The summer stretch is heating up and the NASCAR Sprint Cupseries hit Michigan International Speedway for the Helluva Good! Sour Cream Dips400.
Kurt Busch earned his third straight pole and Penske Racing’sfourth pole in a row.
Two in a row...
Denny Hamlin a year ago at this time had four of his eightwins and was looking more and more like a contender for the title. We know howit all ended for Hamlin in 2010 but 2011 hasn’t exactly gone as planned.Struggling the first half of the season with bad luck and at times bad racecars Hamlin and his team came to MIS searching for their first win.
Well a timely caution with the laps winding down and astrong race car rocketed Hamlin to the lead for good even though Matt Kenseth and Carl Edwardsdominated the race prior to the final caution. Hamlin held off a hardcharging Kenseth for his first win of the season.
His win moved him up to ninth in the standings and hissecond win in a row at MIS.
Spinning out ofcontrol…
There are only a handful of tracks that Jimmie Johnson hasn’twon at in his Sprint Cup career. Michigan International Speedway is one ofthose tracks. On Sunday it was not meant to be as Johnson spun on lap aftergetting loose. His spin broke a sway bar and Johnson went down two laps.
His day was effectually over with races at MIS history of long greenflag runs and a race car that wasn’t even 75 percent. Johnson has one win thisseason but would drop to fifth in the standings after win on Sunday.
Career Best…
Landon Cassill is not a driver who drives for one of the topteams in the NSCS but for Cassill he hasn’t complained about start and parking.Instead he got an opportunity to drive for James Finch and the number 51.
On Sunday, Cassill started 12th and ran around 15thfor most of the day. After pit strategy shuffled up Cassill would pit to taketwo tires and would be able to hold on for his career best 12thplace finish. For this team this is a huge run for them. They don’t have thebig name sponsors and the money behind them that teams like Hendrick and othershave but on Sunday Cassill showed that with some support what he is capable of.
Ford focused…
It was a brigade of Ford’s at the front of the field for agood part of the race with Kenseth, Carl Edwards and Greg Biffle all runningstrong throughout the day. Kenseth woundup second after looking like he was going to win the race.
Edwards and his team never had the car quite to where heneeded it to run up front but he moved from 23rd to finish fifth onthe day. Edwards won the Nationwide race on Saturday but his fifth place finishexpanded his lead to 20 points over Kevin Harvick.
For Biffle his day looked good early and in fact he and histeam were looking like they could contend for the win. As their season has gonestruggle son pit road and ill handling race car took them out contention as therace wore on. They finished 15th and moved to 13th in thestandings.
Lug Nuts…
-Last weeks’ winner Jeff Gordon struggled with trackposition and an ill handling race car. He started 31st and would finish17th. He dropped to 12th in the standings.
-Dale Earnhardt, Jr. winless streaked stretched to 108 racesafter his 21st place finish. He looked like he would have a car to contendbut poor pit stops and contact late with teammate Mark Martin saw his promisingrun falter in the end.
-The Sprint Cup race at MIS was 2 hours and 36 minutes long;making it the shortest race of the year.
For complete results click here and for the complete seriesstandings click here.
Next up is the road course race out in Sonoma next Sunday1ET on TNT.
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