For about 40 laps in Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 the talk of Chase Elliottgetting his first Sprint Cup win once again intensified.
Then it – and possibly his championship hopes – disappeared in the smoke from a fender rub.
Elliott had chased down Kevin Harvick for about 30 laps when he caught the No. 4 and passed him for the lead on Lap 169.
Elliott led four laps and then gave it up as green flag pit stops began. But immediately after his pit stop, smoke began pouring from the left rear of his car as sheet metal rubbed against a tire. Elliott was forced to pit on Lap 175.
The No. 24 never returned to the top 20 and was plagued by multiple brushes with the wall the rest of the afternoon. Elliott finished 31st, three laps down.
As to the cause of initial tire rub, Elliott said: “We really don’t know. I don’t know if we got the left rear getting up on the race track, or something and it got into the fender and cut it down. I don’t know what to do man, we were trying as hard as we can. We had such a good car today again.”
Combined with his DNF last week at Charlotte, Elliott is last on the Chase grid among the 12 remaining drivers and 25 points out of eighth, the final transfer spot.
“I don’t know what to do,” Elliott said. “Just keep after it and try to move on.”
Moving on means going to Talladega Superspeedway, site of the last race of the second round.
“I just will go there, and race our hearts out and try to win, I guess,” said Elliott, who won the pole at Talladega in the spring and led 27 laps before finishing fifth. “That’s about all we can do, I guess. We have something to be proud of in the way we have been running. There are just some things we can’t control. I don’t know how to fix that stuff.”
It was a bittersweet day for Matt Kensethin Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway.
The good part was he maintained his second-place position in the standings, just eight points behind series leaderJimmie Johnson.
But that was about the only thing good that came out of Sunday’s race, said Kenseth, who started from the pole, led a race-high 116 of 267 laps but finished what he considered a disappointing ninth.
“It was really bad,” Kenseth said of his overall race. “We had a good car and not sure how I did it, but I hit the wall getting into turn one and then in the middle of the race I started losing some handle a little bit when the track changed.
“I lost track of where I was and hit the wall. It was an uphill battle from there and then at the end I thought we still had a shot at a top-five out of it but (Alex Bowman) just hung a left as hard as he could and knocked our right fender off and then I was just dead in the water.”
With the way he dominated the first half of the race, it appeared this would be Kenseth’s race to win. But things didn’t work out that way.
Trying to put together a complete race is “never easy,” Kenseth said. “We got off a little bit. We led early and as the track rubbered up we got off on our handle a little bit and lost a few spots to (Chase Elliott) and (Kevin Harvick). Some of those guys had some real good short-run speed.
“Then I got into the wall right after I lost a couple spots and that really put us behind. But, I thought we were going to come back from it and I’m not sure what (Bowman) was doing. He came right across the track and cleaned the right front fender off. We were lucky to finish, so thankful we still got ninth out of it after that.”
Jimmie Johnson and Kevin Harvick, who won Sunday’s race at Kansas Speedway, are the only drivers guaranteed to advance to the Round of 8.
Johnson remains the points leader after the second race of the Round of 12, which concludes next weekend at Talladega Superspeedway.
Joey Logano holds the eighth and final transfer spot. He’s tied with Austin Dillonwith 3,045 points. Logano owns the tiebreaker based on a better finish than Dillon in this round. Logano placed third Sunday.
Matt Kenseth will start from the pole for Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway.
Kenseth qualified first for the first time this season with a lap at 192.089 mph for the 18th pole of his career.
“It’s nice to get a pole, I feel like our qualifying hasn’t been nearly as good this year, as consistent as it has been in the years since I’ve been at JGR,” Kenseth told NBCSN. “We barely got it … obviously our Camry’s have been fast, our DeWalt Flexvolt Camry’s being driving good. Jason Ratcliff made all the right adjustments. Round One we were pretty decent, Round Two it was off a little bit off, and Round Three it was just right.”
Joe Gibbs Racing-affiliated Toyotas captured the top four starting spots with Kenseth followed by Kyle Busch (192.084), Carl Edwards (191.015) and Martin Truex Jr. (190.786). Alex Bowman (190.315) will start fifth in the No. 88 Chevrolet.
Kenseth’s pole is the 10th of the year for JGR. All four of its drivers have won a pole. Kenseth had four in 2015.
“From round one to round two the car was much tighter,” Johnson told NBCSN. “We attempted to free it up, and I’m not sure if some of those adjustments might have changed the ride height of the car, affected the splitter’s orientation to the ground. A ton tighter than what we had in the opening round.”
This will be Johnson’s fifth start of 20th or worse this season. Johnson, who won last week at Charlotte Motor Speedway to secure a spot in the Round of 8, never has made the final round of group qualifying at Kansas.
“I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing,” Johnson said. “I’m not accustomed to qualifying well all the time. I’m used to racing through traffic.”
The first round briefly was red-flagged after Ricky Stenhouse Jr. made contact with the wall exiting Turn 4. Stenhouse advanced to the second round and qualified 18th.
With two races remaining to set the Round of 8 to contend for NASCAR's 2016 Sprint Cup title, the four most vulnerable drivers in the standings have vastly different histories at this week's venue, Kansas Speedway for the Hollywood Casino 400 (Sun., 2:15 p.m. ET, NBC, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
And with the unpredictable nature of Talladega Superspeedway's
restrictor plate brand of racing coming up next week for the Round of
12's elimination race, the more traditional Kansas 1.5-mile venue offers
a relatively calmer opportunity to climb the standings. Now.
The four drivers hoping to race back inside the top eight are separated by only five points. Austin Dillon and Chase Elliott are tied, only three points behind eighth place Denny Hamlin, whose Toyota suffered a rare engine failure last week late in the Charlotte race.
The two veterans -- Harvick and
Logano -- currently trying to race their way to a top-eight transfer
position have historically fared well at Kansas. The younger competition
-- Dillon and the rookie Elliott -- still don't have much of a track
record to lean on.
Harvick sits eight points out of
the cutoff position after a 38th-place finish -- due to mechanical
issues -- at Charlotte last weekend and a 37th-place result at Dover International Speedway
the week before. Harvick, however, won the fall race at Kansas in 2013
and has three runner-up finishes there in the last five races.
In the last six Kansas races, he
has led the most laps (392) of the four drivers hoping to climb back
into the top-eight in the standings. In the last three years, he has
three pole positions (fall of 2013 and both 2014 races) and an average
finish of 10.8 at Kansas.
"The repave is definitely what
changed and turned things around for us at Kansas," Harvick said.
"Really, I liked the racetrack the way it was before with the asphalt
really worn out and cars sliding all over. But, once the repave
happened, we were able to really hit on some things and, for whatever
reason, it kind of fits my driving style and we have gotten some good
results out of it.
"It has been a really
good-performing racetrack for us and one that we look forward to going
to and hopefully continue to get good results out of it because it's
been so good for us in the past."
Logano, who is currently ranked
11th of the 12 still-eligible Chase drivers, had five consecutive
top-five finishes at Kansas until a crash this May, which resulted in a
38th-place showing.
But most importantly -- and encouraging -- to Logano's Team Penske crew, he is the two-time defending winner of this week's Chase race.
"Things happen," Logano said of
his 36th-place showing at Charlotte. "It's part of racing, but we're not
out. We're not gonna die. This team is resilient.
"We've proved it before and we'll
just have to go out and prove it again. We just have to have two
flawless races. It's something we can make up."
Dillon and Elliott, who are both
three points behind the top-eight cutoff, don't have an extensive Kansas
track record to examine.
The 20-year old Elliott finished ninth in his only Sprint Cup race there this Spring. He also scored top-10 finishes in both XFINITY Series races he competed in at the track.
He hasn't led a lap at Kansas previously in either series. However, his No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports
Chevrolet has turned in impressive work out front during the Chase,
with 176 laps led in four races -- more than half of his season-long
total.
Dillon, 26, has two top-10
finishes in six starts at Kansas, including a sixth-place effort this
May. However, he also has three finishes of 20th or worse, including a
41st place showing in this race last year.
"What we think of is,'What has made us faster in the past?' and 'What
can we do to be faster?' Dillon said this week. "I look at everything I
can as a driver, from the lines in the track to the history of the
track -- what typically happens, who is good there? We're just going to
do our best and try to not leave anything behind. This opportunity is so
great. It doesn't happen often."
Hamlin -- who currently sits in
the final playoff transfer position -- won at Kansas in Spring of 2012,
but has had an inconsistent record here. He crashed out of the spring
races the last two seasons, taking finishes of 41st and 37th. He was,
though, runner-up to Logano in this race last fall.
"I think each race you're going
to have a handful that are going to have issues -- Kansas I don’t think
will be any different and Talladega we know will be crazy," Hamlin said.
"That's why we're not out of it my any means, we just have a little
hole we have to dig out of."
A championship contender – possibly the early favorite — will be absent from next week’s test at Homestead-Miami Speedway, whose Nov. 20 season finale will decide the Sprint Cup title.
Furniture Row Racing won’t bring Martin Truex Jr.’s No. 78 Toyota to the Oct. 18-19 session at the 1.5-mile oval. A team spokesman said the test was removed from the team’s schedule last week and didn’t know the reason.
Homestead-Miami Speedway will play host to the last of several “organizational tests” scheduled by NASCAR during the season. In an organizational test, which isn’t mandatory, only one car per organization is permitted to participate.
As a single-car team, Furniture Row Racing wouldn’t have been in the predicament of having to choose who would test among multiple contenders, which is the case with Joe Gibbs Racing and its four Chase-eligible drivers.
Every other remaining championship contender will be represented at Homestead-Miami Speedway next week: Team Penske (Brad Keselowski), Hendrick Motorsports (Chase Elliott), Stewart-Haas Racing (Kurt Busch), Joe Gibbs Racing (Carl Edwards), Richard Childress Racing (Austin Dillon).
Truex won two of the first three races in the 2016 playoffs at Chicagoland Speedway and Dover International Speedway. He reached the championship round last season, finishing fourth among the Chase contenders (12th overall).
Here’s the list of drivers and teams that are testing at Homestead-Miami Speedway next week (current championship contenders in bold):
Chase Elliott's 2017 NAPA Auto Parts paint scheme for the No. 24 Chevrolet was revealed by the driver and Hendrick Motorsports on Tuesday.
The 2017 season will mark Elliott's second season in the No. 24 car. This season he has the car that he took over from sure-fire Hall of Fame driver Jeff Gordon in the Round of 12 of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup and looking to advance even further in the Chase.
Still pursuing his first win in the legendary ride, Elliott has accumulated nine top fives and 15 top 10s in his rookie Sprint Cup season. He ran well at Charlotte on Sunday leading 103 laps, but was collected in a pileup on a Lap 259 restart.
The 2016 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season has been a good one for second-generation racer Chase Elliott, who is a lock to win Sunoco Rookie of the Year Honors this year and is still racing for the overall series championship.
Tuesday morning, Elliott went to Instagram to unveil the 2017 paint scheme on his No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, which again next year will carry the colors of NAPA Auto Parts.
Elliott’s ride ought to look good on track next year, when he’ll seek to put the No. 24 back in Victory Lane if he can’t get there in one of the final six races of this year.
This week, Elliott heads to Kansas Speedway, where ne needs a strong run to stay relevant in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. Elliott comes into Kansas ranked 10th in points after he got crashed out of Sunday’s Bank of America 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway and finished 33rd, despite leading 103 laps in the race.
Hard to believe, perhaps, but Sunday’s
Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway will mark the halfway point in
the 2016 Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. Following are the six biggest
surprises so far in the first four races Chase:
Young money out early
In the last three races of the Sprint Cup
regular season, Kyle Larson won at Michigan, finished third at
Darlington and was runner-up at Richmond. He was the hottest driver
coming into the Chase, but never finished better than 10th in the Round
of 16 and was quickly eliminated.
Dillon still in the hunt
Richard Childress Racing driver Austin Dillon
was the lowest seed to advance out of the Round of 16. Dillon came into
the Chase as the No. 15 seed, but made it to the Round of 12 despite a
best finish of eighth with no laps led in the first three Chase races.
But he’ll have his work cut out for him after a 32nd-place finish at
Charlotte.
The Charlotte calamity
Who could have predicted that so many good
drivers would encounter serious problems at Charlotte Motor Speedway?
Kevin Harvick and Denny Hamlin, two of the Chase favorites, had engine
failures, while Joey Logano and Kyle Busch had front-tire issues and a
bunch of Chase drivers got taken out in a crash on a late-race restart.
No JGR wins yet
In the 26-race Sprint Cup regular season, all
four Joe Gibbs Racing drivers won at least twice, with the team scoring
a total of 11 race victories. In the Chase, Matt Kenseth has had a pair
of runner-up finishes and three top fives, while his JGR teammate Kyle
Busch has finished eighth or better in all four races. And while Martin
Truex Jr. won two of the first three Chase races, it’s a bit of surprise
that a JGR car hasn’t visited Victory Lane yet.
Hendrick cars are fast
After a terrible summer and a long winless
streak, the Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolets have picked up steam across
the board. Not only did Jimmie Johnson score a dominating victory at
Charlotte, he has led the most laps in the playoffs so far. Chase
Elliott has a pair of third-place finishes and after missing the Chase,
Kasey Kahne has averaged a 7.75 finish in the four Chase races so far.
Alex Bowman has run well in the No. 88, too. We’ll see if this continues
through the Chase. Photo: Robert Laberge
No miracle run for Stewart
In his last full season as a Sprint Cup
driver, Tony Stewart seemed poised to make the kind of improbable
championship run that he did in 2011, when after going winless in the
regular season he won five of 10 Chase races and his third title. Alas,
it was not to be. Stewart didn’t have a single top-1o finish and was
eliminated in the first round of the Chase.
A bright, sunny day at Charlotte turned cloudy in a hurry for Chase contenders Kevin Harvick and Joey Logano, who both experienced major issues within seconds of each other in the Bank of America 500.
Harvick lost power on Lap 154 of a scheduled 334 in his No. 4
Chevrolet, and Logano smacked the wall in Turn 2 of the 1.5-mile track,
doing extensive damage to his No. 22 Ford. Both headed behind the wall
for repairs that put them multiple laps down, and Harvick never returned
to the race.
The good news for Harvick and Logano is other Chase contenders also experienced major problems. Chase Elliott and Austin Dillon
were involved in a wreck that brought out a red flag with 74 laps to go
and fell behind in the Chase standings. Then, while running in second
place with 25 laps to go, Denny Hamlin experienced engine failure that knocked him out of the race and firmly into eighth place and on the Chase bubble.
Charlotte wasn't cloudy for everyone, though. Let's see what the Chase race looks like heading to Kansas. Who's hot: There were questions leading up to Charlotte about whether the No. 48 team of Jimmie Johnson
had what it took to make another title run, and at least for one week
the answer was a resounding, "Yes!" Johnson led a race-high 155 laps to
capture his 78th victory in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, and he advanced to the Round of 8 for the first time since the Chase format changed in 2014. ... Matt Kenseth
beat Johnson by one second in a late pit stop, but he couldn't hold the
lead on the restart. Still, a second-place finish sets up well for
Kansas, where Kenseth has the second-best driver rating behind Johnson
and has two wins.
Who's not: Harvick has one win apiece at Kansas Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway,
with his most recent win at those tracks coming in the fall of 2013 at
Kansas. Since 2014 (when the new Chase format took over), Harvick has
three top-10 finishes in five races at Talladega and three second-place
finishes in five races at Kansas. It's not a stretch to say Harvick
could win during the next two weeks. ...
Logano, meanwhile, has two career wins at Kansas and one at Talladega,
and he won at both tracks last year during the Chase. He hasn't shown
quite the speed he had last year, but like Harvick, Logano has a
legitimate chance at getting a desperation win. ...
Those who don't have such Sprint Cup experience are Chase Elliott and Austin Dillon,
who were involved in a wreck that brought out the red flag with 74 laps
to go. Elliott led 103 laps at Charlotte, and Dillon was in second
place after gambling on two tires on a late pit stop, so the wreck was a
big jolt to their chances at Charlotte and in the Chase.
Four in, four out: Here's a look at the Chase bubble, with four drivers being eliminated after the third race of this round, Oct. 23 at Talladega Superspeedway (2 p.m. ET, NBCSN, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
CONCORD, N.C. — As smoke poured from his engine and the leaders sped away, Denny Hamlin lamented his fate.
“Denny Hamlin luck in the Chase,’’ he radioed his team. “That gets you every time.’’
Just when it seemed as if the top eight
Chase drivers could relax after four foes suffered misfortune Sunday,
Hamlin saw his comfortable points bulge waste away quicker than a before
and after picture.
He was one of five Chase drivers to
finish 30th or worse at Charlotte Motor Speedway. He became the oddity
that could throw this Round of 12, which includes a cutoff race at
Talladega Superspeedway, into chaos.
Before Hamlin’s woes, it appeared the top eight Chase drivers would hold a healthy advantage on the four — Austin Dillon, Chase Elliott, Joey Logano and Kevin Harvick — who suffered from miscalculations, miscues and mischievous machinery.
Just before Hamlin’s engine blew while running second, he had a 31-point lead on those outside a transfer spot.
At that point, it appeared as if Dillon
and Elliott would be 19 points out of the cutoff spot. In the two
previous years of the elimination format, only one driver more than 15
points out of the final transfer spot after the opening race in the
second round advanced. That was Brad Keselowski. He did so by winning at Talladega in 2014. No one so far back made it on points.
After Hamlin’s woes put him in the final
transfer spot in the standings, Dillon and Elliott found themselves only
three points behind him.
Now, there are two Chases. Those in the
top seven can take fewer risks because the penalty of losing points
could be critical with Talladega looming in two weeks. The bottom five,
including Hamlin, are in a race among themselves for the final transfer
spot if they can’t win this weekend at Kansas or the following week at
Talladega.
“All I can do is try to run as fast as I
can,’’ Hamlin said. “I won’t be able to control what any of my
competitors do. All I can do is try to go to Kansas and try to win, go
to Talladega and try to win.’’
Last year, Hamlin’s luck saw him fail to
advance from the second round. He entered the cutoff race at Talladega
second in the standings, 18 points ahead of the cutoff. He failed to
make transfer after an issue with the roof hatch and then was collected
in a last-lap crash.
Teammate Kyle Busch
had it worse in 2014. Busch was second in the standings, 26 points
ahead of the ninth place, the first driver outside a cutoff spot
entering Talladega and was eliminated after a crash when hit from behind
by Dillon.
Logano, who finished 80 laps behind the
leaders Sunday after suffering two tire issues and slamming the wall
twice, joked that if he had finished only two laps down, “I could have
had a good points day.’’
Had he done so, he would have finished
23rd instead of 36th and those extra 13 points would have put him in the
final transfer spot instead of Hamlin.
That’s how volatile Sunday was for some
Chase contenders. Now, it impacts decision drivers and crew chiefs will
make the next two weeks.
“We’re not in must-win, but we’re in can’t-screw-up mode,’’ Logano said.
HAIRY SITUATION
Blake Koch thought he’d have some fun after making the inaugural Xfinity Chase.
He decided to mimic hockey players who grow beards during the playoffs and do it for NASCAR’s version of the playoffs.
Truth be told, Koch, figured he’d have
the beard for only the first three races and then could shave, but he’ll
keep it going after advancing to the Round of 8 after Sunday’s race at
Charlotte Motor Speedway.
“I’m a pretty optimistic person, but I
expected us to make the Chase, not to really transfer to the next group
of eight,’’ he said. “That’s really tough to do. If I would have known
that, I wouldn’t have set to growing this Chase beard because it’s going
to get long now.
“I thought it was going to be a three-week beard. It’s going to be an eight-week beard, at least, maybe nine weeks.’’
Koch advanced with a team that has 16
employees and moved shops during the season. They prepared cars for
Dover in May with flashlights because their new shop didn’t have power
yet.
“I think that’s definitely the biggest story of the first round, Blake and his guys making the second round,’’ said Elliott Sadler,
who advanced to the Round of 8 via his win at Kentucky Speedway. “The
start-up team and where Blake came from last year to this year,
congratulations, that to me is a job well done.’’
PIT STOPS
— Kurt Busch
and Brad Keselowski are tied with the best average finish in the eight
races on 1.5-mile tracks. Both have a 7.0 average. Keselowski finished
seventh on Sunday; Busch eighth. Three of the last six races, including
the season finale at Homestead, are on 1.5-mile tracks.
— For the first time in this Chase, there
were multi-car accidents. In the first three Chase races, there were
seven cautions for spins or accidents. All had been single-car
incidents. Sunday, two of the five cautions for accidents featured
multiple cars, including the 12-car incident off a restart.
— Last year, Joey Logano and Kevin
Harvick were 1-2 in the points after the opening race in the second
round. This year, they are 11th and 12th.
— Kasey Kahne’s third-place finish was his best result since his win at Atlanta in Sept. 2014 — a span of 77 races.
— Danica Patrick’s 11th-place finish Sunday was her best result of the year. Her previous best was 13th at Dover in May.
— Five of the top-10 finishers Sunday were drivers not eligible for the title. They were Kasey Kahne (finished third), Ryan Newman (fourth), Kyle Larson (fifth), Tony Stewart (ninth) and Jamie McMurray (10th).
— Tony Stewart’s ninth-place finish snapped a streak of seven consecutive finishes of 13th or worse.
— Michael McDowell’s 14th-place finish was his second top-15 result in his last four starts.
