A Look Back At Michigan Weekend

Matt Kenseth sometimes is the Joe Gibbs Racing driver that you tend to forget. Not at Michigan International Speedway on this day.

On a hot, humid day where the fans and drivers were a bit disappointed about the lack of passing, Kenseth was not upset in the least. Kenseth sent a message to the rest of the contenders that he is not to be overlooked in the upcoming Chase with a dominating win in the Pure Michigan 400 at Michigan International Speedway, capping another solid weekend for Joe Gibbs Racing.

A wild weekend for yours truly turned out pretty good for JGR as the team won its 5^th race in the last 6 Sprint Cup outings.

Kenseth outlasted Kevin Harvick to earn his third win of the season and his second in the last three races after his fuel mileage victory at Pocono. Kenseth also claimed the pole position on Friday as JGR cars qualified 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd, and 6^th.

“Yeah, we had, obviously, a dominant car since we got here.  It showed up in qualifying and (crew chief) Jason(Ratcliff) had it tuned up today where the handling was great as we had enough speed to stay up there.”

The new high-drag rules package, which was introduced at Indianapolis, did not result in the excitement that NASCAR was looking for. The drivers did not rip the package, but they did not compliment it either. It seemed the best chance to gain positions was on the wild late race restarts.

“Well, I’ve got to be honest, I didn’t see much of the race, which was totally fine with me,” said Kenseth who led 76 of the first 100 laps.

“We were up front the whole time, and that’s what you want, right?  You want everybody in your mirror, so I haven’t got to see much of the race to be 100 percent honest with you.  Obviously I had to pass some lapped cars, I passed some cars for position off of pit strategy, things like that, so certainly was able to kind of mix it up and see what it was like a little bit, but I really didn’t get to see much of the racing except what I saw in my windshield.”

Fans did complain however.

On my drive home from the track, I heard a lot of unhappy NASCAR fans on Sirius XM NASCAR Radio. Do they have a right to be upset? Sure. Is every race guaranteed to be a thrilling three and a half hours all the way through with a last lap pass and a wild crash? Absolutely not.

Not every race is going to be great. Not every football game is great despite how much money you pay to get into the stadium. NASCAR is playing with the rules package and unfortunately it did not work that well at Indy or MIS. It wasn’t truly that bad. There’s a good chance that Kenseth would have had the race in the bag without the adjustments. Those who are angry or disappointed need to get over it. I’m pretty sure we won’t be seeing this package ever again in this form.

Kevin Harvick chose to ignore questions about the aero package and how it affected handling and passing on the track.

“I’m really proud of my team and the things that they did to prepare for the race, and we had a good, strong day,” Harvick said in the media center.

Harvick was second for the 10th time this season, and for 5th time in the last six races at Michigan. Martin Truex Jr. was third followed by Austin Dillon, Denny Hamlin, Carl Edwards, and Joey Logano.

Brad Keselowski has yet to win at his hometrack and despite driving my favorite paint scheme of the season thus far, he did not get to victory lane yet again. Brad sported the #2 Miller Genuine Draft black and gold Ford in honor of Rusty Wallace’s birthday, but he didn’t have anything for Kenseth on this day finishing ninth.

A native Michigan driver has never won a Sprint Cup race at MIS.

Last Turn Logano Wins At The Glen

Joey Logano put the pressure on Kevin Harvick. A.J. Allmendinger put too much pressure on himself.

That’s the best way I can sum up this Sunday at Watkins Glen as Joey Logano won the Cheez-It 355 by tracking down and passing Kevin Harvick as he ran out of fuel on the final turn of the race.

The win definitely gave Logano and his team some confidence going into the Chase. Logano had not won since the Daytona 500 in February.

Logano swept the weekend in the Finger Lakes region of New York, winning the Xfinity race on Saturday. Pretty sweet for a guy who was on the opposite end of the fuel strategy last week in Pocono, running out of gas while leading with three laps to go. Logano said aside from his December wedding, it was one of the best weekends of his life.

“Yeah, it’s remarkable.  I’ve never swept the weekend before.  I’ve come close a couple times but never actually done it.  I didn’t think a road course would be the time that we were able to sweep the weekend.  But what a special race car I had yesterday, such a fast race car, and we were able to drive up through the field and just have a really good car.”

After Logano overdrove turn one on the final lap it looked as if Harvick was going to cruise to the win. But the Budweiser Chevrolet started to slow going into turn ten as he drove out of the racing line. Logano chose to drive around him on the outside going into turn eleven and despite a slight bump from the ’14 Sprint Cup champ, Logano was able to get by and take the checkered flag in yet another thrilling finish at The Glen.

It was another near victory for Harvick who has finished 2nd nine times this season, and 3rd three time, along with two wins. Logano gave it all he had to the very end, including a victory burnout that blew out the right rear tire which brought a loud cheer from the sell out crowd.

Logano earned Roger Penkse his first Daytona 500 win back in February, and with this win he gave the legendary owner his first Sprint Cup win at Watkins Glen.

Crew chief Todd Gordon said the team can build on this victory going into the Chase.

“We’ve had a lot of bridesmaids’ dresses here the last month with both Joey and Brad finishing second at several places.  Good to get back to victory lane and build the momentum going forward into the Chase because we’ve only got a few races left.

Gordon also thinks the team is in a slightly better spot than it was at this time last year going into NASCAR’s playoffs.

“We continue to grow that, and we’re knocking on the door.  We’re building momentum at the right time. I think as the aero packages have moved, we’ve been able to react to those very successfully.  I think that’s a testament to everybody at Team Penske back at the shop that they give us the information that we need to work forward.”

As for the defending race winner and favorite A.J. Allmendinger, he had a nightmare of a day and finished 24^th.

I’m not sure I have seen a driver put more pressure on himself in any one single race that didn’t have a championship on the line. I get that his only shot to get into the Chase was to win at The Glen, but he looked so frustrated in the second practice that he basically was never where he needed to be mentally. He won the pole on Saturday, and led the opening 20 laps, but then had fuel pump issues. His car lost power on lap 57 during a caution period. The same issue spelled A.J. at Sonoma where he also qualified on the pole. The frustration came to head when Allmendinger said on the radio “Can we have something not break for once?”

 “I was really struggling on the second run and then the third run the battery died. When the battery died that obviously put us way behind. I thought the changes we made helped the car a little bit, but I got my lap back and drove as hard as I could to get as much as I could. I thought maybe we could get back to the top 10. Just 10 laps short. I don’t know if it was another fuel pump issue or not.”

Allmendinger is now 23^rd in the standings.

As we head to Michigan it is looking like the only way things are going to change in the top 16 now is if someone outside the current 16 wins a race. Paul Menard, Clint Bowyer, Ryan Newman, Jeff Gordon, and Jamie McMurray are all in right now, while Aric Almirola, Kasey Kahne, Greg Biffle and Kyle Larson are all at least 50 points back of 16^th spot.

Kyle Busch is also currently qualified by virtue of being in 30^th place in the standings after his second place finish at Watkins Glen. He now must drive smart and stay out of any accidents in the coming weeks starting this week in the Irish Hills.

(Photo by Jeff Zelevansky/Getty Images)

Joe Gibbs Racing Rounding Into Championship Form

Joe Gibbs attended his share of victorious postgame press conferences when he was coaching the NFL. The Hall of Fame coach has had quite a few as a car owner in NASCAR too, but this recent run his team is on resembles that unbeatable combination of players that he had in 1991.

Everything is clicking for JGR right now, including a last lap fuel mileage win for Matt Kenseth in the Windows 10 400 at Pocono Raceway. It was the fourth straight win for a Gibbs-owned Toyota, and the team’s eighth overall victory in 21 NASCAR Sprint Cup races this season.

The ’91 Washington Redskins went 14-2 in the regular season and won their three playoff games by a combined score of 102-41 for Gibbs’ third Super Bowl win. His Cup team isn’t dominating at quite that level just yet, but they have become the strongest team in the garage heading into the Chase at this point. Gibbs is always quick to credit those working day and night for him.

“I attribute it to a lot of hard work and everybody back there (at the shop) from a total team effort, and then of course you’ve got to have great drivers and great crew chiefs or you’re not going anywhere.  The crew that’s been coming to the racetrack has been phenomenal.”

The win did come at the expense of Kyle Busch running out of fuel on the final lap, giving Kenseth a win that came down to saving gas for the first time he could remember in NASCAR.

“Today is a first. I checked two things off the list.  I won at Pocono, I didn’t think that would ever happen, and I won a fuel-mileage race, I didn’t think that would ever happen.”

Joey Logano was the first driver to run out of gas while leading with three laps to go. Logano was a long way from making it to the checkered; about a gallon and a half short. Then June Pocono winner, Martin Truex Jr. ran out. It seemed like Busch was going to escape with his fourth straight win, until his car began to sputter after taking the white flag. His teammate Kenseth coasted by him on the backstretch.

“We got greedy,” Busch said after finishing 21st. “I don’t know how greedy. We went for broke today. I can’t fault my team.”

Not when they’ve been so good for the past two months. Kenseth’s crew chief Jason Ratcliff, one of the braintrusts behind the Gibbs success, knows JGR is rounding into shape at the right time.

“Yeah, our cars have been — well, we’ve been good all year, but it just seems like we’re really getting a little bit quicker when it counts, as we get close to the final ten.  Everyone is doing a nice job, everyone at JGR is working extremely hard and bringing good cars to the track.”

But as Gibbs pointed out, just like that ’91 team, winning and performing in the regular season, doesn’t mean a thing unless you back it up in the playoffs.

“The thing that I’m always aware of, we climb to get up here, but in this sport it’s very easy to do what, slip back, and we’ve experienced that.  We just really need to keep working, and I think our guys will.”

Gibbs also wasn’t too upset that Busch and crew chief Dave Rogers gambled at the end.

“I think Kyle pins his ears back and goes,” Gibbs said. “As a group over there, they’re doing the right thing.”

Brad Keselowski was second and Jeff Gordon got a much needed third place finish. Dale Earnhardt Jr. was fourth followed by Greg Biffle, Jimmie Johnson, and A.J. Allmendinger.

The race featured a few scary incidents on pit road. 

The first looked bad as Kasey Kahne got loose on lap 6 and went flying out of control into the pits, hitting the inside wall by the crews so hard that unattended helmets went flying some 30 feet in the air. A piece of his sheet metal was lodged into the concrete wall, forcing NASCAR to red flag that race and fix it. No one was injured, but Kahne seemed shocked and dazed by the incident.

“I saw the people and I thought to myself that those guys need to take off running and get out of the way. I hadn’t done anything like that before so it was kind of crazy the way it all happened.”

LONG POND, PA – AUGUST 02: Brad Keselowski, driver of the #2 Alliance Truck Parts Ford, crashes into his crew on pit road during the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Windows 10 400 at Pocono Raceway on August 2, 2015 in Long Pond, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Chris Trotman/Getty Images)

On lap 62 Keselowski overshot his pit stall and hit two of his crew members. Penske Racing jackman Braxton Brannon went flying in the air and the jack landed on him, while tire carrier Jeremy Ogles rolled onto the hood of the car. Neither was seriously hurt, and they even got up and finished the stop. This was the second time this year Keselowski has had an incident pulling into his pit area. After falling one lap down and restarting 37th, he managed to rally with the rash of cars that had to pit for fuel in the closing laps.

“But you know, if we could have — quite honestly — not had that issue during the race, I feel like we probably would have won today,” Brad said afterward. “But that one is on me, so I feel guilty for my team on that.

(Above photo by Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images).

Rahal’s Dream Season Continues After Buckeye State Win

Bobby Rahal is a legend in the state of Ohio. I’ll never forget how happy I was to get his autograph when he was driving the Miller Genuine Draft Honda at the Cleveland Grand Prix when I was a kid.

Now his son Graham is doing something legendary.

After a monumental win in the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio, Rahal, who drives for his father’s team, is now just nine points behind Juan Pablo Montoya in the battle for the 2015 Verizon IndyCar Series Championship. Rahal made up a remarkable 33 points on Montoya, as this year’s Indianapolis 500 winner finished 11th on Sunday.

“Of all the races, and the (Indy) 500, this would be the one to me that means the most,” Rahal said. (This is) the one I’d want to win the most.”

After a big second place finish at Iowa a few weeks ago, on a night when Montoya crashed with a broken suspension, Rahal has come from virtually nowhere to have a great shot at winning his first IndyCar title. He also won a wild race at Auto Club Speedway in June.

Ohio’s native son sported a helmet painted just like the National Champion Ohio State Buckeyes on this Sunday in Lexington, Ohio. And just like those underdog Buckeyes led by coach Urban Meyer and a third-string quarterback in Cardale Jones, Rahal came out on top beating the favorite, Mr. Mid-Ohio, Scott Dixon. 

Dixon, a 5-time race winner at Mid-Ohio, got off to a great start by capturing the pole and leading the race early. But Dixon lost the lead when he had to pit under a debris caution on lap 22, that benefitted the cars who had already pitted under green, like JPM and Rahal. They restarted 2nd and 3rd respectively, while Dixon fell to 13th. Tristan Vautier, who pitted extremely early in the race, spent some time in P1 when green flag racing resumed.

Montoya cycled into the lead on lap 40, while Dixon tried to pit early and get back some track position that he gave up with his first stop. Dixon also was mired traffic on Firestone red tires. Montoya had the car to beat until a caution on lap 65 when Sage Karam spun out. Rahal just got into the pits before they closed getting a huge break and ultimately one that won him the race.

Rahul knew he had to get another win this season to have a chance at the championship. 

“Today was a big day, huge day,” Rahal said after the third victory of his career and second in five weeks. “When I saw Montoya ahead of me the first last 30 laps, (I thought), ‘You’ve got to be kidding. This is the last thing I need.’ I knew all the other guys I was contending with were behind me, but he was the one I needed to beat.”

Rahal sealed the deal on a late restart when he made a great move out-braking Justin Wilson as he challenged him for the top spot. The New Albany, Ohio native cruised in the final laps giving the local fans a chance to celebrate. Rahal’s father won at Mid-Ohio in 1985 and ’86.

Montoya is still the man to beat based on his experience. But Rahal has been remarkable. He is making his name known as one of the great open-wheel drivers in the world, and he is doing it on a single-car team that doesn’t have all the advantages of a Penske or Ganassi car.

Just two races remain on the schedule. The series heads to Pocono for 500 miles on August 23rd and ends the season in Sonoma on August 30th.