NASCAR All-Star Race 2015: Winners and Losers from Charlotte
It must be a third of the way through the year, because the NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race fired up Saturday night.
Like most all-star exhibitions, the mandate was fun with a competitive edge. After all, there’s still $1 million on the line. None of these wealthy drivers would turn away a chance to get ahold of an extra mill'.
According to the Fox Sports 1 broadcast, the field of 20 drivers accounted for an astounding 498 Cup wins. Most of these drivers are the cream of the crop.
The four segments saw a ton of action and different tire strategies. Ultimately it came down to pit stops, and nobody was faster than Denny Hamlin off pit road.
Read on for some winners and losers, all-star style.
Loser: The Defending Champ's Terrible Two-Tire Pit Stop
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Jamie McMurray, who finished 16th, may have won this race a year ago, but his gamble heading into Segment 3 failed.
During the pit stop following Segment 2, McMurray took two tires while everyone else took four. McMurray moved up to first from 14th. On the restart, he had no grip and Joey Logano, sharply outfitted with new Goodyears, nearly spun McMurray out.
Then McMurray kept losing ground like a receding tide.
“Yeah, he’s going backward,” said Fox Sports 1's Darrell Waltrip. “I knew that when Joey Logano took four tires.”
It was a night of gambling on tires as teams madly scurried for track position. In the case of the No. 1 car, it didn’t pay off.
Winner: The Return
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I wasn’t exactly sure where to put Kyle Busch here. Is he a winner for getting his body put back together to compete here in a relatively abbreviated night of racing? Or is he a loser for coming back too soon and jeopardizing his long-term health for short-term gain?
He finished sixth. Winner.
Ultimately he’s a winner because he’s fiercely passionate and clearly ahead of schedule. One figures he has a team looking out for his best interests, and if he truly wasn’t capable of racing for 90 minutes, he’d just stay home and keep up the rehab.
He had a particularly long embrace with his pregnant wife after the invocation. The last time he got in a car to drive he exited with broken legs after a gruesome collision with a concrete wall at Daytona.
Fox Sports’ Larry McReynolds wrote, “He's a young man with a gift of being able to drive a stock car extremely well, and he has plenty of racing ahead of him. I just don't want pressure and impatience to take over. I want Kyle to wait and be 100 percent healed before he races again.”
We see athletes time and time again come back too soon. Only time will tell if Busch’s return was premature or right on time.
“I’m happy I could make my return,” Busch said during the Fox Sports 1 broadcast. “I’m excited to get behind the wheel, have some fun and get ready for the rest of the year.”
Loser: The Leading Vote-Getter
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Danica Patrick qualified sixth, changed an engine, then started from the rear.
During Segment 3 she had an issue with the left-front hub that sent her car coasting into the garage far away from the All-Star Race, a race she was serendipitously elected into Friday night after the Sprint Showdown.
In a bout of inexplicable non-transparency, NASCAR never released the voting numbers. There’s no way of knowing who actually won or how close the voting was, etc. For all we know, she was close enough to win.
The cynic will say that maybe NASCAR let Patrick in because, whether you like it or not, she moves the meter, moves the meter more than say Martin Truex Jr.
She got into this race and never competed. In the end her car dragged.
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Winner: Kevin Harvick
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Kevin Harvick finished second again. This guy is stupid-good on 1.5-mile tracks. Just plug him in and watch him hit the exacta.
Harvick was strong down the center lane on the track and was gaining on Hamlin in the final dash for the cash, but a tiny error cost Harvick any chance at passing Hamlin in the final three laps.
“He saw us coming there and my car just took off up the track and I lost ground,” Harvick said on the broadcast after the race. “I put us in the hole after qualifying and had a great car to dig us out of it.”
Harvick started 20th and nearly hit the front.
Loser: Greg Biffle
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What a disappointing night for Greg Biffle.
After winning the first segment of the Sprint Showdown on Friday night, Greg Biffle looked to parlay that effort into something, anything.
Within the first few laps his No. 16 car got so loose that he went fishtailing into the wall. He managed to keep the car on the track while most of the field passed him by.
After winning his Sprint Showdown on Friday night, Biffle said in Fox Sports' Jared Turner’s story, “It's kind of nice to win. I was joking with the (team) and I said, 'I've never been so excited to win half a race in my life,' so I guess I won half the race tonight and maybe I can win the other part of one tomorrow night."
That nirvana eroded during the All-Star Race. So it’s on to the Coca-Cola 600 in just over a week’s time.
Winner: Kurt Busch
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Kurt Busch, who finished third, may have some beef with Hamlin.
On the final restart, it looked like Kurt Busch got left behind. According to him, Hamlin may have jumped the gun and restarted too soon. It got Hamlin in clean air where nobody could dirty up the No. 11.
“You see right there, that white with red stripe?” Kurt Busch said pointing to the restart area after the race. “[Hamlin’s] car went two lengths before that. I was asleep at the wheel on the restart.”
Busch was a big mover in this race, starting way back and moving up through the pack in a hurry. It was illustrative of how strong the No. 41 car can be when it’s on, and how strong it can be despite a lazy restart.
Loser: Brad Keselowski's $1 Million Mistake
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Coming out of Segment 4, Brad Keselowski was the favorite to win the race. He had won Segments 2 and 3 and led a race-high 49 laps. He was first onto pit road for the mandatory pit stop before the final 10 laps. All he had to do was maintain his track position and not get busted with a speeding penalty.
Naturally he got slammed with a speeding penalty.
He tried to beat Hamlin off pit road, but in so doing threw the entire race out the window mesh.
“I either beat him there or lose the race,” Keselowski, who finished ninth, said during the broadcast. “I swung, we missed.”
More like they swung and he missed.
That’s what happens, but it was terribly frustrating for Paul Wolfe, Keselowski’s crew chief, to see a dominant night flame out because the No. 2 car went a hair above 50 mph. BK went for it, and Wolfe said, “We can’t get a penalty doing it," according to NBC Sports' Dustin Long.
Fox Sports 1's Darrell Waltrip then added, "That's a $1 million mistake right there."
Salt, meet wound.
Winner: Race Winner
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I know NASCAR is about speed, but what Hamlin’s pit crew did Saturday night was something altogether holy. That final pit stop that in effect won the race was a sound-barrier-breaking 10.8 seconds.
As a result, Joe Gibbs Racing, which had three cars in the top six, earned its first All-Star Race victory.
“You want to win the Daytona 500, the Brickyard 400, the Coke 600 and be an all-star,” Hamlin said after the race on the broadcast. “It was just a big day, just an unbelievable experience. That pit crew, they carried me all day long.”
The pit crew delivered Hamlin the pole that subsequently gave him a better pit stall. As a result, Hamlin became just the fifth pole-sitter to win this race.
And with that came a suitcase full of cash: $1 million.
“I’ve got a little daughter at home who wants to go to college,” Hamlin said.
Looks like someone is going to Skidmore College.
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