We learned a lot at Bristol on Saturday night. We learned that there might be some bashed fenders. Okay, we already knew that. Kyle Busch learned it as well as anyone else.
1. Jeff Gordon: Gordon started second at Bristol but encountered handling issues that left him mid-pack for much of the race. He finished 16th, one lap down, and leads the Sprint Cup points standings by 27 over Dale Earnhardt, Jr.
With an impassioned driver’s meeting speech by Carl Edwards urging safety and throttling back during cautions at such a high-speed track, here is what else was surprising and not surprising from the 45th annual Pure Michigan 400.
Watkins Glen might have hosted the action on Sunday, but it was Saturday night at the Canandaigua Motorsports Park a hundred miles away that drew our attention.
On the track, everything is just hunky dory for Dale Earnhardt Jr. For our money, he sits as the best on the season to this point, but there are a couple of storm clouds just over the horizon. Steve Letarte moves from crew chief to a pretty face on television next season, and the National Guard might be heading into the sunset with him. To be honest, we have long known about one, and have had suspicions about the other. Still, for you and I, these questions marks do not need to bother us until next year.
Dale Earnhardt Jr is having a rather pleasant season thus far. On Sunday, he swept the season series at Pocono, upped his count to three wins this term, tops the standings, and is second only to Jeff Gordon in accumulated points. No bad at all.
1. Dale Earnhardt Jr.: Earnhardt used a no-tire pit stop to take the lead and subdued the challenge of Kevin Harvick down the stretch to win the GoBowling.Com 400 at Pocono. The victory completed Earnhardt’s season sweep at the “Tricky Triangle” and was his third win of the year.
From the impact of crew chief suspensions inspired by the No. 11 Denny Hamlin penalty to the forecasted rain that never reared its ugly head, here is what else was surprising and not surprising in the 41st Annual GoBowling.com 400 at Pocono Raceway.
While the penalty to Denny Hamlin’s No. 11 FedEx Office Toyota team, resulting in the suspension of crew chief Darian Grubb, continued to reverberate throughout the garage and media center at Pocono Raceway, there were varying reactions from the drivers as to just how impactful that situation really was to a race team.
Seventy five point penalty and nothing. No meaningful consequences, not even a dip in the standings. When Denny Hamlin’s car got tagged for leaving the covers on the rear firewall loose in order to leak high pressure air from under the car into the cockpit, something they were told not to do going into Indianapolis, NASCAR came down hard. Well, sort of.
