Bristol Recap: Kenseth ends drought
After 51 straight winless starts, Matt Kenseth finally got over the hump with the win at Bristol Motor Speedway in Bristol, TN on Sunday.
The race started around 2:30 pm and ended almost 9 hours later due to a lengthy rain delay. NASCAR was able to get 23 laps in before the rain arrived and forced a rain delay of more than 4 hours.
Before the race was stopped, contenders Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski ended up wrecking thanks to Keselowski driving too hard in a turn. It caused both cars significant damage and neither were able to make up the laps to be in contention.
Kenseth was able to hold off Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson on the last restart, a green-white-checker finish, to secure his first win since Loudon in September of 2013. On the 11th pace lap, NASCAR let the drivers have the 2-lap shootout to determine the winner. Kenseth who was a 7-time race winner in 2013, went winless last season.
“It feels good to be back here. Not winning for as long as we did … it wears on you a little bit. We had such a good 2013, and last year there were some races we had some chances to win, and just things wouldn’t line up for us. We just couldn’t get it to happen. [Bristol] was kind of the opposite. Everything worked out.”
Kenseth, the race leader as rain started to move in, was ok with Nascar’s decision to try a green-white-checker.
“I’ve got to be honest with you, at least 90 percent of the time or more, I’d be all about, ‘Man, call that thing’ because anything can go wrong. I felt pretty good about where we were. I felt like unless I really, really messed it up, I was going to be clear getting into [Turn] 1. I felt like our car was good enough to hold on for two laps.”
In the two-lap overtime drive for the checkered flag, Kenseth got a great jump on the restart. Jeff Gordon did not have a great restart and Kenseth was able to get the seperation he needed to get the win.
Johnson swept past Gordon to steal second place and leave Gordon in 3rd.
Bristol was full of unusual excitement elsewhere yesterday. Besides the two Penske teammates in Logano and Keselowski wrecking each other, Austin Dillon, who was running third before the 2-lap overtime, ran out of gas on the pace laps and had to head to pit road; and Denny Hamlin did not even get back in his car after the first rain delay due to his neck stiffing up.
Carl Edwards and Kurt Busch were in contention for the win until they wrecked following a eight-lap restart just before the scheduled 500-mile finish. Busch was putting together a solid run despite his crew chief Tony Gibson not being in the pit box due to a kidney stone.
Kyle Larson who was leading the race, drove into a turn too fast and ended up slamming right into a car a lap down. That wrecked caused chaos that eventually sent Landon Cassill hard into the wall.
“Heck, that’s Bristol, isn’t it?” said Gordon. “I’m sure I’ve had wackier nights and days at Bristol than this.”
Despite all the wackiness, and rain delays Kenseth finally got the win he needed to qualify for the Chase later in the season.
