Kahne wins the Coca-Cola 600

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May 27, 2012

[media-credit id=38 align=”alignright” width=”245″][/media-credit]Kasey Kahne held off Denny Hamlin on Sunday night to win NASCAR’s longest race, the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

“It felt really good to put the entire race together and have speed all night long. The Quaker State Chevrolet was really fast, the adjustments were great. It feels good to get a win for Hendrick Motorsports.” Kahne said.

This was Kahne’s 13th career, his first win of the season and the first since he joined Hendrick Motorsports. At Darlington teammate Jimmy Johnson gave Hendrick its 200th cup series win; now Kahne increases the total to 201.

“I said this back on our media tour, that I think we have the best balance and we were excited about the year, the way (crew chief) Kenny (Francis) fit in. We knew how Kasey would run. I’ve seem Kasey drive. Knowing that we gave him the equipment, and when we ran so good everywhere we’ve been, and he got in the car and did the same thing. He and Jeff (Gordon) have just had rotten luck.” Rick Hendrick said.

Kyle Busch finished third, Greg Biffle fourth and Brad Keselowski finished fifth.

“Felt like we were really good. Certain small adjustments can mean so much these days. The M&M’s guys did an awesome job. We had a really good race car. We just didn’t have quite enough there at the end.” Busch said.

After a miscue on his pit stop with 45 laps to go, Johnson had to serve a stop-n-go penalty after his gas man left the pit box. He cycled back into 13th place, one lap down and finished 11th.

“We had a couple little mistakes on pit road tonight. It happens. Last week things couldn’t have gone any better, and then this week we had a few little issues.” Johnson said.

Making her first 600 race, Danica Patrick started 40th and finished 30th, 5 laps down.

“We brought the GoDaddy car home and one of the goals was to finish. I would have liked to have been a little faster overall, but I think there were some times in there when it was decent.” Patrick said.

Unofficial Race Results
Coca-Cola 600, Charlotte Motor Speedway
http://www.speedwaymedia.com/Cup/race.php?race=12
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Pos.	St.	No.	Driver	Make	Points
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1	7	5	Kasey Kahne	Chevrolet	47
2	8	11	Denny Hamlin	Toyota	43
3	17	18	Kyle Busch	Toyota	42
4	4	16	Greg Biffle	Ford	42
5	24	2	Brad Keselowski	Dodge	40
6	12	88	Dale Earnhardt Jr.	Chevrolet	38
7	23	24	Jeff Gordon	Chevrolet	38
8	14	29	Kevin Harvick	Chevrolet	37
9	28	99	Carl Edwards	Ford	35
10	20	17	Matt Kenseth	Ford	34
11	3	48	Jimmie Johnson	Chevrolet	33
12	15	56	Martin Truex Jr.	Toyota	32
13	5	15	Clint Bowyer	Toyota	31
14	16	39	Ryan Newman	Chevrolet	30
15	9	27	Paul Menard	Chevrolet	29
16	1	43	Aric Almirola	Ford	29
17	10	78	Regan Smith	Chevrolet	27
18	18	83	Landon Cassill	Toyota	27
19	22	31	Jeff Burton	Chevrolet	25
20	29	42	Juan Montoya	Chevrolet	24
21	31	1	Jamie McMurray	Chevrolet	23
22	25	13	Casey Mears	Ford	22
23	19	20	Joey Logano	Toyota	21
24	13	21	Trevor Bayne	Ford	0
25	21	14	Tony Stewart	Chevrolet	19
26	39	38	David Gilliland	Ford	18
27	42	51	Kurt Busch	Chevrolet	17
28	26	47	Bobby Labonte	Toyota	16
29	37	93	Travis Kvapil	Toyota	15
30	40	10	Danica Patrick	Chevrolet	0
31	41	32	T.J. Bell	Ford	0
32	2	9	Marcos Ambrose	Ford	13
33	11	22	AJ Allmendinger	Dodge	11
34	6	55	Mark Martin	Toyota	10
35	30	34	David Ragan	Ford	10
36	32	98	Michael McDowell	Ford	8
37	38	195	Scott Speed	Ford	7
38	35	30	David Stremme	Toyota	6
39	34	33	Stephen Leicht *	Chevrolet	5
40	36	36	Dave Blaney	Chevrolet	4
41	43	87	Joe Nemechek	Toyota	0
42	27	74	Cole Whitt	Chevrolet	0
43	33	26	Josh Wise *	Ford	1

Pit Notes #14 — Patriotism on Full Display During Pre Race Festivities

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May 27, 2012

CHEVY NSCS AT CHARLOTTE ONE — Team Chevy Fast Facts

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SM Archive

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May 27, 2012

Kyle Busch and No. 54 Monster Energy Camry Third at Charlotte Motor Speedway

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May 27, 2012

RCR Post Race Report — History 300

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May 27, 2012

Tough day in Charlotte cuts Ricky Stenhouse Jr.’s point lead by 21

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SM Staff

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May 27, 2012

[media-credit id=38 align=”alignright” width=”225″][/media-credit]Just as quickly as Ricky Stenhouse Jr. entered the picture on Saturday in the History 300 at Charlotte, he left it.

Stenhouse finished 26th in his No. 6 EcoBoost Ford after the transmission went south on lap 65. He’d qualified third and was running in the top 10 when he felt something go wrong and had to pit. The team eventually headed to the garage to fix the issue before Stenhouse was able to rejoin the race.

“I think the U-joint between the driveshaft and the transmission broke first,” said Stenhouse afterwards. “We’re gonna have to go back and look at it. It was a new driveshaft, new everything, so it was a tough day. Our Ford EcoBoost Mustang was by a far a top five car and had a chance to win for sure, so we can take that from today and go on.

“Our mile and a half program this year has been really strong and it was strong again here today. We went back out and tried to learn some things for our Cup guys and learn some things for us the next time we come back here. We had a really fast car there at the end, so all in all, it was obviously a tough day for points, but we’ve got to hang out hat on we were really fast.”

Stenhouse said he began to feel a vibration in the car while under caution. But when he came down pit road he didn’t see anything and went back on track for the restart. That’s when it finally broke and TV cameras caught a piece of metal fly out from underneath his machine.

It took the team 21 laps to repair the car to be able to send Stenhouse back out to salvage any points they could. Stenhouse had entered the day 34 points ahead of second place Elliott Sadler and on an impressive streak of not having finished outside the top six in the last nine races.

After Saturday though, Stenhouse’s point lead sits at 13 over Sadler as he suffered his worst finish since the season opening race in Daytona. Certainly not what the team had in mind coming off their third win of the season last weekend in Iowa and driving the same car they had won with in Texas last month.

It was a fast car, so fast that even while Stenhouse was multiple laps down he was racing amongst the leaders. That didn’t go over well with his competition, specifically Richard Childress and his driver Austin Dillon.

As Stenhouse came up and passed Dillon the young driver shouted over the radio that if he was able to get to Stenhouse he was going to hit him. Childress agreed, saying Stenhouse would have deserved it and then used a five-letter word to describe the champion. Dillon was unable to ever get to Stenhouse’s back bumper.

For Stenhouse though, it’s apart of racing and he has no regrets. He knew exactly what he was doing and why he was doing it at that point in the race. And while others might have said it wasn’t appropriate, Stenhouse won’t apologize for it.

“I’m just letting them know we’re here to win,” said Stenhouse of actions. “We pulled away by more than a straightway. I was respectful of the guys – the 20 [Joey Logano] and the 30 [James Buescher] – I was respectful to them because they were battling for position there at the end.

“I got to them and could have passed them, but I backed off and rode around. We’ve got to go out and get every lap we can and if that means running as hard as we can, we’re trying to learn, I’m not gonna just ride around.”

He further defending himself by saying he would never put others in jeopardy and put himself in a position where someone would end up wrecked. Stenhouse was just looking to see how fast his car was and what he could do with it in traffic. Unfortunately he had to do so in that position instead of contending for the win.

But the defending champions aren’t panicking. Their competition knew they were there Saturday and Stenhouse feels confident it will be more of the same going forward. The NNS heads to Dover next weekend where Stenhouse finished fourth last season.

“It doesn’t at all,” said Stenhouse when asked if his outlook changes now. “We’re gonna go out to win every week. We’ve been fast at Dover every single time we’ve been there.

“We’re going to win. That’s what we do every week and I think we’re gonna have a shot at it next weekend.”