Monitoring a dwindling fuel tank and powerful cars in his rearview mirror, Kurt Busch held off Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Brad Keselowski for his first win of the 2016 season in Monday's Axalta 'We Paint Winners' 400 at Pocono Raceway.
Busch took the lead at Lap 128 and immediately began playing a fuel-milege game -- holding in his clutch throughout the turns to save fuel -- as all the leaders worked to conserve fuel.
"It's going to be a game over who can go the fastest and save the most," No. 24 crew chief Alan Gustafson said via in-car radio around Lap 134 of 160.
Earnhardt stretched his No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet across the start/finish line for a runner-up spot, while polesitter Keselowski passed rookie Chase Elliott in the final 20 laps for third in his No. 2 Team Penske Ford. Elliott, who led 51 laps, finished fourth, while Joey Logano rounded out the top five in his No. 22 Team Penske Ford.
Keselowski ran into trouble early at The Tricky Triangle: The No. 2 Team Penske Ford was black-flagged at Lap 24 for unapproved body adjustments and thus, was forced to pit under caution and serve a pass-through penalty under green. The penalty caused Keselowski to drop back to 38th in the field.
WATCH: Keselowski forced to pit for body modifications
Keselowski's teammate and outside polesitter Logano also encountered hurdles early in the 400-miler, as Ryan Newman hit the No. 22 from behind several times, crunching in Logano's bumper and causing him to fall back in the field momentarily.
WATCH: Newman bumps Logano out of the way
Tony Stewart's day at The Tricky Triangle ended prematurely, as the No. 14 got loose at Lap 92, hit the wall and teammate Danica Patrick, who then collided with Landon Cassill. Stewart returned to the track after a trip to the garage, finishing 34th.
RELATED: Stewart, Danica wreck at Pocono
The Sprint Cup Series returns to the track next weekend at Michigan International Speedway for the FireKeepers Casino 400 (June 12, 1 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
RELATED: Today's photos at rainy Pocono | Updated schedule for Monday
The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series' Axalta 'We Paint Winners' 400 at Pocono Raceway has been postponed due to inclement weather.
The race, originally scheduled for a 1 p.m. ET start time on Sunday, was delayed for weather initially. Equipped with 20 Air Titan dryers and 10 conventional jet dryers, NASCAR officials were prepared to dry the track, but were unable to find a dry window through persistent rain, fog and mist.
Officials eventually made the decision to call the race and the series will run the 400-miler on Monday, June 6 at noon ET on FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
"We kind of anticipated that it might be a rainout today," said Jason Ratcliff, crew chief for the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 20 Toyota driven by third-place starter Matt Kenseth. "Right now, the forecast that we had for tomorrow looks very similar to what we had in practice yesterday, so we kind of based our set-up on what we thought we needed, thinking that the chances of racing on a Monday afternoon -- mid-70s, partly sunny -- were probably greater than racing on Sunday.
"The biggest thing for us is just the hassle, having to adjust your schedule, which is part of it. Now what you'd typically do on a Monday, you're going to try to cram into this afternoon or it's going to be a long Tuesday. But it's the same for everyone. We'll just have to adjust."
Weather has created hurdles for the teams throughout the weekend, as rain and fog ended Friday Cup practice prematurely and canceled a pair of XFINITY Series practices the same day. The XFINITY Series Pocono Green 250 was called just past the halfway point at Lap 53 of the 250-mile event, as rain continued to fall during a red flag. Kyle Larson, who was leading at the time of the red flag, was declared the winner.
This race, the 14th of 36 races on the Sprint Cup circuit, marks the first Cup event of the season that been postponed to the following day.
It's also the first Sprint Cup postponement at Pocono Raceway since August 2009, a Monday race won by Denny Hamlin.
Unfortunately, there won’t be any racing at Pocono Raceway today thanks to constant rain, thick fog and the fact Pocono doesn’t have lights.
But the wet elements have provided some memorable visuals from the track in Long Pond, Pennsylvania. Here’s some of the best shots of the rain soaked Pocono that have been shared on social media.
Big Diamond Speedway sits in Pennsylvania’s coal country and it hosts weekly dirt track racing every Friday night. We profiled the fast short track on Thursday’s edition of NASCAR America.
LONG POND, Pa. -- The maiden voyage of the NASCAR XFINITY Series at Pocono Raceway was shorter than planned, but race winner Kyle Larson wasn't complaining.
NASCAR awarded the checkered flag in the Pocono Green 250 to Larson when the race was red-flagged after 53 of 100 scheduled laps and then called because of persistent rain.
The victory was Larson's first of the season and fourth in the series, but it was a source of frustration to runner-up Erik Jones, who arguably had the fastest car and was closing rapidly on Larson when a rain shower blew in from the west and stopped the action.
Ty Dillon finished third, followed by Kyle Busch and Joey Logano. Ninth-place finisher Daniel Suarez maintained an 11-point lead in the series standings over Elliott Sadler, who ran sixth.
The caution flag flew for the fifth time on Lap 52, when a stormed cell drenched Turn 3 and began to move over the entire track. Another shower followed and then a steady rain, forcing NASCAR to shorten the race.
Larson likely was the only driver in the field who welcomed the downpour.
"I'm happy with it," Larson said. "Now that the race is over and we got the win, it can clear out so we can race (on Sunday) for the (NASCAR Sprint) Cup race ... I had kept a gap on him (Jones) for about four laps when he was in second.
"The rain was coming, and it was starting to sprinkle on his windshield. We weren't quite to halfway yet (when a race becomes official), so I wasn't really saying much on the radio, but once we did get to halfway, it started coming down a lot harder. We were going to be racing a lot harder in the next lap or half a lap maybe, so I'm happy that it started downpouring when it did."
Before the race was stopped, Jones had moved from fourth on a Lap 44 restart to second place and was pressuring Larson for the lead when rain began to fall in earnest.
"It's pretty frustrating," said Jones, who has two wins, three runner-up finishes and a pair of thirds in 12 races this season. "You look at this whole year, and it's kind of been a season of just missing it by that much.
"We've missed a few races with penalties and circumstance and the way things worked out, and today was another one of those days where I thought we had a good shot at the win, and the way it played out, it just didn’t work out for us."
Larson had surged into the top spot on Lap 35 and stayed on the track under the fourth caution of the race, brought about by a violent collision between the Ford of Ryan Reed and the Chevrolet of Jeremy Clements.
After the restart on Lap 44, Larson pulled away to a lead of nearly two seconds before Jones starting gaining ground on the No. 42 Chevrolet. Jones was roughly one car-length behind when NASCAR threw the caution flag for rain.
A lap later, the sanctioning body red-flagged the race. During the stoppage, however, an ongoing feud between Reed and Sieg boiled over into a shoving match in the garage. Contact between their two cars had preceded Reed’s accident with Clements.
"You can't race around the kid," Sieg said of Reed, a Roush Fenway Racing driver. "He's got a lot of money, and he's got a Roush car, but he can’t drive it. ... Money can't buy skill, obviously, with him. We had a really good car, but it just sucks that it's torn up here in the garage, and we've got nothing to show for it."
Reed was more restrained in his comments, appropriately so because of the circumstances. It was Reed's car that good loose in side-by-side racing and initiated the first contact with Sieg. Subsequently, a cut tire on Reed's Ford led to his brush with the wall and the collision Clements' Chevy, which was collected when Reed spun down from the outside wall to the center of the track.
"Emotions run high, obviously," Reed said. "It's racing. I look forward to talking about it in a calm, cool, collected manner and working it out. Obviously, we race every week, and it’s not going to do us any good to go out there and get into a battle royal."
The brouhaha in the garage marked the end of the excitement, however, as the rain persisted, and NASCAR called the race just before 4 p.m., after a stoppage of one hour, 35 minutes.
