NASCAR at Chicagoland 2015: Winners, Losers from the myAFibRisk.com 400
For much of Sunday’s myAFibRisk.com 400 at Chicagoland Speedway—won by the ACL-less Denny Hamlin—the race lacked a great deal of action. There was a green-flag run of 116 laps, and Kyle Busch led for much of that, which failed to infuse the race with any sort of drama.
Then things got real.
An eventful restart sent Kevin Harvick, the defending Sprint Cup champion, to the garage, where he wouldn’t return for 57 laps.
Jeff Gordon, making his record-tying 788th consecutive start, jumped the gun on a restart and led for 40 laps.
All in all, the first race of the Chase was a sign of things to come. Jeff Burton, an NBC NASCAR analyst, said prior to the race:
"These Chase drivers have worked all year long to put themselves in this position, but think about it this way, they’ve also worked a lifetime to put themselves in this position. It’s not often that you have a chance to win a championship. They’re all afraid to make mistakes, but at the same time, they know that they have to do great things over the next 10 races if they want to win it all.
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One race is down, and things will only intensify from here. Read on for winners and losers from the first race of the first round of NASCAR’s playoffs.
Loser: Austin Dillon
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Austin Dillon, in his second full season in the Sprint Cup Series, drove a great race through 129 laps. Early on, he was in the top five, and after only the second caution of the day, he found himself in the top 10.
He then blew a right front, which kicked him into the wall and sent his No. 3 car to the garage.
“This car ran really good, and we’ve seen a lot of improvement. This is a big blow to this team,” Jeff Burton said during the NBC Sports broadcast.
No, Dillon’s team isn’t in the Chase, but that doesn’t mean he and 26 other drivers race for nothing. Put more simply: Non-Chasers have plenty to race for. They can fill notebooks for next season and build momentum and optimism that they can carry through the offseason and into the 2016 year.
Dillon ran into some bad luck at Chicagoland, but it appears his first Cup win will come sooner rather than later.
Winner: Chase Pressure
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Harvick and Jimmie Johnson are just warming up.
Following the race, Johnson approached Harvick, presumably to chat about the contact they made around Lap 135. Harvick took umbrage to Johnson’s presence and pushed him in the chest.
Johnson, the cooler of the two, walked away while Harvick kept jawing away. The contact seriously threatens Harvick’s chances of advancing in the Chase.
Harvick told NBC Sports after the race: "I got a fairly good restart, just had a little tire buzz there at the end. I saw those guys coming on the apron. They must have gotten together and had a good run up. I held my ground, and he slammed into my door like I wasn’t even there. I guess he figured he’d come up the race track."
Now Harvick must win since he’s down 22 points to P12 on the Chase Grid. This will only ratchet the pressure for the No. 4 team.
Johnson sits in seventh place on the grid, and at this point, Harvick may not be above sabotaging Johnson’s run at a seventh title as payback.
Things will get ugly between these two over the next few weeks.
“Managing points was part of it,” Johnson said after the race on the broadcast. “Restarts were wild and crazy. At the same time, we had such a good car at the start, then we were off, then we were back on. I wanted to be racing for the win. I think we could’ve been racing for the win.”
Loser: Kyle Busch
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Kyle Busch won the Xfinity Series race on Saturday and led 121 laps during the myAFibRisk.com 400, but he didn’t even manage a top-five finish given how dominant he was all day.
For Busch, who finished ninth, to maintain any advantage, he needed a killer restart late in the race. He didn’t get it, and he fell back and watched all three of his teammates finish well ahead.
“We talked about how these teams couldn’t make mistakes,” NBC Sports’ Kyle Petty said after the race. “We saw so many mistakes made today, but I think the theme for the race and maybe the theme for the Chase this year is spin the win. You just keep fighting. You keep hammering it out.”
For Busch, his entire season was a playoff run. He missed the first 11 weeks of the season with an injury and needed to win one race (he won four) and crack the top 30 in points. It took a long time, but he did it and proved how capable he is of winning a championship.
But his final restart could be a sign that when the pressure is highest, maybe his tires will spin below him while others fly by.
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Winner: Kurt Busch Brushes Off a Flat Tire
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If you had to choose a Busch brother during the race you thought would win, the answer would unequivocally have been Kyle Busch.
If you had to predict the best Stewart-Haas Racing driver of the day, the answer would have been pole sitter Harvick.
Yet the correct choice was Kurt Busch, the man who restarted second late in the race (and finished third) and overcame a flat tire midway through the race.
Ultimately, it was that last restart on old tires that kept him from winning.
“That was the difference-maker today,” Busch said after the race on the television broadcast. “This Chevy was fast enough to win. We thought we had the right strategy, but we didn’t. This was a points day. This is a long journey through the next nine weeks. We weren’t given a hall pass through the next two weeks.”
With Harvick still picking up the pieces of his 42nd-place finish, Kurt may be the one flying the banner for SHR unless his teammate can come up with a win over the next two weeks.
Loser: Jeff Gordon's Old Tires
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Jeff Gordon tied Ricky Rudd with his 788th consecutive start, and Gordon almost made this start a victoriously memorable one.
With under 10 laps to go, Gordon started second down on the inside for the race’s final restart. The problem was the age of his tires. All four were card-carrying members of AARP.
As a result, Gordon fell from second to 14th on the day.
Gordon told NBC Sports after the race:
"I knew that we were going to have a tough time not spinning the tires when we had old tires like that. I was trying to hold pace with Kurt [Busch], and I knew I had Denny behind me on old tires as well. I was somewhat encouraged by that. He got a good run on me. I blocked him. We were on the apron. I felt like I did a good job, but I came up on the apron a little bit too early, and he motored by me.
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Hamlin’s old tires held form, and Gordon could do nothing but watch as all the freshly shod cars that pitted flew past him.
“Once I got three-wide, we were just done,” Gordon said. “It was over at that point.”
Gordon remains in good shape heading toward Loudon (three wins) and Dover (five wins). He showed his game is ready for the playoffs, but he’ll need to close these races better if he plans on advancing up the Chase ladder.
Winner: Carl Edwards Overcomes Speeding Penalty
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Joe Gibbs finished 1-2 at Chicagoland, and both drivers had some of the more eventful trips around Joliet’s 1.5-mile tri-oval.
Carl Edwards got busted for a speeding penalty on pit road that subsequently put him a lap down. He also had issues with his exhaust that worried the No. 19. No matter what tried to stick to the windshield, Edwards plowed ahead and rounded out a JGR exacta.
Edwards spoke to NBC Sports after the race on the broadcast:
"It was a big day for us. We made a lot of gains. I had something wrong with my engine too. It made me real nervous. Made me sweat a little bit. I heard a noise, then it backfired the rest of the day, but it hung on. Something probably broke, and it held on. That could be the difference for us.
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With Loudon in the on-deck circle, Edwards feels confident that he’ll parlay this momentum into even greater gains.
“It’s so easy to have a bad race, but we go to New Hampshire where I feel we can sit on the pole and win that race,” he said.
Edwards has one pole and two top-five finishes from 22 starts in New Hampshire, so his confidence may be a touch unfounded.
Loser: The Defending Sprint Cup Champ
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The restart following the third caution just shy of Lap 140 may have changed the entire complexion of the Chase.
Where to start? Joey Logano, restarting in the third row, got up in Jimmie Johnson’s bumper, forcing Johnson to the apron. Johnson then pulled up and into Kevin Harvick’s rear left quarter panel.
Harvick’s rear smoked but managed to stay together for a few laps until his left rear tire relented, blew out and all but totaled his ride.
Steve Letarte, NASCAR analyst for NBC Sports, said during the broadcast:
"It all started on the restart. How important is it to accelerate out of the zone? Jimmie tries to come up on the race track, and the No. 4 tried to hold him down there. Kevin Harvick tries to force him down. This is the result. He loses the car in Turn 3. This is a major, major hurdle for the No. 4 car in the first race of the playoffs.
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The defending champ climbed out of the car and stood beside it, glowering at the damage. With two races to go in the Challenger Round, Harvick most likely has to win either at New Hampshire or Dover to advance to the Contender Round.
Jenna Fryer, an Associated Press reporter, tweeted that Harvick has one win from 29 starts at Loudon and zero wins in 29 starts at Dover.
We heard it before: You can’t win the Chase in the first race, but you sure can lose it. Harvick returned down 57 laps and 22 points shy of the 12th contender spot.
“The big loser in this one has to be the 4 team and Kevin Harvick,” said NBC commentator Rick Allen during the broadcast.
When asked what he has to do over the next two weeks, all he said was, "Win."
Winner: Denny Hamlin's Long Grind to the Win
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Hamlin started the 29th, worst of all Chasers, and as if that weren’t bad enough, he spun out on Lap 2 and fell a lap down.
A season-high green-flag run kept Hamlin from returning to the lead lap, but he put his head down, took a wave around and kept on grinding.
On the race’s final caution, he nearly pitted to take four new tires, but his crew chief told him to grab clean air instead of four new Goodyears. Then Hamlin crushed the restart from Row 2 and never looked back.
“Fifty-fifty, I was going to drive in there and hope everything worked out,” Hamlin told NBC Sports after the race. "Coming back from a lap down, we were just running under green over and over and over. And I thought we would never get back on the lead lap.”
The win—the 12th for Joe Gibbs Racing on the season—gives Hamlin a hall pass into the Contender Round of the Chase and removes the threat of a bleeding ulcer over the following two weeks knowing he’s in the contending 12.
“Go have some fun the next two weeks. It takes the pressure off us,” Hamlin said.
But the pressure is very much on for the others, most notably Harvick.
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