Carl Edwards leads the field to green. I wish the best for Bryan Clauson who was in a brutal crash last night at the 39th Belleville (Kan.) Midget Nationals. Feel better Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jeff Gordon is in the car again this week for Booboo. The doctors didn’t release him to race. Boris Said actually managed to get in a car and into the race this week. We tend not to see a lot of the old ‘road race wringers’ anymore so its rather nice to have Boris in the field. He occasionally adds spice to races. I have a feeling this race will need it.
Frankenstein spun off the course without wrecking anyone. The field continues on without a caution. Watkins Glen has new pavement and a few configuration modifications. The drivers seem to indicate the updates haven’t changed the racing from their point of view.
Jeff Gordon got into the back of Austin ‘Frankenstein’ Dillon. Jeff has more than a little damage on the front of his car. Big Daddy is still running as the crew is working out a plan for repairs.
Danica Patrick is actually leading the race. Yeah, yeah, yeah, pit stop strategy and all that, but – that said – it’s still rare we see her at the front of the field. Good going ‘Lil Dude’.
Caution on lap 53 of 90 for a wreck including Ricky Stenhouse, Jimmie Johnson, and Greg Biffle. ‘Stinkhouse’ lost it and ran into the wall and Jimmie had nowhere to go and plowed into him. Stenhouse went wide left, over-corrected and hit the wall on the right. Everybody tried to avoid him, but there just wasn’t enough room. Austin ‘Frankenstein’ Dillon was also collected. It looks like Ricky didn’t hit SAFER barrier in that hard hit. Biffle is walking to the ambulance. He was able to drive away, then the car came to a stop. The race has been red flagged.
MRN is reporting that Bryan Clauson has died . Peace to his family.
Ricky says the car jumped loose on him while he was trying to make a move on the 23 since passing is difficult. He said he was making an aggressive move. Biffle says he was trying to play it safe and slow down easy when he saw Stenhouse getting loose because he remembered Jeff Gordon bouncing back across the track in his bad wreck, but Biffle says he just got ‘run over from behind’. He said he maybe “should’ve stayed in the gas a bit more and might have missed it”. He also admitted that it might not have made a difference.
The cars are back underway under caution.
Caution is out on lap 57 of 90 for a multi-car incident involving Carl Edwards (19), Clint Bowyer (15), David Ragan (23), and Alex Kennedy (55).
Caution is out on lap 64 of 90 for debris as Landon Cassill in the 38 threw a lot of dirt onto the track after a trip through the inner loop.
Caution is out with 14 to go for Alex Kennedy blowing up.
Caution is out on the restart lap (10 to go) with a multi-car incident. Both ‘It’ and KyBu went wide on a turn and lost the lead to Denny Hamlin. Bunny said Matty Di and Newman were involved in that incident. So far no one is specifying who was involved. USA had an overhead shot of the incident so I wasn’t able to get a good look at the car numbers. I thought I saw Casey Mears in it.
Squinty-Douchey has some damage on the right front of the 22. He’s up to third on the restart.
Restarting with seven laps to go as Denny leads them to the green flag with ‘It’ beside him.
Caution is out with seven to go for another mutli-car incident including Aric ‘Afterburner’ Almirola, David ‘Thrilla’ Ragan, Danica ‘Lil Dude’ Patrick and Kevin ‘Happy’ Harvick are involved. Apparently Menard went through the dirt and threw up such a cloud of dust no one could see and the pile up ensued. Ragan ran head-on into Harvick. The 34 of Chris Buescher seems to have also been involved.
The red flag is out again.
Buescher was forced to go to the infield care center to get checked out though he thought he could continue, but since the car hit the wall and came to stop during the red flag they decided he couldn’t continue and needed to go get checked out. The car was towed to the garage. When he checked out of the care center the red flag was still out. He suited up and climbed onboard. Before the caution is completed, Chris has fired the car up after repairs by the Front Row Motorsports crew.
Caution is out.
Chris Buescher is being shown 32nd. He’s racing David Ragan for five points to get into the top 30 and eligible for the Chase. David is out of the race due to his damage from the incident.
There will be four to go when they restart. Denny Hamlin and Squinty-Douchey will lead the field to the green.
On the final lap just before the checkered flag Martin Truex and Kyle Larson go around.
Truex caught up to ‘It’ after the race and showed his displeasure with the car.
‘It’ clearly punted Truex on that final turn sending him around. I understand Truex’s rage.
Denny Hamlin did a job on the tires on his burnout. Looks like Larson also got puned by AJ Allmendinger.
‘It’ actually went over to Truex to talk to him before getting onto his golf cart. He thought Martin was going to do something different and had committed to an action and that it was his fault he hit him in the back.
AJ admitted spinning Larson was his fault also. He also acknowledges that his apology doesn’t really help. He said he was sure Larson will still be pissed off, as he would be if it happened to him. He said he doesn’t want to race like that. Leaves me wondering why he raced like that if he didn’t want to race like that.
Denny said he woke up with back spasms. He couldn’t drive the car to victory lane. He got out of the car limping and pretty obviously in back pain. He said he also had back spasms in the car. He says he wakes up with them every two or three months.
NASCAR News:
- Bryan Clauson airlifted to hospital after USAC crash.
- Indiana driver Bryan Clauson injured in USAC midget race.
- Furniture Row adds 2nd car to stable; Erik Jones to drive.
- Derrike Cope’s car explodes at Watkins Glen.
- MRN’s Ashley Stremme Crowned ‘Mrs. United States’.
- Ashley Stremme named Mrs. United States.