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Keselowski wins NNS race at Chicagoland

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SM Staff
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Keselowski led 158 of the 200 laps. He was only passed for the lead one time and that was by Edwards. Keselowski blamed lapped traffic at the time. Keselowski pitted under green flag conditions while Edwards stayed out. Eventually Edwards ran out of gas allowing Keselowski to go back to the front.

Brad Keselowski dominated the NASCAR Nationwide Series (NNS) Dollar General 300 at Chicagoland Speedway on Saturday and won his first NNS since race since returning to the series after he broke his ankle testing at Road Atlanta.

[media-credit name=”Bill Gutweiler” align=”alignright” width=”259″][/media-credit]

Keselowski led 158 of the 200 laps. He was only passed for the lead one time and that was by Edwards. Keselowski blamed lapped traffic at the time. Keselowski pitted under green flag conditions while Edwards stayed out. Eventually Edwards ran out of gas allowing Keselowski to go back to the front.

Keselowski held off Carl Edwards by 8.568 seconds for his 15thcareer NNS win and his third of the season.

“Today was a team victory. Good strategy. Good execution. Fast car. We didn’t make any mistakes and a lot of times that’s what this sport is about. It was a really strong showing here today. I’m glad to get the win. Obviously, when you can get extra track time before the Cup race it can be advantageous. I think today was one of those situations. Hopefully it will payoff for tomorrow. We’ll just have to see.” Keselowski said.

Edwards ran out of gas while leading on pit road on lap 124.  Edwards came out nine seconds behind

“Congrats to Brad. He was doing a really good job. I have to thank Fastenal, Ford and I hope folks tune in tomorrow. It is going to be a great race. The first race of the Chase and there couldn’t be a better race track to run at. It has multiple grooves and it is a really fun place. I just wish we had gotten a caution to get another chance at this one.” Edwards said.

Brian Scott finished third, Aric Almirola fourth and Sam Hornish Jr. finished fifth.

Scott earned his first career pole and led five laps en route to equaling his career best NNS finish (Chicagoland 2010).

“I think there at the end we were a little faster than Carl (Edwards), but he was a little better in the traffic, and we just got a little too loose.  After some of the luck we’ve had and had a fifth-place run ruined at Montreal, to be able to finish third here is a pretty good day.” Scott said.

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. finished 8th and holds a 14-point lead over Elliott Sadler in the series standings.

There were three caution periods for only eight laps in a relatively problem free event. There were eight lead changes between only five drivers.

 

Unofficial Race Results
Dollar General 300, Chicagoland Speedway
http://www.speedwaymedia.com/n2s/race.php?race=28
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Pos. No. Driver Make Points
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1 – 22 Brad Keselowski Dodge 0
2 – 60 Carl Edwards Ford 0
3 – 11 Brian Scott Toyota 42
4 – 88 Aric Almirola Chevrolet 40
5 – 12 Sam Hornish Jr. Dodge 39
6 – 2 Elliott Sadler Chevrolet 38
7 – 7 Jamie McMurray Chevrolet 0
8 – 6 Ricky Stenhouse Jr. Ford 36
9 – 33 Paul Menard Chevrolet 0
10 – 32 Reed Sorenson Chevrolet 34
11 – 16 Trevor Bayne Ford 33
12 – 38 Jason Leffler Chevrolet 33
13 – 20 Ryan Truex * Toyota 31
14 – 31 Justin Allgaier Chevrolet 30
15 – 19 Mike Bliss Chevrolet 29
16 – 62 Michael Annett Toyota 28
17 – 9 Kenny Wallace Toyota 27
18 – 66 Steve Wallace Toyota 26
19 – 18 Joey Logano Toyota 0
20 – 1 Mike Wallace Chevrolet 25
21 – 51 Jeremy Clements Chevrolet 23
22 – 15 Timmy Hill * Ford 22
23 – 39 Joey Gase Ford 0
24 – 87 Kevin Conway Toyota 0
25 – 14 Eric McClure Chevrolet 19
26 – 70 David Stremme Chevrolet 0
27 – 52 Blake Koch * Dodge 17
28 – 89 Morgan Shepherd Chevrolet 16
29 – 23 Robert Richardson Jr. Chevrolet 15
30 – 81 Scott Wimmer Dodge 14
31 – 40 Josh Wise Chevrolet 13
32 – 28 Derrike Cope Chevrolet 12
33 – 30 Kasey Kahne Chevrolet 0
34 – 171 Matthew Carter Ford 10
35 – 49 Mark Green Chevrolet 9
36 – 103 Scott Riggs Chevrolet 8
37 – 175 Carl Long Ford 7
38 – 141 Johnny Chapman Chevrolet 6
39 – 104 Danny O’Quinn Jr. Ford 5
40 – 146 Chase Miller Chevrolet 4
41 – 248 Dennis Setzer Chevrolet 3
42 – 127 J.J. Yeley Ford 0
43 – 150 T.J. Bell Chevrolet 0

CHEVY NSCS AT CHICAGOLAND – Team Chevy Qualifying Notes and Quotes-Menard Press Conference Transcript

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SM Archive
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TOYOTA NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) Post-Qualifying Notes & Quotes Chicagoland Speedway

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Busch Starts Third, Keselowski Sixth in Chicagoland

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SM Archive
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Ford Chicago Cup Qualifying

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SM Archive
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Sauter ‘Biggest Winner’ in Truck Series at Chicago

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SM Archive
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Dodge Motorsports Notes & Quotes – Keys for Success – Chicagoland Speedway

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SM Archive
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TOYOTA NASCAR Camping World Truck Series (NCWTS) Post-Race Notes & Quotes Chicagoland Speedway

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Dillon and RCR Closes in on Truck Championship with Win

By
Ed Coombs
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Richard Childress Racing’s of the No 3 truck of Austin Dillon crew only slid on two tires on the final pit stop and came out ahead of Sprint Cup regular Kevin Harvick who had led the most laps up until that point. Dillon took only two tires under green and while Harvick battled with others for  second place Dillon took off. The win at the Chicagoland Speedway in the Fast Five 225,

[media-credit name=”Bill Gutweiler ” align=”alignright” width=”224″][/media-credit]allowed the 21 year old grandson of Richard Childress to pull within 3 points of the series leader James Buescher who finished in 11th.

 

“This is the biggest win of my career, I think,” Dillon, said in Victory Lane. “I’ve wanted to beat those guys and everybody asks ‘How do you feel about racing against Cup drivers?’ Every time they ask me the question, I say ‘I love it’ because that proves we can go out there and run with them. It proves we can get to the next level. I’m glad when they come into the series, they are very tough to beat, they are supposed to be, and when you beat them it makes it that much better.”

 

“I ran up there, racing with Kyle (Busch) and Harvick. Harvick was great all night, but Stockman (Dillon’s crew chief) made the call at the end to put us out on two tires. He knows when I get out front it’s like smelling blood for a shark. When we got out there, we could just take off. The team … they kept gaining spots every time we came on pit road. I love coming on pit road when they’re like that. It’s awesome.”

 

The win was Dillon’s second of the 2011 season and 4th of his young career. The last four races had been won by Kevin Harvick Incorporated race trucks, a team that announced just this week that they would no longer be fielding trucks in 2012.

 

Harvick spoke to why he had to take four tires, “On the caution before earlier in the race around lap 85) we didn’t take any tires, so we had about 22 more laps on our tires. When you have a vibration like that, you want to win the race, but in the big picture…and the even bigger picture on Sunday (in the first Chase race) …we don’t need to blow a tire and have something happen. So when it got to the point of shaking bad enough to where I knew something was changing, I just came in and changed four tires. I knew at that point, they (the other drivers including Kyle Busch and Dillon) were going to do the opposite, but we had to change four.”  Harvick led 99 of 150 laps.

Harvick, whose Nationwide Series team will move to RCR next year said, “As a driver you want to win the race, especially with a truck like that, but nine times out of 10 you don’t win ’em on days like that. But in the end, we kept it all in the family.”

Kyle Busch said after the race clearly disappointed, “Yeah, it was the right call to get us the track position.  We just didn’t have the right truck tonight to keep it up front andkeep a fast truck that will hold those guys off.  Just Kyle Busch Motorsports is missing something.”

Matty’s Picks: Geico 400 Vol. 18 – Chicago – September 18, 2011

By
SM Staff
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I will tell you up front that this will be a rather brief Matty’s Picks as there is really nothing exciting to write about at Chicagoland Speedway.

[media-credit name=”chicagolandspeedway.com” align=”alignright” width=”123″][/media-credit]Chicago marks the start of the 2011 Chase for the Sprint Cup, and NASCAR couldn’t have picked a more boring race to start what is supposed to be the most exciting part of the season. Even the race at Kentucky Speedway earlier this year will prove to be more exciting than the race this weekend at Chicagoland because at least at Kentucky there was the parking situation to talk about.

The fall season marks the toughest time during the NASCAR Sprint Cup season for viewer ratings, because of competing with the National Football League for viewers on Sunday afternoons. Placing another cookie-cutter style track with few passes and strung-out racing is no way to compete with the NFL.

Enough with my rant about The Chase schedule, onto some picks…

Richmond Recap

Bad, bad, bad. I had two picks last week that really hit the toilet bowl in the last race of the 2011 regular season.

Clint Bowyer, my Winner Pick, may have had the car to beat last Saturday night but got tangled up in an accident just nine laps into the 400-lap stanza. Bowyer had a very fast Chevrolet Impala in qualifying, sealing up fifth-place on the starting grid, but as everyone knows pointing the wrong the way on the racetrack is not the way you win races.

Bowyer restarted 34th after the caution (which he caused) on lap 20 and I had a glimmer of hope as the Richard Childress Racing driver quickly moved into the top-15 by lap 60, top-10 by lap 70 and back into the top-5 by lap 100.

Clint Bowyer might have been the hottest driver on the track last Saturday (in a literal sense), as he reported his in-car air conditioner had quit just 10-laps in, and the “Helping Hands” crew was forced to continue shoveling water and ice packs thru the window of the No. 33 car.

Bowyer ran in the top-15 for another 125 laps before crew chief Shane Wilson realized the No. 33 was losing ground to the leaders and called his driver to the pits under the green. This strategy to be off-sequence to the leaders would backfire just seven laps later when the caution flag flew, forcing Bowyer a lap down to the leader and in the 20th position.

The No. 33 car would linger around the top-15 the remainder of the race, but fought a loose condition, eventually taking the checkered flag in the 22nd position, sealing me up a poor finish for a Winner Pick.
I will not bore you with the recap for Marcos Ambrose, because you would be here all night reading about each incident he was involved in. My Dark Horse pick, faired just one position better than Bowyer, finishing the Wonderful Pistachios 400 finishing in 21st position.

Marcos Ambrose tried to make the most out of a rough night, after starting from the 33rd spot, and finding himself involved in a handful of on-track incidents. And just by coincidence, Ambrose was involved in the same wreck my Winner Pick, Clint Bowyer was involved in just 9-laps into Saturday night’s race.

This was just the start of Ambrose’s troubles with the wall and other cars. Ambrose was involved in at least two other incidents before the half way point and at least one other during the second half of the race.

He was a lap down basically the entire race, and never really gave me the hopes of making a Dark Horse win pick. With his 21st place finish, Ambrose did crack the top 20 in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series drivers points, but gained me nothing in my Dark Horse picks.

Chicago Picks

Winner Pick

Well, I have to get my mandatory once-a-month Kyle Busch pick in, and with just one race to go after Chicago in the month of September, let’s make it this week.

Like most tracks on the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series schedule, Kyle Busch has visited Victory Lane at Chicago, but never with Chase points riding on the line. In July 2008, Rowdy started on the pole at Chicagoland Speedway because of qualifying being rained out, and would pass Jimmie Johnson on the final restart for his first and only win at the track.

Also unlike most tracks on the schedule, Kyle does not average a top-10 finish at Chicago. His average finish at the cookie-cutter in Joliet is 13.5, and his only top-10’s are actually top-5’s. He has finished 17th and 33rd respectively in the past two seasons at Chicago, but is eager to set the high mark in The Chase.

Kyle is the guy most are pointing at to knock Jimmie Johnson off his championship course, and in order to do that he must WIN. I’d say the first race of the 2011 Chase is the time to do it.

Dark Horse Pick

I’ve made it a point to not pick two “Chasers” each week, and will start off this week with a driver who really could use a win for his NASCAR legacy.

A win for Mark Martin in these final ten races this year would mean the world to the 52-year old. He is coming off a top-10 last week at Richmond and does have a history of finding the front at Chicagoland Speedway.

Mark Martin etched his name in the history books at Chicagoland Speedway in July 2009 when he won the LifeLock.com 400, a race that was run at night. He led the race 4 times for a total of 195 laps, a complete domination of the rest of the 43-car field. The July win marked his 4th victory in 19 races during the 2009 season, the season he would be ranked first going into the final ten races of the season. 3

Mark Martin was 3rd in the first practice of the day, and his average finish in the ten races run at Chicagoland Speedway is 12.8, slightly better than my Winner Pick’s.

Not many folks are looking at Mark Martin for a win this week; hopefully I’ve opened your eyes to that possibility.

That’s all for this week and as always…You Stay Classy NASCAR NATION!

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