Kyle Busch drove away from Joey Logano on Sunday’s final restart and was not seriously challenged over the final two laps, extending his winning streak to three races and snapping Chevrolet’s twelve-year string of victories at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Busch started 9th and led 3 times for 19 laps in the Number-18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota. His margin of victory over Logano was three-tenths of a second with Kevin Harvick, Martin Truex Jr., and Denny Hamlin, completing the top five.
Sunday’s win helped Busch sustain his rapid mid-season march toward a post-season berth. After missing eleven races while recovering from injuries suffered during Speedweeks in February and then struggling with inconsistency in the first month back, Busch has now won 4 of his last 5 starts but still needs to reach the top 30 in the standings to be eligible for a post-season Chase berth. He’s climbed to 32nd place and is just 23 points below the cutoff with 6 races left in the regular season. The last driver to win three straight Sprint Cup races is Jimmie Johnson, who actually put 4 wins in a row together during the 2007 Chase.
Pole sitter Carl Edwards led only 20 laps of Sunday’s race and finished 13th. Busch’s victory was Toyota’s first Cup Series win at Indianapolis and gave the driver a weekend sweep at “The Brickyard.”
Next on the schedule, the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series drivers race at the Pocono Raceway on Sunday, August 2nd. Live coverage of the “Windows 10 400” begins at 11:30 AM on FM 95.
Unofficial Points Standings
DRIVER POINTS BEHIND LEADER
1. Kevin Harvick (2) 777 —
2. Joey Logano (1) 708 | -69
3. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (2) 677 | -100
4. Jimmie Johnson (4) 675 | -102
5. Martin Truex Jr. (1) 668 | -109
6. Brad Keselowski (1) 638 | -139
7. Matt Kenseth (1) 615 | -162
8. Kurt Busch (2) 612 | -165
9. Jamie McMurray 602 | -175
10. Denny Hamlin (1) 591 | -186
– story by John Singler
www.mrn.com
Concord, NC
Tune today starting at 1:30 PM for live coverage of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series “Crown Royal 400” from the legendary Indianapolis Motor Speedway starting at 1:30 PM on FM 95.
Carl Edwards captured his 2nd consecutive pole of the season when he took the top spot for today’s race. Edwards followed up his pole at New Hampshire Motor Speedway last weekend with a fast lap of 183.464 mph in the 2nd and final round of qualifying at The Brickyard. It marked his 15th career pole.
The top three matched the top three qualifiers at New Hampshire with Joey Logano and David Ragan qualifying 2nd and 3rd, respectively. For Logano it marked his 14th top-10 start of 2015 and his 3rd in 7 races at Indianapolis.
This weekend marks the second time this month that NASCAR introduces a track-specific rules package for the Sprint Cup Series. Modifications for today’s race at The Brickyard will increase downforce, adding drag and creating a larger drafting slipstream off the rear of the cars that NASCAR hopes will help provide a more competitive race. Lead changes are down twenty-two percent in the Sprint Cup Series from where they were a year ago.
There have been eleven different winners through the first nineteen races of this season with Kurt and Kyle Busch, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kevin Harvick and Jimmie Johnson owning multiple victories. Though Kyle Busch has three wins, he’s not yet eligible for the post-season since he is outside the top thirty in points. Defending series champion Harvick is the only driver who’s officially clinched a spot on the 2015 Chase Grid. The list of drivers who won last year but are still without a victory in 2015 includes A.J. Allmendinger, Aric Almirola, Jeff Gordon and Kasey Kahne. Post-season berths will go to the 16 top eligible drivers based on race wins. If there are fewer than 16 race winners in that group, then the field will be filled based on regular-season point standings.
– story by John Singler
www.mrn.com
Concord, NC
