Photo Credit: Brian Lawdermilk/Getty Images for NASCAR
A late race caution and weather threatening the area brought forth a debate for crew chiefs – to pit or not to pit. Everybody headed down pit road, with Regan Smith coming off in the third spot behind Elliott Sadler and Denny Hamlin. Smith then got a good final restart and had enough fuel to make it to the end to score the victory in the Hisense 300 at Dover International Speedway.
“The restart was huge,” he commented in victory. “Whoever got out front had the advantage. I knew the Fire Alarm Chevy was fast, but I didn’t know that it was that fast till I got up front. Then when we realized he started saving, I started saving. I wanted to have a gap before I started saving. Really proud of these guys. (Crew chief) Jason (Burdett) came over this year and he’s done a phenomenal job. He’s done not only a great job with the cars, but with me as a driver and these guys. I can’t say enough. Can’t say enough for JRM, either. We fell off a little thru the middle of the year but were able to get it back.
For Smith, it marks his second victory of the season after winning at Mid-Ohio earlier this year. It now puts him 36 points out of the championship lead, sitting third in points.
“If we can keep doing this and win races, we’ll see what will happens,” he commented. “I don’t know what I’m doing for next year so this really adds to the resume.”
Denny Hamlin tried to make a run and looked to be making the pass among lap traffic, but was unable to complete the pass and fell behind. He was then unable to close the gap at the end of the race.
“Regan just got a really good restart and clean air just meant so much,” Hamlin said. “His car was working really well and as soon as I got to his back bumper, the right rear would get squirrly. I want to lay back there and get a gap and cool my tire off. But I just made that gap too big and couldn’t get back to him.”
Kyle Busch finisehd third after dominating the first half of the event. He was leading the field before the late race caution.
“Just can’t pass. No ability to move around and find anything else to find grip, you’re just too loose,” he commented. “All of us just ran nose to tail that run. I tried to lay back and cool my stuff to get back on them and had a run on Denny and tried to pass him, but couldn’t get by him. Just can’t pass.”
Ryan Blaney and Kyle Larson rounded out the top-five, followed by Austin Dillon, Chase Elliott and Chris Buescher. Buescher will now head into the final five races leading by 24 points over Elliott.
“Big picture – it’s a decent day,” Buescher commented. “for not having any practice I’m proud of these guys. This mustang was decent throughout the race. Just had to work on a couple of other things that you can’t do with a simple wedge wrench. It’s a solid top-10.”
“Our guys did a really good job,” Elliott said. “Our splitter was right on point and the car handled really good. Unfortunately, didn’t have enough gas to run hard that last run – or at least we didn’t think we did. So wanted to try and save and had enough to get to the end.”
Elliott spent the last 14 laps of the race shutting the car off going into the corner, which had him gain up valuable ground to his competitors.
“We were about a lap or a half once we went back to green after the last run, according to the sheet,” he added. “You don’t know how much you saved under caution. We wanted to be on the safe side and I think that was the right move. Obviously you hate giving up spots because of that. I feel like I gave up one that I shouldn’t have. It’s tough. It’s such a fine line. The risk vs. reward – you can risk one and lose it, or lose 10 if you run out. So its tough to make that decision.”
Elliott Sadler finished ninth after coming off pit road with the lead after taking two tires, with Daniel Suarez completing the top-10.
Ty Dillon now falls back to fourth in the standings, 46 points behind Buescher after having a tire blow-out mid-race and making contact with the outside wall.
“It started with a bang,” Dillon said of his day. “Kind of putting things together, I heard it sounded like a car exploded a brake rotor and I think that we ran it over. The car was running fine before that without any issues. All of a sudden I heard pow and hit the wall. You can’t blame NASCAR or anybody – you have these issues where cars that don’t run all the time will break in front of you. It happens.
“We’ve had some awesome racecars lately and I think back to Daytona July race we were 40 points out and then just two races after we were back down to 20 so we know we can do it, and we’re building faster cars than we’ve ever built. I know in my heart I can go win some of these races and get back in this thing. These guys – they’re awesome on my team. We’ll just keep putting on a show for you guys.”
