Heading into Sunday’s Sprint Cup race at Infineon Raceway, most people weren’t talking about points leader Kyle Busch as a favorite to win, especially since he was starting all the way back from the 30th position … well, they were wrong. Busch put his no. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota out front on lap 32, and then held the position for the remainder of the race, with the exception of 2 laps that were led by Carl Edwards during green flag pit stops.

Busch gained his track position due to some good fortune when he and nine other cars made their first pit stops just prior to the first caution of the day on lap 30. Up to that point, the race had been dominated by Jimmie Johnson, who took the lead from polesitter, Kasey Kahne, back on lap 5. The caution forced all of the cars that hadn’t yet stopped into the pits, and marred the race leaders back into traffic. Greg Biffle inherited the lead at that point, but his string of misfortunes continued as he spun through the dirt going through turn 3. Busch was riding in third at that point, but the second place car of Juan Pablo Montoya had to check up during Biffle’s spin, and Kyle made the pass on both cars.

Carl Edwards, who had been in second when the first caution came out, had worked his way back up into the top-five prior to the next round of pit stops, but was again the victim of another untimely caution. He was handed the lead after Kyle Busch and several other cars had pitted, but the caution waived again on the following lap when Kurt Busch and Robby Gordon made contact on lap 70, and Gordon was unable to get his car restarted. Once the remaining cars came in for their stops, Edwards found himself outside of the top-20, and Busch was once again named the race leader.

The next bit of excitement came on lap 78 when Marcos Ambrose - making his Sprint Cup debut - got into Juan Pablo Montoya as the two raced for position inside the top-five. The contact sent Juan spinning on the track, but he was able to maintain position inside the top-15. The damage was very minor to Ambrose’s car as well, but the no. 19 of Elliott Sadler got into the back of him with just 26 to go. No caution came out for the incident, but Ambrose pulled his car onto pit road, and the no. 21 Wood Bros team called it quits for the day.

The final 10 laps in the scheduled 110-lap race saw three separate cautions brought out. The first of which came when Michael McDowell cut down a left side tire that sent him screaming into the wall on lap 101. The field lined up with Kyle Busch still out in front, followed by Jamie McMurray, Tony Stewart, and Kevin Harvick. The trio behind Busch brought out the fifth caution of the day when Harvick got into the turn a bit too hard and clipped the rear end of McMurray, who was already loose. McMurray then clipped Stewart, and all three cars went spinning.

With the field bunched up, a bunch of cars got into one another around the middle of the pack, and Tony Stewart just sort of drove through all of them. Receiving the most of the damage was the no. 41 Dodge of Scott Pruett, who drove his wrecked race car off the track as NASCAR waived the final caution of the day, and eventually red flagged the race as they cleaned up the mess. The field lined up for one final restart in NASCAR’s fifth green-white-checkered finish of the season, but it was all for naught. Kyle Busch did as he had all day long and drove away from the field yet again, and eventually landed himself in Victory Lane for the fifth time in 2008.

David Gilliland held onto the 2nd spot and earned himself the best finish of his career, and only his second top-five in his three seasons with Yates Racing. Behind him in third was Jeff Gordon, who had a miserable start to the day, but managed to fall in-line with the pit stops and the cautions and pickup a much-needed top-five for his team. In 4th was Clint Bowyer, and 5th place went to Casey Mears, who picked up his first top-five finish of the season.

Juan Pablo Montoya rebounded from his earlier incident with Marcos Ambrose, and the no. 42 Chip Ganassi Racing team salvaged a 6th place run. 7th place went to Ryan Newman, who started in 9th and went virtually unnoticed the entire afternoon as he hung around just outside of the top-ten for most of the day. Matt Kenseth probably had an even quieter day than Newman, but still managed to finish in 8th, which was also good enough to move him back inside the top-12 in points. Despite having one of the best cars all day, the pit strategies did not fall in the favor of the no. 99 Roush team, and Carl Edwards was forced to settle with a 9th place finish. And, Tony Stewart - who restarted in 19th on lap 108 - managed to fight his way back up through the field to in the last couple of laps to finish 10th.

Other Notables: Greg Biffle recovered from his earlier spin to finish 11th … Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished with a satisfactory 12th place run … Jeff Burton continued his streak of top-15 runs with a 13th place finish … Defending Series champion, Jimmie Johnson, was dumped by Greg Biffle on lap 100, but was able to rebound with to 15th … Terry LaBonte finished 17th for Petty Enterprises … After running inside of the top-five most of the day, the late race mishap relegated Jamie McMurray to 18th … Elliott Sadler also had a good run going, but had a tire go down after the final restart that sent him from 4th to 19th … Kevin Harvick wound up in 30th … Polesitter, Kasey Kahne, dropped like a rock after giving up the lead on lap 5 and wound up finishing 33rd.

The top five spots in the points standings remained unchanged, while Jeff Gordon and Greg Biffle leap-frogged Denny Hamlin and Kasey Kahne to move into 6th and 7th. Clint Bowyer went from 12th to 10th, while Tony Stewart remained 11th. And, as previously mentioned, Matt Kenseth finally made his way into the Chase field, taking over the 12th spot in the standings, while Kevin Harvick dropped from the cut for the first time this season. He sits in 13th now, just 2 points behind Kenseth.

Grades:
the Race - 72%
the Drama - 78%
Coverage - 90%
Pre-Race - 84%

Overall Grade: 78.0%

Complete Results (from nascar.com):

 
Sprint Cup Series Standings (from nascar.com):

Recommended Reads:
- Busch Wins Toyota Save/Mart 350 - (the Lead Lap)
- Kyle Busch Dominates in Sonoma - (Racing for the Win)

*Credit photo to Newscom.

For the third time this season, rain has cancelled Sprint Cup qualifying, this time for this weekend’s Lifelock 400 at Michigan International Speedway. The field for Sunday’s race will be set according to the NASCAR rulebook, lining the first through thirty-fifth spots up according to the order in which they currently sit in the car owner points standings. This puts points leader, Kyle Busch, up front on the pole position, giving him his third of the year, with second place, Jeff Burton, lining up next to him on the outside of row 1. Row 2 will consist of Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Carl Edwards; Sitting in Row 3 are Denny Hamlin and Jimmie Johnson; Row 4 will be Greg Biffle and Jeff Gordon; and rounding out the top-ten starts in Row 5, it will be Kasey Kahne and Kevin Harvick.

Starting the race in 36th and 37th based on the past champion’s provisional are Terry LaBonte and Bill Elliott, and behind them in 38th through 43rd are the next cars in car owner points. Failing to make the race are the cars of Jason Leffler and Tony Raines.

*Credit photo to Newscom.

Coming into Sunday’s Pocono 500 race, both Sam Hornish Jr. and Patrick Carpentier found themselves in 33rd and 38th place in the standings, respectively, as both drivers continue to fight in a bid to make the cut for the top-35 in owner’s points. In Hornish’s case, it’s an effort to keep the car inside the top-35, while Carpentier’s quest is to make in over the hump after the car was sidelined for a handful of the events earlier on in the season. Both drivers are also competing for Rookie of the Year honors amidst a rookie field that is top-heavy with former open wheel stars.

During Sunday’s race, the two drivers became acquainted with one another on the track not once, but twice. The two first got together when they both spun on lap 57 as they battled for position:

The two then collided once again as they spun out on lap 68, this time collecting David Gilliland and Terry LaBonte in the process:

Hornish went onto finish the race in 42nd place and has now dropped to 34th in the points standings. Carpentier managed a 32nd place finish, but remains in 38th overall, 397 points out of the top-35.

We all know that Joe Gibbs Racing has established themselves as the powerhouse of the field at this point in time. We know that Roush-Fenway Racing has come a long way in figuring out this new car and that Hendrick Motorsports seems to have lost the edge that they had on everyone else last year. We’ve analyzed potential contractual signings every which way we could, and still found ourselves locked in a guessing game. Been there, done that, but perhaps one of the stories that we haven’t talked nearly enough about are two teams that are holding out hope of getting a driver into contention for the Chase for the Cup for the first time in their team’s history, and another that hasn’t fielded a Chase contender since 2004.

Once considered one of the top organizations in NASCAR, Yates Racing last visited Victory Lane back in the Fall of 2005 when Dale Jarrett drove the no. 88 car to a win at Talladega and the last time they were able to land a driver inside the top-12 in points was with Elliott Sadler back in ‘04. Since those days, the team has gone through a horrendous rebuilding stage and continue to struggle week in and week out to find primary sponsorship of their cars driven by Travis Kvapil and David Gilliland. Both are highly regarded as “underdogs” every Sunday when the series hits the track, and both have failed to land a top-five finish all season long. Still, they’ve continued to push forward, and have managed to turn a few heads along the way, particularly Kvapil. Coming into the season as a driver that nobody really paid much attention to, Travis admittedly got off to a rather slow start. But, something seems to have clicked within this team ever since a solid run at Phoenix turned sour and he finished 22nd. After that race, Kvapil sat 24th in points, but four finishes of 16th or better in the last six races - highlighted with a 6th place run at Talladega and an 8th place run in Darlington - have now moved Travis up six spots in the standings. He’s now 18th in points and trails 12th place, Tony Stewart, by only 150 points.

Red Bull Racing has been the team that quite a few people have been talking about as of late. With Brian Vickers and AJ Allmendinger behind the wheel for the organization, the team managed to qualify for only 40 races in a combined 72 attempts in their inaugural season in 2007. Coming into the season with both cars outside of the top-35 in points and forced to qualify on time, Allmendinger again missed out on the first three events of ‘08 before being replaced temporarily by veteran driver, Mike Skinner. Despite failing to finish inside of the top-25 in any of the five races that Skinner filled in, the move appears to have paid dividends. AJ has been able to take what he’s learned from Skinner and put it to good use on the track, first winning the All-Star Showdown at Lowe’s to make the cut for the All-Star event itself, and then scoring a career best 12th place finish last week at Pocono. Still, the focus of the media on this team has been placed with Brian Vickers, who appears to be on the verge of scoring the second Cup victory of his career. After a disappointing 2007 that brought him only 1 top-five and 5 top-ten’s, Vickers has been impressive on several occassions this year, though it may not always show up in the results column. He’s been strong on all of the superspeedways, but the team really started to turn heads when they established themselves as one of the dominant cars in the Coca Cola 600 before an equipment failure ended their day. Since then he’s bounced back with a 13th place effort at Dover and finished 2nd last week at Pocono. Brian has now moved up to 17th place overall and trails 12th by a mere 112 points.

Rounding out the list of underdogs making a charge towards the Chase is non-other than Petty Enterprises. Despite the fact that this team has more wins than any other organization in the history of the sport and a slieu of championships from when “the King” himself, Richard Petty, drove the car, the company hasn’t celebrated a win since 1999 when John Andretti won at Martinsville, and the closest they’ve come to a bid for the Chase was an 18th place finish in the standings last year from Bobby LaBonte. Now, nobody’s really sure who will drive the no. 45 car next year as Kyle Petty, Chad McCumbee, and Terry LaBonte have all failed to do much with the ride, but Bobby continues to press forward. Though he’s failed to score a top-ten all season long, he does have seven top-15’s and has gone the entire year without a DNF, something that has hindered the team in recent years. Additionally, he’s got six finishes of 18th or better in the last eight races, which started with a 12th place run at Phoenix, and LaBonte now resides in 19th in the standings, trailing his former Gibbs teammate in 12th by 159 points.

As many of the drivers in the top-12 continue to experience their share of misfortunes as they bounce back and forth between the bubble spots, this could be a prime opportunity for one of these teams to capitalize. But, with the recent emergance of guys like David Ragan, the resurgance of Matt Kenseth, and other perrenial Chase hopefuls such as Ryan Newman and Martin Truex Jr. standing between them as well, the guys currently in the top-12 may not be all they’ll have to contend with.

DYN Imposes:
This week, Do You NASCAR also asks its readers …

1. Which driver in these 3 organizations will be the first to score their first / next win?
2. Are consistent top-15 and top-20 runs going to be enough to land a driver in the Chase field?
3. Which of these teams has made the best organizational move(s) in the last 2 years?
4. Will any of these 3 teams get a driver into the 2008 Chase? If so, who?

*Credit photos to Newscom.

After smashing the field during qualifying, and then establishing himself as the car to beat throughout the practice sessions over the weekend, Kasey Kahne backed it all up in convincing fashion as he won Sunday’s Pocono 500 at Pocono Raceway.

Kahne, who started Sunday’s race from the pole position, ran up front during the early portions of the race, though he didn’t lead for the first time until lap 17, but a pit road mishap on lap 57 put him in the back of the field. Crew Chief, Kenny Francis, originally called for a four-tire stop, but then changed his mind and wanted to change only two, but the tire changer had already begun loosening the lugnuts, and Kahne drove off with the lugs still loose. They were forced to call him back into the pits, thus giving Kahne some catching up to do, but the car was so dominant that he had made it back to the front by lap 129.

Kasey surrendered the lead when he came into pit under green on lap 154, but re-assumed command once the field had cycled itself through the stops. Kahne again lost the lead after making his final stop for the day on lap 175. The tenth and final caution flag of the day came out one lap later, and Brian Vickers and Dale Earnhardt Jr. had used a bit of pit strategy to work their way up ahead of the no. 9 car. Kahne struggled momentarily to get around the two cars on older tires, but after disposing of Earnhardt, he finally made his way around Vickers for the lead on lap 184. It appeared briefly that Denny Hamlin might have had a fast enough car to contend with Kahne, but he was never able to find a line to get around Vickers, and Kahne pulled away from the field and sprinted to his second win of the season.

Vickers used quite a bit of strategy throughout the day to earn his second place finish. He put himself on a completely different pit cycle than the majority of the field, and it allowed him to lead the race on three different occasions. After making his final stop of the day with 35 laps remaining, he didn’t pit under the final caution and was able to stay up towards the front of the field despite running on older tires.

Denny Hamlin had an interesting run en route to his third place finish. After a red flag halted the action on lap 71 for rain, Hamlin made some extra pit stops to fix the damage he’d incurred earlier in the day from contact on pit road, sending him to the back of the field and forcing him to work his way back through the pack. He, too, briefly put himself on a different pit schedule than everyone else as he and five other cars elected to remain on the track after a lap 81 caution. The yellow was brought out when Clint Bowyer got loose trying to get under Paul Menard, sending Bowyer into a spin that collected Juan Pablo Montoya in the process. Staying out later enabled Hamlin to lead his only laps on the day when he wrestled the lead away from Elliott Sadler on lap 90.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. completed a solid run that saw him up near the front for the better part of the day as he came home in fourth, while Jeff Burton continued his consistent streak with a fifth place finish after a relatively quiet day. The two drivers battled fiercely for position in the closing laps of the race, but in the end, it was Junior edging Burton to the line despite running on older tires (Earnhardt was on the same pit sequence as Vickers, whom last pitted with 35 laps to go).

Sixth place went to Jimmie Johnson, whose car looked very strong in the early goings, but slipping back in traffic about halfway through the event seemed to hinder the car’s performance. Crew Chief, Chad Knauss, was forced to use some strategy by keeping Johnson on the track when the rest of the field pitted on lap 122. The move handed Johnson - who was running 8th at the time of the caution - the lead for the fifth time of the day, but in the end, the gamble didn’t pay off and Johnson had to settle for a top-ten finish.

Matt Kenseth had a solid and consistent day of running in the top-ten, and it netted him a seventh place finish as he continues to climb through the standings in his quest to make the Chase. Kurt Busch managed to hang onto 8th place after overcoming near catastrophe. A spin through the infield back on lap 39 broke several of the struts and splitters underneath the car, but after several repairs, Pat Tryson and crew were able to keep Busch on the lead lap, resulting in a much needed top-ten.

Carl Edwards overcame a late-race flat tire and was forced to make two stops under caution with less than 25 laps remaining, but battled his way back to a 9th place finish. Mark Martin rounded out the top-ten with a fairly silent tenth place run.

Disaster struck late in the race for two of the stronger cars at the time - and, two of NASCAR’s unluckiest drivers as of late. As the field cycled their way through their final green flag stops of the day with less than 35 laps to go, both Greg Biffle and Tony Stewart - both of whom ran up around the top-five for most of the race - were caught exiting their pits too fast and were forced to make drive thru penalties. Biffle was able to rebound to a 15th place finish, but Stewart got caught a lap down in 35th.

After wrecking his car during Saturday’s practice session, things only got worse for points leader, Kyle Busch. Mired back in traffic for the start of the race, Busch tried to slide in front of Jamie McMurray on lap 45. He clipped McMurray’s front end, and the 18 car went sailing into the wall. The crew spent quite a bit of time trying to repair the car, and eventually got him back out on the track. After spinning again on lap 176, Busch eventually finished dead last, 105 laps down. McMurray went onto finish 20th.

Bobby LaBonte matched his best finish of the season with an 11th place run, while his brother, Terry LaBonte, made his first start of the season and finished 30th. AJ Allmendinger had a career-best 12th place run after qualifying 8th and running inside the top-ten all day long. Kevin Harvick changed batteries before the race after the team left the ignition on in the car overnight, forcing him to start in the back of the field, but he slowly climbed his way up through the field and finished in 13th.

Kahne’s victory makes him the third multi-race winner on the season and moves him up to 9th in the standings. The disappointing runs for Clint Bowyer and Tony Stewart have now put them on the Chase bubble in 11th and 12th, with 13th place David Ragan now just 7 points behind Stewart. Kyle Busch retains the points lead, now just 21 points ahead of Jeff Burton.

Pocono Grades:
the Race: 86%
the Drama: 85%
Coverage: 81%
Pre-Race: 75%

Overall Grade: 83.7%

*Credit photo to Newscom.

Complete Results (from nascar.com):

Sprint Cup Series Standings (from nascar.com):