Official Release

After a late race pit-road speeding penalty, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. capitalized on the final restart gaining five positions in the final two laps to earn a 13th-place finish in Sunday’s Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

"We came to Charlotte Motor Speedway with high expectations after winning the May race and the team did a great job preparing a competitive Dow Chevrolet. We came with a slightly different setup than May and I told the guys that this setup seemed even more competitive than the car I had in the spring. We were running solid in the top-10 throughout the race. We were on track for a great finish but we ended up making an unscheduled pit stop under green with less than 15 laps to go for a vibration. Still, we were able to get back on the lead lap and finish 16th. I'm proud of everyone for their hard work."

Ryan Blaney and the No. 21 Motorcraft/Quick Lane team took a car that wasn’t handling very well early on in the Bank of America 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway and tuned it to the point that it finished eighth. The team now heads to Talladega Superspeedway just five points back of a spot among the top eight that will advance to the third round of the Monster Energy Cup playoffs.

Brad Keselowski and the No. 2 Alliance Truck Parts Ford Fusion team endured a tough opener to the Round of 12 for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs with a 15th-place finish in Sunday’s Bank of America 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

There was no stopping Martin Truex Jr. from making a return trip to Charlotte Motor Speedway’s victory lane on Sunday. Truex surged ahead in the final 60 laps and survived a pair of late-race restarts to capture the Bank of America 500 – his sixth Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Serieswin of the season and his second in the last four races at Charlotte.

In the opening race of the second segment of the 2017 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS) Playoffs at Charlotte Motor Speedway (CMS), Chase Elliott captured a second-place finish in his No. 24 SunEnergy1 Chevy SS at the Bank of America 500.

Trevor Bayne, driver of the No. 6 AdvoCare Ford Fusion, overcame damage sustained from contact with the outside retaining wall and improved 11 positions during the final stage of Sunday afternoon’s Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series (MENCS) event at Charlotte Motor Speedway to record a 14th-place finish.

If you need evidence of how competitive the NASCAR Playoffs are, consider this: Ryan Blaney and the Motorcraft/Quick Lane Racing team came to Charlotte Motor Speedway ninth in the standings, finished the Bank of America 500 a strong eighth in overtime and left the track 11th in the championship chase.

CHASE ELLIOTT, NO. 24 SUNENERGY1 CHEVROLET SS- Finished 2nd - THIS IS YOUR SIXTH RUNNER-UP FINISH OF THE YEAR. WHAT WERE YOU MISSING TO BE ABLE TO CONTEND FOR THE WIN? “We needed to be a little better I think in the middle stage and not lose so much track position. That was where Martin (Truex, Jr.) came on and got his track position and we lost ours and it was just hard to get all of it back there toward the end. It was a hard-fought day and really, from where we were in those middle stages, I was proud of the way we fought back and were able to get back to the front. It’s frustrating to run like this. We’re definitely tired of running second. But, if we keep running like we are, hopefully the opportunities will be there.”

KEVIN HARVICK – No. 4 Jimmy John’s Ford Fusion – “That’s about about where we were gonna run, second or third. We just kind of lost a little bit of the track there as the VHT started to wear off in the second half of the race. But they did a great job all day. For the most part, we had good stops all day – just the timing of the bad one came at the end, but, for the most part, they did a great job. Everybody in the field had a bad stop at some point today, so it was a good day for our Jimmy John’s/Busch Ford, and everybody is doing a good job with the speed of the cars.”