Logano wins the OneMain Financial 200 at Dover
[media-credit name=”Tammyrae Benscoter” align=”alignright” width=”225″]
[/media-credit]Joey Logano won the NASCAR Nationwide Series (NNS) OneMain Financial 200 at Dover International Speedway on Saturday for his seventh win of the season and 16th of his career.
Logano dominated the race by leading 184 of the 200 laps.
“I told Adam (Stevens, crew chief) that my monster trophy from last time was lonely and needed a friend — so I’m glad I was able to get one for him. This was the last race for SportClips for the year so I was happy to be able to get them another victory.” Logano said.
Paul Menard finished second, Michael Annett third, Elliott Sadler fourth and Kyle Busch rounded out the top 5.
Darrell Wallace Jr. started on the pole for the first time in his career. He was looking for a spot better then yesterday when he finished second in the K&N East Series. He led the into turn one but Justin Allgaier took over the lead on the backstretch and led the first lap. Wallace Jr. fell back to third, behind Logano. Logano took over the lead from Allgaier on lap 14 and Brian Scott moved all the way up to 17th after starting 38th.
The first caution waved on lap 45 for the competition caution due to overnight rain. All of the leaders came in to pit. Sadler came in saying he was tight in the center and loose off the turns. He got a adjustment and four tires with fuel and was off. Kasey Kahne took some strategy and only took two tires to win the race off pit road. Logano said he started the race very tight but it quickly went to loose, especially on landing. He got a adjustment, four tires and fuel and left the pits.
Kahne led them to the green but got quickly booted out of the way on the restart. Logano planned it perfectly and took the lead into the turn 1 and pulled away from Kahne. Kahne held the second spot while Allgaier and Busch got together and bumped finders but both were able to continue.
Logano continued to lead when they reached the half way point with only one caution due to the competition caution. Logano has led 80 of the 100 laps that have been completed and has lapped all but 19 cars. Allgaier, Kahne,Busch and Dillon rounded out the top 5
The second caution waved with 84 laps to go when the No.51 of Jeremy Clements was smoking from his left front tire. It was a possible wheel bearing that snapped or broke. Everybody will be really close of making it to the end with fuel but everybody will come in. Logano led them in telling his crew he wanted to turn better. He got a slight air pressure adjustment and four tires and fuel. His Crew Chief, Adam Stevens, told him to save fuel as they are very very close to the finish. Busch followed him in telling Mike Beem he was a too loose and wanted a spring rubber out of the left rear. He also got tape on the nose while they put in that very valuable fuel and four tires. Allgaier stopped in his pit box saying he had no rear grip. He got four tires and an adjustment and beat everybody off of pit road.
The green flag waved on lap 124 with Logano leading them to the strip. He was trying to pull away but Allgaier was not letting him go away and kept with the No.18. He got within car lengths of Logano but his left rear tire started smoking going into one and they had to go behind the wall for repairs.
With 36 laps to go, Sam Hornish Jr told his crew, he is coming to them because his right rear was down. They came on in and fixed it but he fell to 18th, one lap down after running second before that problem.
The third Caution came out when the No.39 of Tim Andrews started smoking and blew his engine. No lead laps cars came in due to track position and so few laps to go.
Green flag waved with 18 laps to go with Logano leading. Kahne missed a shift or did not go at the restart which stacked up the whole inside line. They all went 3-4 wide to avoid him. Kahne fell all the way back to 12th after the restart.
Stenhouse Jr. and Dillon bumped fenders going into 3 and 4. Stenhouse Jr. finished 9th and Dillon finished 10th.
Stenhouse Jr. is now nine points behind the series points leader Sadler.
“This hasn’t ever been one of our best race tracks, so I guess out of the ones left this was the one we didn’t think we would be the greatest at, but we’ve got some great race tracks left. Last week might have been a disappointing finish, but we had a dominating car so we can hang our hat on that. Today, we can’t really hang our hat on anything, so we’ll just go on.” Stenhouse Jr. said.
| Unofficial Race Results | |||||
| OneMain Financial 200, Dover Int’l Speedway | |||||
| http://www.speedwaymedia.com/n2s/race.php?race=28 | |||||
| ========================================= | |||||
| Pos. | St. | No. | Driver | Make | Points |
| ========================================= | |||||
| 1 | – | 18 | Joey Logano | Toyota | 0 |
| 2 | – | 33 | Paul Menard | Chevrolet | 0 |
| 3 | – | 43 | Michael Annett | Ford | 41 |
| 4 | – | 2 | Elliott Sadler | Chevrolet | 40 |
| 5 | – | 54 | Kyle Busch | Toyota | 0 |
| 6 | – | 88 | Cole Whitt * | Chevrolet | 38 |
| 7 | – | 11 | Brian Scott | Toyota | 37 |
| 8 | – | 38 | Kasey Kahne | Chevrolet | 0 |
| 9 | – | 6 | Ricky Stenhouse Jr. | Ford | 35 |
| 10 | – | 3 | Austin Dillon * | Chevrolet | 34 |
| 11 | – | 19 | Mike Bliss | Toyota | 33 |
| 12 | – | 20 | Darrell Wallace Jr. | Toyota | 32 |
| 13 | – | 22 | Ryan Blaney | Dodge | 31 |
| 14 | – | 199 | Ryan Truex | Toyota | 30 |
| 15 | – | 44 | Jeff Green | Toyota | 29 |
| 16 | – | 7 | Danica Patrick | Chevrolet | 28 |
| 17 | – | 87 | Joe Nemechek | Toyota | 27 |
| 18 | – | 12 | Sam Hornish Jr. | Dodge | 26 |
| 19 | – | 30 | Alex Bowman | Chevrolet | 25 |
| 20 | – | 81 | Jason Bowles * | Dodge | 24 |
| 21 | – | 1 | Mike Wallace | Chevrolet | 23 |
| 22 | – | 124 | Blake Koch | Toyota | 22 |
| 23 | – | 27 | J.J. Yeley | Ford | 0 |
| 24 | – | 41 | Timmy Hill | Ford | 0 |
| 25 | – | 23 | Jamie Dick | Chevrolet | 19 |
| 26 | – | 14 | Eric McClure | Toyota | 18 |
| 27 | – | 51 | Jeremy Clements | Chevrolet | 17 |
| 28 | – | 4 | Brad Teague | Chevrolet | 16 |
| 29 | – | 39 | Tim Andrews | Ford | 15 |
| 30 | – | 31 | Justin Allgaier | Chevrolet | 15 |
| 31 | – | 40 | Erik Darnell | Chevrolet | 13 |
| 32 | – | 52 | Justin Jennings | Chevrolet | 0 |
| 33 | – | 70 | Tony Raines | Dodge | 0 |
| 34 | – | 86 | Kevin Lepage | Ford | 10 |
| 35 | – | 108 | Danny Efland | Ford | 9 |
| 36 | – | 175 | Scott Riggs | Chevrolet | 0 |
| 37 | – | 171 | Carl Long | Ford | 7 |
| 38 | – | 46 | Chase Miller | Chevrolet | 6 |
| 39 | – | 42 | Josh Wise | Chevrolet | 0 |
| 40 | – | 100 | Michael McDowell | Toyota | 0 |
| 41 | – | 47 | T.J. Bell | Chevrolet | 3 |
| 42 | – | 15 | Kelly Bires | Chevrolet | 2 |
| 43 | – | 10 | Charles Lewandoski | Toyota | 1 |
Denny Hamlin Scores First Ever Pole At Monster Mile
[media-credit name=”Gary Buchanan” align=”alignright” width=”216″]
[/media-credit]At a track that has been admittedly been monstrous in the past to him, Denny Hamlin pulled off the fastest qualifying lap of his Monster Mile career, scoring his first ever pole at Dover International Speedway.
Hamlin, driver of the No. 11 FedEx Office Toyota grabbed the pole with a fast lap of 22.599 seconds at a speed of 159.299 mph. This is Hamlin’s third pole of the season but his first ever at Dover in 14 races at the Monster Mile.
“That was an amazing run,” Hamlin said. “Definitely wasn’t what I expected, but it sure feels good to get a pole here.”
“Our car was really strong in race trim and really wasn’t all that good in qualifying trim,” Hamlin continued. “Hopefully this is a good sign of things that will give us a strong run here on Sunday.”
“Starting from the pole will help us in tuning our car throughout the day,” Hamlin said. “Obviously track position is going to be very, very crucial and we’ve got to do everything we can to keep that.”
“We’ve got a car that’s very capable of staying in the front and hopefully we’ll have a shot to win.”
Hamlin humbly credited his crew chief Darian Grubb for his pole winning qualifying effort.
“I think there’s a lot of drivers out there that could be able to do what I do with the cars that Darian has been giving me the last few weeks,” Hamlin said. “I’m going to give him pretty much all the credit and ride his back as long as it will hold me.”
The second and third qualifying positions belonged to Michael Waltrip Racing teammates Clint Bowyer and Martin Truex, Jr.
“It was good,” Bowyer, driver of the No. 15 5-Hour Energy Toyota, said. “When you’re that close, it’s disappointing because you know just if you could have put the gas down that much more anywhere around the race track, you’d of had the pole.”
“I will save that for another day.”
Bowyer posted his 12th top-10 start of 2012 and his fifth in 14 races at the Monster Mile.
“It’s a good day for us,” Martin Truex, Jr., driver of the No. 56 NAPA Toyota, said. “It’s been a good weekend so far.”
“The NAPA Toyota was about perfect,” Martin Truex Jr. continued. “Had to lift off turn four and gave it to him.”
“The car was awesome.”
This was Truex’s sixth top-10 start at Dover International Speedway and his 13th in 29 races this season.
Sam Hornish, Jr. sat on the pole briefly but was relegated to a fourth place qualifying run in his No. 22 Shell/Pennzoil Dodge Charger.
“The lap was OK,” Hornish said. “From inside the car, I thought that we put together a pretty solid lap.”
“Our race runs yesterday didn’t have the speed that we needed, so I’m really happy that I qualified well.”
Kyle Busch, in the No. 18 Interstate Batteries Toyota Camry, rounded out the top-five in qualifying at Dover. Busch had his hands full, with the car wiggling during the lap.
“I really don’t know what I did wrong,” Busch said. “It stepped out and I just had to catch it and wait and go after it the second lap.”
“Just glad we were able to have a strong second lap.”
While the qualifying lap may have been a bit squirrelly, Busch said he might just have the car to beat on race day.
“I think we’ve definitely got a top-three car right now,” Busch said. “I think we’re one of those in the top elite.”
Ten of the twelve Chase drivers qualified in the top-13 positions during the time trials, with Hamlin in first, Bowyer second, Truex Jr. third, Greg Biffle sixth, Jeff Gordon seventh, Kasey Kahne in ninth, Brad Keselowski in tenth, Jimmie Johnson in eleventh, Matt Kenseth in twelfth and Kevin Harvick in thirteenth.
Chase drivers Tony Stewart qualified 24th and Dale Earnhardt, Jr. qualified 25th.
Ricky Stenhouse, Jr., making his first Cup start in the No. 6 Cargill Ford, qualified 17th and Danica Patrick, in the No. 10 GoDaddy.com Chevrolet, qualified 38th.
Hamlin captures the AAA 400 pole at Dover
[media-credit name=”Credit: Tom Pennington/Getty Images” align=”alignright” width=”217″]
[/media-credit]Denny Hamlin captured the pole for Sunday’s AAA 400 at Dover International Speedway with a lap of 159.299 mph.
“That was an amazing run. Definitely wasn’t what I expected, but it sure feels good to get a pole here. Our car was really strong in race trim and really wasn’t all that good in qualifying trim. Hopefully, this is a good sign of things that will give us a strong run here on Sunday.” Hamlin said.
Hamlin, who has an average finish of 20.5, hopes have a better finish on Sunday with the top starting spot.
“For me to qualify on a pole that doesn’t reward my style and obviously having a car as strong as it is. It’s a good thing that Darian (Grubb, crew chief) is as good as he is at setting up race cars. I just think that we have things rolling right now and we just are taking it one week at a time.” Hamlin said.
Clint Bowyer qualified second with a lap of 159.264 mph.
“It was good. It’s just a little bit too loose, kind of knew that. You knew what you were fixing to be up against when you were watching everybody run. It looked like everybody was skating around on the top of the race track. We (Martin Truex Jr.) were both kind of talking and I was too loose in (turns) one and two, but because of that the car turns really good and you’re almost on the bottom too much in (turns) three and four and then you get over there three-quarters of the way around and the thing will get tight and lose the nose on you.” Bowyer said.
Martin Truex Jr. third, Sam Hornish Jr. fourth and Kyle Busch qualified fifth.
“The Shell/Pennzoil Dodge was really good. The guys have worked hard to give me a fast car. Our race runs yesterday didn’t have the speed that we needed, so I’m really happy that I qualified well.” Hornish Jr. said.
Chase drivers Greg Biffle qualified sixth, Jeff Gordon seventh, Kasey Kahne ninth, Brad Keselowski 10th, Jimmie Johnson 11th, Matt Kenseth 12th, Kevin Harvick 13th, Tony Stewart 24th and Dale Earnhardt Jr. starts 25th.
“We were not very good in practice. I don’t know what to expect. We struggled all weekend really. We just haven’t had real good speed.” Earnhardt Jr. said.
