Dillon wins it for PopPop!

[media-credit name=”Credit: Andy Lyons/Getty Images for NASCAR” align=”alignright” width=”237″][/media-credit]Austin Dillon won the Inaugural NASCAR Nationwide Series (NNS) Kentucky 300 at Kentucky Speedway on Saturday. This is Dillon’s second win the the season and his NNS career.

“This one wasn’t easy; there were a lot of good teams out here. These guys built an awesome race car.” Dillon said.

Sam Hornish Jr. finished second, Brendan Gaughan third, Drew Herring fourth and Elliott Sadler rounded out the top 5.

Dillon led the field to the green flag in a very sunny day. He went down into turn 1 and got loose which allowed Stenhouse Jr. to get by him and lead the first lap.

The Caution waved on the next lap when the No.87 of Joe Nemechek spun on the back stretch and the yellow waved. He had to go to the back, as well as Kurt Busch, as they had to fly here from Loudon due to not qualifying the car. Busch made up all the way to 27th when the caution waved..

Green Flag waved for the second time on lap 5 with Stenhouse Jr. leading them. Stenhouse Jr., Dillon and Hornish were all battling for the lead but Stenhouse Jr. led that lap. Hornish passed Dillon for second and was going for Stenhouse Jr. when the second caution came out when the No.38 of Brad Sweet spun off of turn 4. Stenhouse Jr. got a warning on the radio from NASCAR to pick up the pace on the restarts. He was very slow on the last one and other drivers were complaining. None of the leaders pitted because only 9 laps have been completed.

Stenhouse Jr. led the field back to the green flag on lap 13 and was clear by the time he was in the backstretch. Busch was in 12th after he started in the back.  Stenhouse Jr. was pulling away from Dillon and Hornish Jr.

The third caution waved as the competition yellow on lap 30.  Sadler was in saying he was little tight and says he might be hitting the splitter. He got two tires and a chassis adjustment  and was away. Hornish pulled in to his pit box and they pulled a spring rubber and got two tires and was away. Dillon also took two tires. Stenhouse Jr. got two tires as well but when he was leaving he hit Eric McClure door and it hurt the front of his car. He backed up and got back and fixed it.

They restarted the race on lap 36 with Dillon taking the lead. Stenhouse Jr. was leading but got hit and restarted 28th. Dillon got a great restart and was racing with  Hornish as the two of them separated themselves from the other drivers.

The fourth caution waved when the No.18 of Herring was spinning into the grass off of turn 4. He got help from Michael Annett. Nobody pitted during the caution as they had just pitted during the previous yellow.

The green flag waved on lap 44 with a great restart! Dillon led the field but Justin Allgaier made it three wide with him and Hornish. Hornish took over the lead while Allgaier took second. Allgaier got loose in turn 1 the following lap and fell back to fourth. Hornish was cruising and thought he had a great lead but on lap 48.  Sadler took over the lead for the fifth lead change of the afternoon.

Stenhouse Jr. hit the wall coming off of turn 4 battling for position with Danica Patrick and just ran out of room. He was very slow coming off of that and went to pit road to fix it. He went back onto the track but was two laps down and in the 32nd position. Stenhouse Jr. battled back and finished 17th.

“Our first mistake was on pit road. The No. 14 came in there and knocked the right front end, which put us back in the pack. Then, we don’t handle very well, and I got loose and into the wall which cut a tire down. It was just one thing after another, but we rebounded to a 17th place finish.” Stenhouse Jr. said.

After 42 laps of green flag racing, the fifth caution came out when the #19 car of Taylor Malsam spun as he was trying to avoid Jason Bowles when Bowles was coming in to pit road. Bowles was on the apron and was going in but Malsam was battling with Mike Wallace and got bumped by Wallace and  spun the thing around. All of the leaders came to pit as they would of had to come in the next to 5-10 laps. Sadler came in as the leader and said he he was pretty happy with the car. He got a air pressure and a slight chassis adjustment with four tires and he was away. Busch came in and they told him they were making big changes to his Monster Energy Toyota. He got a spring rubber out of the right front and a air pressure along with four tires and fuel and was off.  Dillon was in saying he was tight in the center so he got a small adjustment and four tires with fuel and beat the others off pit road.

Dillon led the field back to the green with Sadler right behind him. Scott made it three wide with Hornish Jr. and made Hornish go very high and almost to the wall. Hornish almost hit him back but he is running for a championship. Dillon and Sadler were pulling away from the field as they were two and three wide. Sadler and Dillon went back and forth for the lead but Sadler eventually took over the top spot.

On lap 130, Sadler was leading and all of a sudden Busch started to slow and he was spewing smoke out of the exhaust pipe. He said its been smoking for a couple times and it was not right. He got to pit road and the team said there was fluid coming out of the back of the car. He went behind the wall.

Green flag pit stops started on lap 138 when the No.99 of Alex Bowman came in telling his team he was looking for more grip. This is second career start with last week being the first. He got four tires and fuel and was away. Allgaier also came in saying he was free in and tight in the middle and off.  He got a adjustment and four tires and fuel and was away.

A couple of laps later, Sadler, who was leading at the time, saying his steering was locking up. He said he had to come in right away. His crew chief, Luke Lambert, told him to come in right now and that is what he did. He got four tires and they said they hoped they fixed the problem and they were gone. Dillon came in right behind them and Dillon got told that he was going to be held for a couple more seconds to pack the tank with fuel. Bowman came back in with smoke coming from the back of his car.  Dillon took the lead after the pit stops cycled out because Sadler’s team had a long stop due to the locking of the power steering.

Right after green flag pit stops occurred, the No.14 of McClure spun coming out of turn 4 and spun into the grass on the front stretch. He drove away but this will bunch the field up. Sadler was one of the three cars that only came in. Sadler got two tires and was off. There was only nine cars on the lead lap so this didn’t hurt them.

They went back to green with 34 laps to go with Dillon in the lead. Cole Whitt got a good restart and took second from Gaughan. Gaughan then took it back and Whitt had to protect the third spot from Hornish Jr. Hornish Jr eventually got the spot and was fighting for second with Gaughan.

Sadler, who went in for tires on the last caution, restarted in 9th and drove up to fifth position.

Sadler now holds a four point lead in the series standings over Stenhouse Jr.

“We just lost power steering. Nobody could touch us today we were so freaking fast, but about 10 laps before that last green flag pit stop with about 50 laps to go, I lost power steering and the car was really locking up on me. It wouldn’t go left, it wouldn’t go right. I couldn’t correct the car, so I really had to drive it safe and straight into the corners. It’s hard to keep up that way, but I’m proud of my guys. We got the points lead back and we’ll head on to Dover.” Sadler said.