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No. 7 driver fends off Larson’s late charge for second win of season

Related: Alliance Truck Parts 250 results | Full coverage from Michigan | Weekend schedule

BROOKLYN, Mich. — Regan Smith beat Kyle Larson and Mother Nature on Saturday for his second Nationwide Series victory of the season.

He held off the rookie in the final 14 laps to win the Alliance Truck Parts 250 at Michigan International Speedway and extend his lead in the series standings. He took the checkered flag minutes before a light rain began to fall on the race track.

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Parker Kligerman gambled rain would end the race short of the scheduled 125 laps but lost the lead when he had to pit with 13 to go. That opened the door for Smith, who kept his No. 7 Chevy ahead of a charging Larson in the final 10 laps.
 
"I felt confident even though he was drafting up to me," said Smith, who found himself near the front after a Lap 99 stop for fuel.
 
"It seemed like once we got the car out front it really came to life. (Crew chief) Greg (Ives) made some really good calls to get us the track position."
 
Ives said he did all he could to make sure his driver got as close to the front of the pack as he could in the closing laps.
 
"The strategy was to get him up front and let him get confident and comfortable," he said.
 
It made for a pleasant homecoming for Ives, a native of Bark River in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
 
There was no caution flag after Austin Dillon brushed the wall with five laps to go and Larson, who was steadily gaining on Smith in the closing laps, never got a chance to take the lead.
 
Sprint Cup Series regular Paul Menard gave Chevy a sweep of the top three spots and Kyle Busch and Trevor Bayne rounded out the top-five finishers.
 
It was the second win of the season and third career series win for Smith, who also was first at Talladega in early May. It’s the 11th straight time he’s finished in the top 10.
 
Smith, who started 11th, paid tribute to late driver Jason Leffler by displaying a decal over the door pillar of his car and promised a portion of his $45,440 winnings to the trust fund created to assist Leffler’s 5-year-old son.
 
Leffler, a two-time winner on the Nationwide circuit, died last week after his sprint car crashed at a dirt track in New Jersey. A moment of silence in his honor was held before the start of the race.
 
Larson, the series’ top rookie, finished in the top five for the fourth time this season and matched his career-best runner-up finish at Bristol.
 
"It’d be nice to hurry up and get the win," he said. "I think it’s coming soon. We’re getting better every week. Once we go to the tracks a second time I hopefully should start out the races better and hopefully maintain track position."
 
Drivers qualified under warm conditions earlier in the day but took the green flag under overcast, muggy skies that made the track slick. The forecast was threatening, but rain never came.
 
Pole winner Dillon looked strongest in the first half of the race but opted not to pit with the rest of the lead pack after a lap 64 caution. A flat left-rear tire soon dropped him a lap down and he ended the day 20th after his late-race contact with the wall.
 
Joey Logano took the lead after a lap 86 restart but gave it to Kligerman when he pitted 13 laps later. Kligerman was 19th in the unofficial standings but was dropped to 25th after speeding onto pit road for his final stop.
 
Dillon set a new track qualifying record with a lap of 191.882 mph earlier in the day to earn his fourth straight Coors Light Pole Award, a Nationwide Series record.
 
It was the second straight hard-luck outing for Dillon, who led 207 of 250 laps a week earlier at Iowa but finished second to Bayne.
 
Sam Hornish Jr., who started the day second in the standings, left the race on lap 81 after a piece of debris broke his oil pump. It dropped him to 32nd and widened his deficit in the standings.
 
Hornish fell from 23 points behind Smith to 58. Justin Allgaier crept to just a point behind him.
 
"There is nothing wrong with our Roush Yates engine other than we hit a piece of debris," Hornish said. "We knew we had a good car that was capable of winning. It just wasn’t our day."
 
The race wasn’t quite a lap old before the first caution came out. Alex Bowman and Travis Pastrana spun in turn 4 before Brian Vickers crashed into Jeffrey Earnhardt. The latter two cars sustained significant damage.
 
Vickers, seventh in the series points standings before the start of the race, got back on the track but finished 33rd, 45 laps off the lead. The lead dropped him back to 10th in the standings.
 
Dexter Stacey brought out the day’s second yellow flag when he struck the turn 3 wall on lap 7.

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Fast all weekend in practice and qualifying, No. 78 team is ready to roar

BROOKLYN, Mich. — It’s only a matter of time.
 
Kurt Busch‘s No. 78 Furniture Row Racing Chevrolet SS has been too fast, too often (and yes, even sometimes — too furious) to not break through soon for his first win of 2013. The 2004 Sprint Cup Series champion has routinely been at the top or near it in practice and qualifying sessions week in and week out but for various in-race reasons, has yet to reach Victory Lane.

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After linking up with the Denver, Colo.-based team for the final six races last season — the final three of which were all top-10 finishes — the learning curve that comes along with racing for a new team finally seems to be over with after taking a small step back to open the season with three-straight finishes outside the top 20.
 
“It’s just great to be on the same page with all these guys. It’s just a good feeling. To be on the front row four times this year; it’s all happened since Texas,” said Busch, in his 14th year at the national level. “It was like that race there just turned the switch on for us, and it’s been a great ride. So we’re just going to keep rolling.”
 
Currently 15th in the Sprint Cup standings and 21 points behind Greg Biffle’s crucial 10th-place spot, this weekend is looking as good as ever for Busch to pick up his first win with Furniture Row and first with any team since taking the October 2011 race at Dover for Penske Racing. His No. 78 Chevy was one of just four cars to top 200 mph in any of the three Michigan practices, taking first in the latter two after a second-place spot on the leaderboard behind Kasey Kahne in the first.
 
Busch’s average finish of 21.4 at Michigan International Speedway is his third-worst at any Cup track, but it is also just one of five tracks that he has multiple victories at. His speed this weekend (and really all season) is no fluke, as his qualifying speed of 201.879 mph was good enough to put him alongside pole winner Carl Edwards in the front row. However, after spending close to a decade and a half on NASCAR’s national circuit, Busch knows races aren’t won on Fridays.

“To be second, that’s qualifying, now we’ve just got to step into the race and that’s where we’ve got to close the deal,” he said. “We haven’t been as strong as we’ve needed to be in the last section of the race, like after the last pit stop or with two pit stops to go, that’s where we have to find a little bit more improvement. But otherwise, these Furniture Row guys are phenomenal, and we’re knocking on the door.”

If Busch and his crew are able to maintain their game plan and nothing too unexpected happens, there is no reason to believe that his No. 78 doesn’t have as likely of a shot to win the Quicken Loans 400 as any of the other favored drivers (Dale Earnhardt Jr., Edwards, Kahne). Busch’s 124 laps led in 2013 are more than six times as many as he had all of last season. The number also eclipses the individual totals of reigning Sprint Cup Series champion Brad Keselowski, 2012 runner-up Clint Bowyer, and Earnhardt, all three of whom are above him in the standings.

Even more terrifying for his competitors is that he realistically has a shot to win back-to-back weeks — something that has not been accomplished by any driver in 2013 — as next week’s location, Sonoma Raceway, ranks among his best. His last two races there have resulted in a victory (2011) and third-place finish (2012), giving him five top-five finishes in 12 starts.

Not lost in all of Busch’s exploits this season is the fact that he does have the beneficial support of a technical alliance with Richard Childress Racing.

“It’s vital to be teamed up with a big program to know that they’re working behind the scenes on all the speed that they’re trying to find,” said the 34-year-old. “And then it bleeds over with the things that we have found and have distributed to Richard Childress Racing. So you always hope there’s that nice two-way street. And everybody at RCR has been rooting us on and we’re there trying to push them and there are new things that we’re bringing to the race track and each of the teams are working on little things. They consider us a fourth car.”

With just one car fielded by the small FRR team out of Colorado, Busch benefits from the ability to share notes with his RCR cohorts.

“It’s great to have those teammate notes, so to speak, with (Kevin) Harvick and (Paul) Menard and (Jeff) Burton. That way I can look at notes and understand things quickly. When it comes down to more of the engineering side, and those guys being able to communicate, and it’s the alliance that we have. It’s what we pay for. And it’s great to see it work.”

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Record fourth consecutive Coors Light Pole gives Dillon first pit pick

Austin Dillon set a NASCAR Nationwide Series record with his fourth consecutive Coors Light Pole. He also set a track record with a 191.882 mph circuit around Michigan International Speedway ahead of Saturday’s Alliance Truck Parts 250.

Dillon led the first ever Richard Childress Racing top-three Nationwide Series qualifying sweep. RCR teammates Paul Menard and Brian Scott qualified second and third followed by Trevor Bayne and Alex Bowman.

The No. 3 team chose the first pit stall at pit out, heading into Turn 1. Menard’s No. 33 team chose the 13th pit stall, which is the first opening closest to pit out. The No. 2 team chose the 23rd stall, right at the start/finish line.

Watch the Alliance Truck Parts 250 at 2 p.m. ET on ABC.

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Coors Light Pole Award-winner Carl Edwards picks first pit stall

Coors Light Pole Qualifying on Friday at Michigan International Speedway for Sunday’s Quicken Loans 400, Carl Edwards No. 99 Fastenal Ford was fastest of them all.

Edwards was one of 13 drivers to clock a time better than 200 mph as the Gen-6 cars took to the fast two-mile oval that was repaved last year.

With his lap of 202.452 mph and his first Coors Light Pole Award of the season, Edwards earned the first pick of pit stalls for Sunday’s race, and he and the No. 99 Roush Fenway Racing team chose the first stall at pit out toward Turn 1.

The second-fastest driver, Kurt Busch, and the No. 78 Furniture Row Racing team picked the first stall at pit in off of Turn 4. Kasey Kahne, who had the third-fastest lap in the No. 5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, chose the 38th stall, down toward Turn 4, with an opening in front of him for an easy exit.

Watch the Quicken Loans 400 on Sunday at 1 p.m. ET on TNT, which begins its "Countdown to Green" at noon ET.

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No. 78 driver tops Kahne to lead final session

RESULTS: Practice leaderboards | Pit road assignments

BROOKLYN, Mich. — Kurt Busch backed up his early Saturday practice dominance by topping the charts once again later in the day in the final Sprint Cup Series practice at Michigan International Speedway.

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Busch, who will start alongside pole winner Carl Edwards on the front row in Sunday’s Quicken Loans 400, ran 33 laps, but his first go-around on the two-mile circuit clocked in at 197.368 mph to best the field.

Kasey Kahne was right off Busch’s pace at 197.066, turning his ninth lap in 36.536 seconds. Kahne ran the most laps at 45.
 
Mark Martin’s fastest lap also came on his first time around the loop, his 196.073 mph best speed earning him third place on the speed chart. Points leader Jimmie Johnson (195.886, 36.756) and Edwards (195.721, 36.787) rounded out the top five.
 
Paul Menard, who will start the race fourth and was fourth in the morning practice, continued his hot start to the weekend by placing seventh on the leaderboard. Reigning Sprint Cup champion and Michigan native Brad Keselowski was 10th at 195.143, while defending race winner Dale Earnhardt Jr. was 18th at 194.558.
 
Danica Patrick, who qualified 37th and had placed 37th and 38th in the first two practices, improved to 28th (193.273, 37.253) in the final session.

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Menard, Scott, Bayne, Bowman also to start in the first five

Related: All results | Full coverage from Michigan | Weekend schedule

BROOKLYN, Mich. — Austin Dillon made history on Saturday morning, becoming the first driver to earn four consecutive NASCAR Nationwide Series poles when he earned the top spot ahead of the Alliance Truck Parts 250 at Michigan International Speedway.

Dillon, who was last in qualifying order, took the top spot from Paul Menard with a best speed of 191.882 mph to Menard’s 190.668. Brian Scott (190.320), last week’s winner Trevor Bayne (190.310), and Alex Bowman (190.230) rounded out the top five. Dillon’s lap also broke his own qualifying record at the track.
 
Other Sprint Cup Series regulars didn’t fare as well as Menard, as Joey Logano (189.155), Kyle Busch (188.862), and J.J. Yeley (183.304) will start 10th, 14th, and 32nd, respectively.
 
Busch’s Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Brian Vickers (189.185) and Elliott Sadler (188.561) will start ninth and 19th.
 
Points leader Regan Smith qualified at 20th with a speed of 188.408.

 

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Pole-sitter Carl Edwards runs just behind

Related: All practice speeds | Full coverage from Michigan | Weekend schedule

BROOKLYN, Mich. — After each earning a front row starting position in Sunday’s Quicken Loans 400 Sprint Cup Series race, Kurt Busch and Carl Edwards remained dominant at Michigan International Speedway on Saturday morning in a practice session that saw the pair top the leaderboard yet again.

Busch once again topped 200 mph, pulling a best speed of 200.955, getting around the two-mile circuit in 35.829 seconds. Edwards, fresh off his first Coors Light Pole at perhaps his best track, was right behind him at 199.595. Jimmie Johnson (199.584), Paul Menard (198.933) and Mark Martin (198.818) rounded out the top-five.
 
Kasey Kahne, yesterday’s opening practice leader, was sixth with a speed of 198.747. Last year’s Michigan fall race winner Greg Biffle, driving for a Roush Fenway Racing team that has the most Sprint Cup wins (12) at this track, was seventh at 198.725.
 
Reigning Sprint Cup champion and Michigan native Brad Keselowski pulled in at 11th with a speed of 198.358. Defending race-winner Dale Earnhardt Jr. was 14th at 198.091. Marcos Ambrose, who set the qualifying record at 203.241 mph at this race last year, was 21st at 197.379. Austin Dillon, who will also be running the Nationwide Series race later today, put down the second most laps with 30 runs around the circuit. Johnson completed 36.

 

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Michigan pole winner: Second-place ranking in points ‘doesn’t tell the story’

BROOKLYN, Mich. — Carl Edwards, winner of the Coors Light Pole Award for Sunday’s Quicken Loans 400 at Michigan International Speedway, is second in points in NASCAR’s Sprint Cup Series.
 
It’s a misleading statistic, according to Edwards.
 
“Second place doesn’t tell the story,” he said June 13. “We’re not that good. We’re not the second-best car in the series right now.”
 
Edwards, 33, has one win this season (Phoenix) and Friday’s qualifying lap (202.452 mph) on the 2-mile oval marked the second consecutive week he earned a front-row starting position.

"If we can really focus and actually gain some ground, we’re going to be awesome."

— Carl Edwards

But from a big-picture perspective, the fastest driver on Friday said not so fast.
 
“It’s nice,” he said of his position in the standings. “But what did we run, 18th at Pocono and 17th at Dover? Sixteenth? I don’t remember what we ran at Dover but it wasn’t good enough.
 
“And at the same time, Jimmie Johnson dominated both those races.
 
“That’s a big disparity between the first-place points guy and the second-place points guy.”
 
With race No. 15 on the horizon, the gap is 51 points. It is so large that Johnson, a five-time Cup champion, could take a weekend off and return with his points-leader status intact.
 
Points leads can be fleeting — defending series champion Brad Keselowski and Dale Earnhardt Jr. have each been atop the standings briefly this season. Johnson’s has more of a permanent feel, having lasted for two months and change.
 
Edwards has been in Johnson’s rearview for six weeks, the deficit as narrow as 30 and as wide as the current 51.
 
Although he said he doesn’t feel his team is second best, Edwards is pleased with the No. 2 points position.
 
“Fortunately we are second and we have a win,” he said. “We’re not panicking about making the Chase (for the Sprint Cup). We feel like we’ve got a really good shot at making the Chase, but we have time to work on some things. And trust me, we are working.
 
“ … If we can really focus and actually gain some ground, we’re going to be awesome.”
 
Kurt Busch (Furniture Row Racing) will start alongside Edwards, the fourth front-row starting spot this season for the 2004 Cup champion.
 
Kasey Kahne (Hendrick Motorsports), Paul Menard (Richard Childress Racing) and Aric Almirola (Richard Petty Motorsports) will start third through fifth, respectively.
 
A closer working relationship between Ford Cup teams is said to be in the making. Edwards cautioned it could take time — possibly a year or more — before any potential benefits might be realized.
 
Change comes slowly. Few drivers and teams are comfortable sharing information with those outside their immediate groups.
 
“It’s human nature,” Edwards said. “It’s tough for anyone to hand over all of their life’s work and say, ‘hey, here’s this for free. I hope you give me something back that makes it worth the exchange.’
 
“Trust isn’t something you build overnight, by definition it’s something that’s gained over time.
 
“I’ve been in the series for eight or nine years and there are only a few guys I’ve ever talked about my car with, and it’s always on the surface. You don’t talk much deeper than, ‘hey, yeah I’m a little tight over there.’ That’s about it.”
 
Edwards has 13 top-10 finishes in 17 starts at MIS, including a pair of wins. It’s also the site of his first career start in the Cup Series.
 
That fact wasn’t lost on him in the aftermath of his pole-winning charge.
 
“A huge day for me personally,” he said of the 10th place finish in 2004. “I will never forget when they said ‘Gentlemen, start your engines.’ That was one of the most emotional moments I’ve ever had in a race car.”
 
While Edwards’ pole-winning run didn’t eclipse the track record set a year ago by Marcos Ambrose, the Generation-6 car was fast as expected. Taped up for qualifying, Edwards said, the cars have “so much grip.”
 
That will change when long runs are the order of the day.
 
“Having that tape on there with all that downforce can make the car feel really good and make it go for a lap but it will be a tough race,” he said. “I think if it goes long green flag, then none of us know how the tire will act and you have to be able to adjust on your car as well.

“The race will be different and hopefully we can master that whole problem and go to Victory Lane. That would be huge.”

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RCR driver can’t cash in after fourth consecutive pole

BROOKLYN, Mich. — It was frustration, Austin Dillon said, that led to contact between himself and Joey Logano during the latter stages of Saturday’s Alliance Truck Parts 250 at Michigan International Speedway.

And that led to a brief conversation between the two on pit road after the conclusion of the NASCAR Nationwide Series race.

“He was frustrated back there,” Dillon, 20th, said of his Sprint Cup Series counterpart. “… We were both frustrated because things didn’t go our way.

“But we’ll come back and do our best to gain on what we’ve lost today. Just a bummer day.”

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The contact came during a final, furious push to the checkered flag in the 125-lap event.
 
Dillon, who led 61 of the race’s first 68 laps, was charging toward the front, having rebounded from a lost lap due to a flat left-rear tire.
 
Logano, who led 30 laps (69-98) was in a scramble mode as well, a round of pit stops and differing pit strategies taking him from the point to just inside the top 10.
 
“We were three-wide on the bottom, I had the run, my nose was in front of his,” Dillon said. “I drove in deep and slid up and he was frustrated because I slid up in the middle of the corner.
 
“We came off side-by-side off of (Turn) 2, got midway down the backstretch and he just turned left on me.”
 
The contact knocked the fender in on the tire, he said, and led to another flat for the Richard Childress Racing driver, sending him back to pit road inside the final five laps.
 
With the race past the midpoint, and threatening skies overhead, Logano and his Penske team had wagered on a rain-shortened event, gaining track position under caution by staying on the track.
 
The rain, though, didn’t come until after the completion of the race.
 
“Unfortunately we gambled … and went for it,” Logano said. “It is just unfortunate and frustrating. I don’t even know where we finished but once you get back there in the pack, it is just a mess trying to pass cars here.”
 
The 11th-place finish halted a four-race run of top-five finishes for Logano, who won two weeks ago at Dover, Del.
 
Dillon began the day by winning a series-record fourth consecutive Coors Light Pole Award. But for the second consecutive week, a strong run went awry. At Iowa, he led 207 of 250 laps but lost the lead, and the win to Trevor Bayne with 12 laps remaining.
 
Although he maintained his fourth-place points position, Dillon now trails points leader, and Michigan race winner, Regan Smith by 67 points. He entered the race trailing by 46.
 
“We work hard to build fast race cars and the strategy we were on wasn’t wrong,” he said. “We had the right strategy there at the end. The seven (of Smith) and 32 (of Kyle Larson) finished 1-2 on that strategy.
 
“The speed was there. I’m really proud of my guys. It’s frustrating; we’ve got a monkey on our back and we’ve got to get it off.”

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Ford earned its 1,000th NASCAR national series win on Saturday at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn, Mich. 

Trevor Bayne, who claimed the manufacturer’s 200th NASCAR Nationwide Series victory last Sunday at Iowa and its 600th NASCAR Sprint Cup Series win in the 2011 Daytona 500, did the honors as the Blue Oval celebrated about an hour drive west of its Dearborn headquarters.

FORD’S 1,000 NASCAR WINS

— 614 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series wins by Ford
— 96 Sprint Cup wins by Mercury
— 4 Sprint Cup wins by Lincoln
— 201 NASCAR Nationwide Series wins by Ford
— 85 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series wins by Ford

The milestone comes nearly 112 years after Henry Ford defeated Alexander Winton in a 10-lap race on the one-mile oval at the Detroit Driving Club in Grosse Pointe, Mich. on Oct. 10, 1901. It was the first and only race Ford ran and set him on the road to establishing Ford Motor Company 110 years ago this month.

Ford designed the car, named “Sweepstakes,” that won his company’s first race. On Thursday at Greenfield Village in Dearborn, NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver Carl Edwards became one of “only eight or nine people” to drive “Sweepstakes.” After winning the Coors Light Pole Award with an average lap of 202.452 mph, Edwards talked about driving Ford Racing’s first winning car.

“We got it up to maybe 20 or 25 miles per hour driving on the road there, and they said it would go 73 miles per hour in 1901,” Edwards said. “It was scarier driving that thing 25 miles per hour than it was driving the corner here at 205. Those guys were brave.

“The neatest thing about that which I didn’t know until I talked with Edsel Ford (great-grandson of Henry Ford and member of the board of directors of Ford Motor Company) and the guys there is that if it weren’t for winning that race, Ford Motor Company as we know it might not exist,” Edwards said. “For him to risk everything and build this race car and go out and race it and win and be able to put together investors for Ford Motor Company was huge.”

Bayne’s win extended owner Jack Roush’s record to six victories in the Nationwide Series at his home track. It was the seventh series win for Ford at the track.

On Friday, Bayne thanked Jamie Allison, director of Ford Racing, for the manufacturer’s support and noted that Blue Oval executives had a feeling that their chances were pretty good this weekend.

“I think they made a banner up for Sunday in case we do get it for 1001,” Bayne said. “They’re being pretty optimistic here at Michigan since it is their home track.”

Understanding the importance of the track’s proximity to the auto manufacturing hub of Detroit, MIS President Roger Curtis announced that a manufacturer’s trophy will be awarded after each NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race, beginning with the Pure Michigan 400 on August 18, for the car company that goes to Victory Lane.

Allison acknowledged that winning at MIS held special meaning for Ford.

“We want to show up and compete and win in front of our friends, our neighbors, our employees, the entire network of people who support our company, whether it’s executives, fans, you name it,” Allison said. “It’s an extra level of pride that comes with being here in your hometown.”

Ford’s winning ways began at the beginning of NASCAR as Jim Roper in a Lincoln won the first Strictly Stock, now Sprint Cup Series, race in the sport’s history on June 19, 1949 at the old Charlotte Speedway.

Sixty-four years later, Ford supports11 full-time drivers in NASCAR Sprint Cup Series competition, five in the Nationwide Series and two in the Camping World Truck Series. Ford competes in all three national series with support of Front Row Motorsports, Germain Racing, Penske Racing, Richard Petty Motorsports, Roush Fenway Racing and the Wood Brothers. This season, Ford added full-time support of Brad Keselowski Racing in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series.