Kurt Busch completed his family’s weekend sweep of the two races at Michigan International Speedway with a victory in Sunday’s rain-shortened Quicken Loans 400 – one day after Kyle won the track’s X-FINITY Series race. Kurt Busch had his #41 Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet in front of the field when the race’s fourth red flag was displayed for rain that persisted throughout the afternoon over Michigan’s Irish Hills. It’s Busch’s twenty-seventh career win, second this season and third at M-I-S – for three different car owners: Jack Roush in 2003, Roger Penske in 2007 and now Gene Haas in 2015.
Dale Earnhardt, Jr. finished second and Martin Truex, Jr. third, giving Chevrolet a sweep of the top three spots for the third race in a row and six of the last seven. Matt Kenseth (Toyota) and Joey Logano (Ford) completed the top five. Pole sitter Kasey Kahne led only the second lap of the race and finished fifteenth.
Busch took the lead on Lap-133 when Kyle Larson was forced to pit after stretching his fuel as far as he could. Five laps later, the skies opened up and NASCAR subsequently called the race 62 laps short of its scheduled distance. With his third-place finish, Truex became the first Cup Series driver to open the season with 14 top-ten finishes in the first fifteen races since Hall of Famer Richard Petty in 1969 – eleven years before Truex was born. After winning in NASCAR’s most recent visit to Michigan in August 2014, Jeff Gordon finished 21st on Sunday in his bid for back-to-back victories there.
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The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series has a weekend off and then the drivers tackle the road course at Sonoma Raceway. Live coverage of the “Toyota/SaveMart 350″ begins at 1:00 PM on Saturday, June 28th.
[box type=”shadow” title=”Unofficial Points Standings” ] DRIVER POINTS BEHIND LEADER
1. Kevin Harvick (2) 576 —
2. Martin Truex Jr. (1) 561 | -15
3. Joey Logano (1) 520 | -56
4. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (1) 508 | -68
5. Jimmie Johnson (4) 506 | -70
6. Brad Keselowski (1) 480 | -96
7. Jamie McMurray 464 | -112
8. Matt Kenseth (1) 456 | -120
9. Kasey Kahne 447 | -129
10. Jeff Gordon 434 | -142[/box]
– story by John Singler
www.mrn.com
Concord, NC
