Photo Credit: Gregory Shamus/Getty Images North America
Leading 146 of the 200 laps, Matt Kenseth was in dominating form on Sunday afternoon at Michigan International Speedway en route to scoring his second victory of the 2015 season. Kenseth would take the lead for the final time after a string of green flag pit stops with 25 laps to go, before holding off Kevin Harvick on a restart with 13 laps to go.
“These guys gave me a great car,” Kenseth noted. “It’s easy to take things for granted – I thank the Lord for putting me here as it’s an unbelievable opportunity to work these guys.”
Kenseth credited teammate Denny Hamlin for giving him a great push on the final restart, saying the low-drag package produced superspeedway-like racing on the restart till they got through turn two.
It continues the recent domination of Joe Gibbs Racing as Kyle Busch has won four races since returning to the track after missing the first 11 races of the season.
“Just thanks to everybody at the shop, everybody in every department working hard,” team owner Joe Gibbs said. “It took us a long time. We were down for a year and a half, and now we have a chance to win races.”
It was noticed post-race that the right side-skirt was flared up on the No. 20 Dollar General Toyota, but TV coverage replay showed that it was done by accident when the jack-man tried to jack up the right side, missing his slot from where he would normally put the jack. Crew chief Jason Ratcliff says it shouldn’t be worried about as a possible advantage as they “were leading by a big advantage before that happened”.
Kevin Harvick would finish second for his fifth runner-up finish at Michigan International Speedway, followed by Martin Truex Jr. Truex felt his biggest struggle all day was the restarts.
“They weren’t good for us,” he noted. “We had some good ones early in the race, and it seemed like we couldn’t get in the right lane then. All in all, a good day for the Furniture Row Chevy. Cole did a good job. We had a loose wheel at one point in race – just fought all day to get the track position to fight for the win.”
Austin Dillon finished fourth after having to start from the rear of the field due to an engine change, followed by Denny Hamlin. Hamlin felt he came up short as he didn’t have the speed that his teammate had.
“Top-five is pretty good with this aero package,” he commented. “Hopefully they’ll work on it as it’s a tough one to pass on…..Our cars ran up front all weekend. All the hard work that everybody does – they gave us the tools to come out and compete for a win. Proud of the effort they put forth. Now we’ll move on.”
Carl Edwards finished sixth after leading laps, and falling from second to 11th under caution at lap 138 due to being unable to maintain “caution lap pace” as a result of the car not restarting while he was trying to save fuel. Joey Logano finished seventh, followed by Ryan Newman, Brad Keselowski and Dale Earnhardt Jr. Kyle Busch finished 11th after having to start from the rear of the field due to going to a back-up car and maintains his spot in the top-30 to qualify for the Chase for the Championship.
“It was a success,” he commented. “It wasn’t what we wanted. We had a really fast car yesterday in practice and I screwed up and wrecked it. Congratulations to Matt Kenseth on the win. It’s really good times for Joe Gibbs Racing; our guys are doing awesome. The guys did a good job today. It was better than I thought it was going to do. I can’t thank the guys for all the effort that they put into getting the car ready last night. We may have been able to get up there, but it was a solid day and we’ll just continue with our points gathering.”
Chase hopes took a hit for Clint Bowyer, though, as he got into the wall and spent a couple laps behind the wall receiving repairs. Bowyer thought he was clear of Newman but wasn’t when he slid up, turning himself into the outside wall and slides across the track, spinning and then barely backs into backstretch wall. He would finish 41st as a result of the lack of drivers falling out of the race.
Jimmie Johnson also had an uncharacteristic day, spinning twice by himself en route to a 39th place finish.
The Sprint Cup Series will return to competition this Saturday, August 22 with a trip to Bristol Motor Speedway.
