[media-credit name=”Dan Sanger” align=”alignright” width=”237″]
[/media-credit]From blistering speeds to blistering tires, here is what was surprising and not surprising in the 44th annual Quicken Loans 400 at Michigan International Speedway.
Surprising: After the repaving, days of tire testing and several practices resulted in pervasive tire blistering throughout the garage, it was surprising the praise shared for Goodyear when they made the very difficult call to switch up the tires for the race.
And although known for his sometimes hard-hitting rhetoric, second place finisher Tony Stewart had nothing but cheers for team Goodyear.
“I think we need to give 100 percent credit to Goodyear for this weekend,” the driver of the No. 14 Office Depot/Mobil 1 Chevrolet said. “I mean, what they had to do Friday night was a really hard decision to make.”
“It was for the betterment of all of us as drivers and teams and for the sport,” Smoke continued. “So every one of us need to walk through the garage and stop at Goodyear and shake every one of their guys’ hands.”
Not Surprising: While Junior nation paced and held their collective breaths during the final laps of the Quicken Loans 400, no one was more anxious than team owner Rick Hendrick.
“That was the longest 18 laps of my life,” Hendrick said of the waning laps before Dale Earnhardt, Jr. finally took that checkered flag, ending his four-year winless drought. “I was doing laps around my couch, trying to end this race, man.”
“I was too nervous to stand still,” Hendrick continued. “Linda and I were just watching it and saying ‘Come on, no problems.’ I was so afraid there was going to be a caution or something was going to happen.”
“I thought Dale had a real shot at Pocono,” Hendrick said. “But this is like a huge load off our backs.”
Surprising: While his teammate basked in the glory of Victory Lane, Jeff Gordon celebrated a top-10 finish, as well as a surprising career milestone. The driver of the No. 24 Dupont Chevrolet scored the 400th top-10 finish of his Cup career.
With his sixth place run, Gordon became the second youngest driver to achieve that milestone. This was also his fifth top-6 finish at Michigan International Speedway in the last seven races at that track.
“It was not easy,” Gordon said, especially after having to move up from his 28th starting spot. “We had a really good race car today.”
“I’m just glad we had a solid day,” Gordon continued. “It’s something to build on.”
Not Surprising: Always understated and never surprising Matt Kenseth had another solid run, finishing third in his No. 17 EcoBoost Ford. Kenseth also held onto the points lead, lording just four points over second place contender Dale Earnhardt, Jr.
“We were pretty good in the beginning of the race and got shuffled back and it was tough to work traffic today,” Kenseth said. “They got the setup good on the last two runs and had good pit stops.”
“We were able to stand on the gas and work our way up there to third.”
Surprising: One of the hottest drivers on the circuit surprisingly went from Victory Lane in Pocono and in the Michigan Nationwide race to hitting the wall and ending his Michigan Cup race with a DNF.
“It was just the restarts,” Joey Logano said. “The slower lapped car – we all waved around and we’re all trying to turn down underneath him.”
“I thought I had it saved and over-corrected and went in the wall,” Logano continued. “It’s a little frustrating.”
“We’ll go back out there next week and win that one.”
Not Surprising: NASCAR is a family so, to no one’s surprise, several teams and crew members came to the aid of a driver in trouble. After wrecking, Denny Hamlin tried to drive to pit road only to be engulfed in flames in the race car.
“There’s a lot of good safety stuff, but I’ve got to thank all of the crew guys that hauled ass over there and got me out,” the driver of the No. 11 FedEx Office Toyota said. “It was just a tough day.”
“I thought we had a car that could run top-three or four at times, but just didn’t have a great day and on fire is not a good way to end it.”
Surprising: Rough times surprisingly continued to plague the Busch brothers, from Pocono to the Irish hills of Michigan. Kurt Busch, who sat out of his car at Pocono due to a verbal altercation with a media member, wrecked on lap two of the Michigan race.
Brother Kyle fared none better, experiencing engine failure for the third weekend in a row.
Kurt Busch finished 30th and Kyle Busch finished 32nd. With the engine failure, Kyle Busch managed to hold on to 12th in the point standings, but barely remained in Chase contention.
Not Surprising: Jimmie Johnson, along with his lucky horseshoe, continued to triumph over adversity. The driver of the No. 48 Lowe’s Chevrolet managed yet again to pull off another top-5 finish.
“Man, we were coming,” Johnson said. “We were really flying.”
“And then I blistered the right rear again and had to just hang on,” Johnson continued. “And then I ran out of fuel going into Turn 3 and coasted around and made it to the finish.”
“It was a tough day; but a good finish, so we’ll take that.”
Surprising: EGR racer Juan Pablo Montoya had a surprisingly good run at Michigan, finishing eighth.
“It was good,” the driver of the No. 42 Target Chevrolet said of his top-10 run. “I will tell you the truth, yesterday when they changed tires, I was really worried.”
“I called my dad to wish him a Happy Father’s Day and he said, ‘How is the car?’ I said, ‘If it handles the way it handled yesterday we are going to get lapped every 20 laps.”
“Our team has a lot of potential and we showed a little bit of what we can do,” JPM continued. “I think we still have a lot of work to do, but I’m happy, really happy.”
Not Surprising: As the fastest racer in NASCAR, Marcos Ambrose not only scored the pole with a new track record, but also finished ninth in his No. 9 Stanley Ford Fusion.
“We will take the top-10 but we had a great car today and we lost a little bit of track position and it hurt us there,” Ambrose said. “I am proud of my Stanley team. We led some laps and looked good up there.”
“It was a strong day for us, not quite what we wanted, but we will take it and move along to Sonoma.”
