Chase Elliott: ‘I don’t know what to do’ after poor Kansas finish, Talladega looming

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.”

Despite tough day at Kansas, Hamlin confident he can win at Talledega

It’s been a rough Round of 12 in the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship for Denny Hamlin.

In the first two races of the second round , he’s finished 30th (Charlotte) and 15th (Sunday at Kansas).

That leaves Hamlin below the Chase cutoff line heading to Talladega in 10th place, 43 points behind series leaderJimmie Johnson and six points short of eighth-ranked Joey Logano.

Even so, Hamlin is confident he can win at Talladega, which would advance him to the Round of 8.

“I’ve got confidence I can win every single week on the race track,” said Hamlin, who won this year’s Daytona 500. “It’s just – this is a team sport and you’ve got to have every facet of the car and the team all put together and we’ve just got to execute. I’ve got full confidence we can go to Talladega and win next week and we’ll show that when we get there.”

Crew chief Mike Wheeler also remains confident.

“We had a lot of challenges today, more than we were expecting,” he said. “We were hoping for a smooth day and a top-three finish and ended up having three or four issues, and battled back from all of them and had a top 15 out of it, which isn’t too bad. We still have a chance to go into next week and we’ll try to make the most of it.

“We knew going into Talladega that we would probably have to have a win to get in (to the Round of 8). At this point right now, we probably need that, but honestly if we go run top three, things can fall our way. It’s not going to stop us from doing the best we can and our speedway program is pretty good for us, so I’m actually okay with going there and looking forward to it.”

Kyle Busch fades late to finish 5th at Kansas, ready for Talladega’s ‘racing gods’

It seems rare that Kyle Busch doesn’t have a car to win, but that was the case Sunday as he tailed off in the second half of the Hollywood Casino 400.

Still, Busch came home with a fifth-place win, which allowed him to hold on to his third-place ranking in the Chase for the Championship standings, 10 points behind series leader Jimmie Johnson.

“We had really good short-run speed, we just didn’t have long-run speed,” Busch said. “I hated that we weren’t able to go up there and race the 4 (Kevin Harvick) and get more out of it, but we just had to fade gracefully there towards the end and didn’t have enough to chase those guys down. I wish we did. Our car was fast all through practice and everything this whole weekend, we just missed it here for the race. We just didn’t get our race adjustments right.”

While he is sitting in a strong position heading to Talladega, the younger Busch isn’t taking anything to chance, given how unpredictable NASCAR’s biggest superspeedway is.

“You never can have any comfort and you do what you need to do in order to transfer through,” Busch said. “It’s all about the racing gods in that story in Talladega.”

NASCAR executive hints at rule to limit Sprint Cup drivers in Xfinity,Camping World Truck Series

For fans who don’t like Sprint Cup drivers competing in Xfinity and Camping World Truck races, a NASCAR executive says “stay tuned’’ for an announcement “fairly soon’’ on the issue.

Steve O’Donnell, NASCAR executive vice president and chief racing development officer, uttered those words Monday on “The Morning Drive” on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio when asked about limiting Cup drivers in the Xfinity and Camping World Truck Series.

“It certainly is on our radar,’’ O’Donnell said. “We’ve heard the fans. It’s interesting, it’s been a balance throughout the years. We’ve always had Sprint Cup drivers come into the Xfinity Series and sometimes dominate, back in the Mark Martin days.

“As the sport has evolved one of the great things is we’ve got more of a fan following in the Xfinity and Camping World Truck Series. They like seeing those drivers come up through the ranks and it’s our job to make sure that Xfinity is where names are made. We’ve got to do on that on the racetrack.

“That is something we’re taking a really hard look at for next year, I’d say stay tuned. We’re going to look at and probably have something to announce fairly soon.’’

NASCAR prohibits any Cup driver who was in last year’s Chase from competing in this year’s season finale for the Xfinity and Camping World Truck Series at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

One possibility could be for NASCAR to extend such a ban for all future Chase races in the Xfinity and Camping World Truck Series.

This issue was raised after Kyle Buschwon Saturday’s Xfinity race at Kansas Speedway for his ninth victory of the season.

Since 2011, Cup regulars have won 138 of the 196 Xfinity races (70.4 percent).

Nineteen of the 30 Xfintiy races this season have been won by a driver who competes regularly in the Sprint Cup Series. While that is nearly two-thirds of the races won by a Cup regular, the total is down from recent years.

Last year, Cup regulars won 23 of 33 Xfinity races (69.7 percent)

In 2014, Cup regulars won 22 of 33 Xfintiy races (66.7 percent)

In 2013, Cup regulars won 28 of 33 Xfinity races (84.8 percent)

In 2012, Cup regulars won 18 of 33 Xfinity races (54.5 percent)

In 2011, Cup regulars won 28 of 34 Xfinity races (82.4 percent)

Here’s a look at the most wins by a Cup regular in the Xfinity Series since 2011

42 – Kyle Busch

22 – Brad Keselowski

19 – Joey Logano

9 – Carl Edwards

9 – Kevin Harvick

Carl Edwards gutted after another home-track victory slips away

KANSAS CITY, Kan. – With a steely smile and stiff upper lip, Carl Edwards politely weaved through throngs of longtime friends and well-wishers, flagging downKevin Harvick’s car at the victory lane gate.

Edwards leaned through the window to offer a lengthy congratulations and then graciously completed the rest of his postrace interviews.

He delivered a good-natured slap on Kansas Speedway president Pat Warren’s shoulder with a “thanks for everything,” joked with Austin Dillon about his playoff beard and stopped when a member of the track’s color guard asked him for a selfie before exiting the media center.

“Yeah, let’s do it,” Edwards said.

Outwardly, the Columbia, Mo., native, who started his career on short tracks across Kansas and Missouri, seemed to be handling his runner-up finish to Harvick in the Hollywood Casino 400 – the hometown race Edwards desperately wants to win even more than the Daytona 500.

But looks were deceiving.

“I’d rather not talk about that,” Edwards said with a half-smile that seemed to indicate his joke was a half-truth. “It’s tough. There’s so many people that come to this racetrack that support me and have supported me. Not just when I’m racing here, but Capitol Speedway, Old Summit, Callaway Raceway, Godfrey, all these places I raced growing up. It’s a really special place for me.

“As much fun as I had racing up front, yeah, it stings. There are negative emotions tied to not winning here with that fast of a car, but that’s the way it goes.”

Edwards led 61 laps and was in first on a restart with 30 laps remaining when he lost the lead to Harvick.

After slipping to third behind Kyle Busch, he furiously battled by his Joe Gibbs Racing teammate for a second – the same place he finished to Jimmie Johnson at the 1.5-mile oval eight years ago.

This didn’t have the same dramatic ending – Edwards slapped the turn 4 wall on the last lap while attempting an optimist slide job on Johnson – “both of them were pretty painful.

“I was pretty sure we were in control of the race,” he said. “I felt really good about it. That race here in 2008 with Jimmie, I felt like we were really in control of that one. We let that one go, too.

“These I remember more just because they are so special. Fortunately, we get to race here twice now every year so I cannot wait to come back again. I wish we could line the cars back up again and go, but I’ll wait. Just like anything, you learn from your wins, but you probably learn more from your defeats. We’ll go back and look at that restart.”

Harvick, who has been working on honing his restart technique for a year, timed the green flag perfectly in his No. 4 Chevrolet, leaving Edwards’ No. 19 Toyota in the dust with a push from Johnson’s No. 48 Chevy.

“I think the key to the restart was just timing,” Harvick said. “The rest of it we’ll keep to ourselves.”

The other key was Edwards’ battle with Busch, which chewed up too many of the remaining 30 laps to make a run at Harvick.

“I knew if I could clear Kyle quickly, I could maybe catch Kevin,” Edwards said. “My car was faster than Kyle’s. He was good there for a lap or two, then I felt like I was quite a bit faster. I just needed to get by him.

“But he was doing his job. He was racing as hard as he could.”

Though teammate Matt Kenseth led a race-high 116 laps from the pole position, Edwards said his Camry was the best of the day after qualifying second.

“That’s what’s frustrating,” he said. “You should win with the fastest car, especially when you start on the front row. I take responsibility for that. I could have done something different on that restart, possibly hung on, and I wouldn’t have been in that position.

“But, man, I raced as hard as I could all day. We didn’t make hardly any mistakes. So we can keep our heads up.”

He also will enter Talladega Superspeedway in relatively safe position for advancing to the Round of 8. Edwards is 24 points ahead of the current cut line.

“Day or two will pass, maybe the sting will wear off and I’ll be more excited about the points situation going into Talladega,” he said. “Because that’s the bright side.”

Keselowski will ‘race guts out’ at Talladega after finishing 38th at Kansas

After wrecking and finishing 38th in Sunday’s Hollywood Casino 400, Brad Keselowski left Kansas Speedway in 11th place in the Chase standings, 44 points behind series leader Jimmie Johnson and seven points below the Chase cutoff line heading to Talladega next Sunday.

But to hear Keselowski, a four-time winner at Talladega, he’s feeling very confident that not only will he have another strong finish at NASCAR’s largest superspeedway, but that he’ll also make the cut when the Round of 12 is whittled to the Round of 8 after next Sunday’s race.

“I don’t think it is a must-win situation; I am not worried about it,” the 2012 Sprint Cup champion said. “I am going to go there and bust my butt to try to win but I don’t think it is a must win yet.

“I like Talladega. Talladega has been good to me and I am going to drive my butt off and at the end of the day I have faith that if it is meant to be, it is meant to be. We can’t get down. There is a long way to go still.”

Keselowski had a promising race going at Kansas until he slid up in front of Denny Hamlin on Lap 189, got loose and Hamlin couldn’t slow fast enough to avoid hitting the rear of Keselowski’s car.

That contact sent Keselowski’s Ford Fusion sailing left, where it made heavy contact with the concrete rumble strip at the entrance to pit road, causing extensive damage to his front end.

“I don’t know what happened,” Keselowski said. “Days like today are going to happen to anybody and everybody in the Chase. It is about the effort you have when that happens.”

Keselowski lost 29 laps while in the garage as his team worked feverishly to install a whole new front end on his race car.

Unfortunately, he got back out on the racetrack when a huge plume of smoke came out from the back of his car, signaling the end of his day once and for all.

“The guys busted their butt to get me back out,” Keselowski said. “They put on a whole new front end. There must have been some kind of damage to the engine (that caused the heavy smoke) from the spin.

“It was running fine before that. I think it is just unfortunate. I am not going to say for sure what happened to cause the spin. We will move forward. If we keep getting the effort like they did to fix this thing we will be fine.

“If my team keeps putting up this kind of effort, I don’t worry about today. We will win another race. We will win Talladega and other races and be fine. … I am proud of my guys for doing their best to recover and we will move on to Talladega and give ‘em hell.”

Matt Kenseth laments how good race turned bad; lucky to finish ninth

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.”