The Inaugural Debacle at Kentucky
At one point early in the Quaker State 400 at the Kentucky Speedway Kyle Busch has a lead of over 8 seconds. Busch, who started on the pole by being the fastest in happy hour practice after the qualifying session was cancelled due to rain, gave up the lead for a while to Brad Keselowski held off David Reutimann in a 3 lap shoot out at the end.
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[/media-credit]The majority of the race was uneventful as the leaders enjoyed the clean air while others struggled mightily with the track. Unfortunately, most of the action was reportedly outside the track as race fans struggled with gridlocked traffic trying to get to the racetrack. There were reports of fans being turned away when they finally made it to the track. Jeff Gordon said after the race, “I think the only thing that made this a great race today was the green-white-checkered and the excitement and energy of the fans. I think when Bruton (Smith) is looking at how to get the traffic in here he’s going to have to look at the race track as well. It’s rough. It’s really hard to pass. The layout needs a little help; but the surface most importantly, to give these fans what they really deserve. You never know how it’s going to go. It was certainly exciting there at the finish, so that’s cool.”
Busch had regained the lead late in the race during green flag pit stops but shortly after Dale Earnhardt Jr., who took fuel only blew a left front tire shredding his fender all over the back stretch. On the subsequent restart Jimmie Johnson was chasing down Busch but Clint Bowyer also appeared to have lost a tire and that brought out the final caution.
Jimmie Johnson finished third , Ryan Newman fourth and Carl Edwards rounded out the top five. Johnson said, “The No. 00 was coming and got by me so i was hoping I had a shot just to fight for second. I felt like the win was kind of gone at that point. But I didn’t see the white and I came around and everybody let off and I was still on the gas and going and I was like wow I guess its over. Great night for the Lowe’s Chevrolet. We had a a very solid race car. Drove up through the field a few times and raced for the win. The No. 18 was a little better than us and we were on equal tires there at the end. We had a shot at him on new tires. That restart went good for me. If I could have stayed along side of him going into turn three and been side-by-side off of four I could have a shot at it but just didn’t work out that way. If there was another lap I think that No. 00 was going to go right by that No. 18, he was coming awfully fast.”
Johnson also made comments about the issues of getting to the track. People who follow NASCAR on twitter (@coombsegater_sm) would have seen that even the drivers and crews were not immune to the traffic issues as they all struggled getting to the track even hours before the green flag flew. Johnson said when informed of Hamlin’s issues, I went home to Charlotte. It was my daughter’s birthday yesterday. I went home. I was going to drive in. I had heard there were some issues with the Nationwide race. So I made different arrangements and helicoptered in. I fortunately didn’t have any issues.
The stories I heard sounds like there’s some upset fans, people that were turned away and weren’t able to get into the event today.
It’s disappointing. I mean, the SMI group knows racetracks and does a very good job at all the racetracks they own. It’s unfortunate we were unable to look ahead and see where these potential problems were.
This is such a great market, so many fans are enthused to come and want to be here. To not get them all in the door is kind of a bummer. Knowing Bruton (Smith), he’ll get it fixed for next year and unfortunately it happened this year.”
During the race the track sent out this statement, “We’ve had an overwhelming response to our inaugural NASCAR Sprint Cup Series “Quaker State 400.” We know we had challenges related to traffic. We’re already planning improvements and looking forward to a much better situation for next year’s event
Kyle Busch Claims the Inaugural Win at Kentucky
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[/media-credit]With his second win of the weekend, Kyle Busch took the honors for the Inaugural Quaker State 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Kentucky Speedway. The win marks his 22nd Cup series win and his third of 2011, pushing him into the points lead.
David Reutimann finished second, his second top ten for the season. Jimmie Johnson was third, followed by Ryan Newman and Carl Edwards fifth. Matt Kenseth finished sixth followed by Brad Keselowski, David Ragan, Kurt Busch and Jeff Gordon rounding out the top 10.
Busch leads the most laps, leading 7 times for 125 laps. There were 12 leaders, including Brad Keselowski for 79 laps, Kurt Busch for 41, Reutimann for 7 and Hamlin for 5. The race had 6 cautions for 32 laps.
Comments following the race, from the top three:
KYLE BUSCH: “This is cool man. This is right up there withn the best of them. I haven’t won the big ones, so this is as good as it gets right now.”
DAVID REUTIMANN: “We had that restart and you knew Kyle wasn’t going to roll over for anything, and Jimmie Johnson’s pretty intense too, so we just ended up coming in and Kyle threw a block to kill Jimmie’s momentum down the front. I had a little bit of run down the back and Jimmie was either going to go to the top or the bottom getting in and I was not going to go where he was.”
JIMMIE JOHNSON: “I think Kyle’s car was a little bit better than us at the end. The run before that it seemed like he was just a touch better, but I was going to try as hard as I could and got a good restart, was inside of him. My car really didn’t fire off on that last set of tires like I had seen earlier in the day.”
Of the 6 cautions, only one was for an accident, one was a competition caution, one for the #1 car stopped on the track and three for debris on the track.
Traffic was the big story for the weekend as several fans missed the race due to traffic backups and the lack of parking. The staff at Kentucky Speedway apologized for the problems and promised to make then right for the 2012 race.
F1 – Webber leads Red Bull qualifying sweep
Red Bull Racing continued it’s dominance of the Formula One qualifying grid with another front row qualifying sweep for Sunday’s Grand Prix of Great Britain at Silverstone.
Keselowski’s Fuel Outlasts Harvick’s
Brad Keselowski dominated the Feed the Children 300 at the Kentucky Motor Speedway leading 132 of 200 laps. His closest challenger, Kevin Harvick had an apparent miscue from his crew chief that cost him valuable time as there was some confusion as to whether Harvick was stopping for fuel in the final 10 laps. As Harvick slowed, Keselowski pulled away further even though Harvick’s crew chief called off the stop. That allowed Keselowski to conserve fuel more. The final 61 laps were run under green flag conditions.
Harvick finished second was said he thought that his car was great but there needed to be better communication from on top of the box. Kyle Busch finished in third after starting the field in 43rd as a result of him crashing during his qualifying effort. Busch was followed by Kasey Kahne who drove the JR Motorsport No. 7 Go Daddy car, his first time in that Chevrolet. Pole-sitter Elliot Sadler finished 5th and left Kentucky with the points lead even though he struggled at times during the race to get into the top 10.
Busch said about his night, ” I screwed up qualifying today and ‘fenced’ the NOS Energy Drink Camry. But, we had another one in the truck. The guys did a great job putting it together and getting it ready and just in time. Probably didn’t have as much time as they would have liked to have spent on it, but all in all we gave it the best we had. Probably was going to be about a fifth or sixth before all the fuel exchanges and everything going on there at the end. Thank all the guys. They did a great one for me tonight. ”
The win was Keselowski’s 13th in the series. One thing that was overheard in the media center was Keselowski explaining that his beer was better than Harvick’s. Both run in Saturday’s 400 mile race .
“This car was awesome. The boys at Penske Racing spent some extra hours on it and it feels good. I think we got more in the hopper. To see this team start coming along feels great.
“The guys at Discount Tire have been behind me, supporting me. They made this program possible so we could win the championship last year. (We) got banned from it this year, so now we’re just out here having fun.
“If you keep doing the right things long enough, you will be rewarded and today was a day of reward. I can’t wait to see a bunch of the Discount Tire guys this week bring them home a trophy,” Keselowski said.
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