPARTA, Ky. — For Matt Crafton, it was an ironclad caveat — he was going to drive a good car, or he wasn’t going to drive it at all.
That uncompromising stance is one reason why the 37-year-old NASCAR veteran didn’t make his debut in the NASCAR Nationwide Series until Friday night at Kentucky Speedway. But the wait paid off, as Crafton took fuel only on a late pit stop, briefly seized the lead and then held on to third place after the event was ended by rain 30 laps short of its scheduled finish.
“I’ve always wanted to drive a good Nationwide car and show people I can do this,” said Crafton, the current points leader in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series. “I’ve raced the trucks for a long time, I’ve run really good in the trucks. But to get this opportunity … is awesome.”
"I’ve always wanted to drive a good Nationwide car and show people I can do this."
— Matt Crafton
Driving a No. 33 Richard Childress Racing entry overseen by crew chief Ernie Cope, Crafton got up to speed quickly for a driver making his first appearance in the series. He was among the fastest in practice, qualified eighth and ran among the leaders for much of Friday night, even in a stacked field that included NASCAR Sprint Cup Series heavyweights Kyle Busch and race winner Brad Keselowski.
His only mistake was running the car dry as he approached pit road for a green-flag stop midway through the race, which prompted the fuel-only move later on. “We just had to roll the dice to see if we could get track position,” he said. Remembering Thursday’s Truck Series race where some drivers who took only fuel managed to stay out front, Crafton did the same thing, and left the pits with the lead. Although his car got loose enough to allow Keselowski and Elliott Sadler to get by, Crafton held on to third until the rain came.
Light rain sent the cars to pit road and then turned to heavy rain, washing out the remainder of the event. Crafton’s first Nationwide race was worth the wait — even if he seemed ready to risk his finishing position for one more chance at a victory, had the rain stopped and the track dried in time.
“If we would have gone back green, it was going to be interesting going into Turn 1,” he said. “I was going to make something happen. It was going to be ugly or it was going to be good.”
A three-time winner on the Truck Series, Crafton has long been a fixture in NASCAR. Driving for Ohio-based ThorSport Racing, he holds a 22-point lead over Jeb Burton after Thursday night’s 10th-place finish at Kentucky. The central California native said he’s had offers to pilot Nationwide cars before this weekend, but turned them all down because they weren’t the caliber of vehicle he wanted to drive.
“I’ve had people call me to drive stuff you’re going to run 15th to 25th in, and I have no desire to do that,” he said “There are a lot of really good race cars drivers that run (that kind of) stuff in Cup. One of my really good friends, he’s with an underfunded team. David Gilliland, he’s a great race car driver, but just not in the best stuff. And I don’t want to be like that. I would rather run the Truck Series, run some Nationwide races, run up front, win races. That’s going to make me a lot happier throughout the week.”
The key to this weekend’s effort was John Menard, who owns the home-improvement chain that backs son Paul Menard’s Sprint Cup car at RCR, and well as Crafton’s truck at ThorSport. Crafton has had an association with Menard’s for a dozen years, and believed the time would come when he’d get a shot in a solid Nationwide car like the one he drove Friday night.
“They’ve told me the last few years that when the time comes and the moons line up, we’ll get you in one of the Menard’s cars to run some races,” he said. “They made it happen. They told Richard, ‘Let’s see if we can get Matt in some races,’ and they were good with it. This is the first of three, so hopefully we can improve one position each race.”
Crafton has two more Nationwide starts in his immediate future — he will drive the No. 33 again next month at Chicagoland, and when the series returns to Kentucky in September. He wouldn’t mind a few more opportunities in the vehicle going forward, while still maintaining his status as a championship contender in the Truck Series.
“I love doing what I’m doing,” Crafton said. “Driving Menard’s trucks over in the Truck Series, it’s awesome. If I could go run more races in this car next year, that would be great. Maybe me and Paul could split some more races or something like that. That would be a perfect world, if he could run some more and I could run some more and somehow split a schedule, I guess. But that’s a shot in the dark. Hopefully we run well enough in these three that they want to do it.”
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No. 56 team runs well at tracks on Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup schedule
SPARTA, Ky. — Oddly enough, Martin Truex Jr. might have won last weekend because he wasn’t supposed to. On a road course, there was zero pressure on a former modified driver who these days is at his best on big, fast intermediate layouts.
“Last week, it was just so easy. It was so smooth,” said Truex, whose victory at Sonoma Raceway snapped a 218-race winless skid that dated back more than six years. “It was our time.”
Now, though, the expectations return, and not just because the Michael Waltrip Racing driver is the most recent winner in the Sprint Cup Series. Truex is historically at his best on intermediate tracks like 1.5-mile Kentucky Speedway, where NASCAR’s premier circuit competes Saturday night. And it’s difficult to ignore the lineup of tri-ovals awaiting this fall in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, should Truex qualify for the playoff.
He certainly improved his chances last Sunday, with a victory that not only gave him a boost in the Wild Card standings, but also lifted him into the top 10 in points. But looking at where Truex is strongest — so far this year, he has an average finish of 7.3 on intermediate tracks of 1.5 or 2 miles — and looking at a Chase schedule dominated by those kinds of tracks, it’s easy for him to think that his No. 56 team may be capable of something much bigger than a single, drought-busting victory.
“We do, absolutely, but I think that there’s still so much to learn with this new car. So many things still about this car are changing. The stuff we ran earlier in the year at Vegas, California — it’s not even close now,” Truex said Friday, referring to the Generation-6 car that debuted this season.
“So yes and no. Yes, because we’ve typically been good at those race tracks. But at the same time, we need to keep evolving our stuff, keep working on our cars. We’ve got a new chassis the team’s been working on that hopefully we’ll have ready to race here in a few weeks. So we need to keep making sure we get better. But as far as our team … mile and a halfs are definitely our best race tracks. Definitely the Chase schedule is one that fits us, if we can have our performance where it needs to be when that time comes.”
It’s somewhat strange that Truex’s two career victories at NASCAR’s top level have come on a road course and a high-banked oval, given how good he can be on intermediates. He’s had some dominant efforts, like the 173 laps he led at Kansas last spring, or the 142 he paced at Texas earlier this year. There’s something about intermediates that just clicks with Truex and crew chief Chad Johnston, even though both of them came up racing on short tracks.
“I think Chad really understands what it takes to make cars run fast on these race tracks,” Truex said. “I really enjoy them. I understand I think what it takes to go fast on them as well. But I think at the end of the day you’re only as good as the car you’re sitting in, and Chad has done really, really a good job of giving me the stuff I need to run fast at those places.”
Kentucky, though, presents a challenge that makes it stand apart from most other intermediates on the schedule, almost all of which have been resurfaced in recent years. Not the 1.5-miler in the Bluegrass State, which features a bumpy pavement that can make it very difficult for teams to keep their cars low to the ground to make speed. Perhaps that’s why Truex — who’s finished 18th and eighth in the first two Sprint Cup events here — doesn’t feel Kentucky is one of his stronger intermediate tracks.
“It’s so rough,” he said. “It’s so difficult with these cars to get them working. … The splitter is very close to the ground on these cars. We get about two-and-a-half inches, I think, of splitter height. These cars are very sensitive to aero. It’s very important to keep that splitter on the race track to make the cars turn, get that downforce to make grip. So you’re trying to keep the splitter close to the ground, and then you’re driving across bumps that feel like they’re three feet tall. It’s a heck of a challenge. It’s very, very difficult, very hard on the crew chiefs.”
And yet, Truex isn’t exactly a road-course specialist, either, and look what happened last week. That long-awaited second career victory at last in his hip pocket, Truex expects to be able to race with less pressure, something that clearly paid dividends at Sonoma. Now he’ll try to take the same approach on intermediate tracks like Kentucky that better fit his style, and where he’s more often been a threat to win.
“We’ve been close before. We’ve led a lot of laps, dominated races, and not won. Those are the things that really get you mad,” he said. “I think that, for us, we’ll definitely race with less pressure as a team, and I think it will come to us a little bit easier. But at the same time, you’ve got to work hard. Nobody’s going to give you anything out here. … We enjoyed that one, and we’re going to work hard to try to get more, but there are no guarantees, that’s for sure.”
READ MORE:
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READ: Kentucky Paint
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READ: Power Rankings
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READ: Pre-Kentucky
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READ: Complete coverage
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