Joey Logano is the pole sitter on a cloudy day in Martinsville as the field takes the green flag. The temperature is in the 40s and its windy. Miserable day to be at the track if you ask me. It’s not that warm here in the Atlanta metro area.
Jimmie has to start at the rear of the field after a spin during qualifying.
Competition caution scheduled for lap 45 following overnight rains. Stages are 130-130-240.
Caution on lap 35 of 500 for a spin by Ty Dillon and Ricky ‘Stinkhouse’ Stenhouse. Looks like the 95 of Michael McDowell got into Ty’s rear a bit.
This caution will be the competition caution.
Restarting on lap 44 of 500.
Caution on lap 62 of 500 for a spin by David ‘Thrilla’ Ragan. Michael McDowell got into Thrilla’s rear-end. Moody is saying Ragan squeezed down on Stinkhouse.
Restarting on lap 68 of 500.
Caution on lap 86 of 500 for a spin by AJ ‘Ding Dong’ Allmendinger. Looked like Danica ‘Lil Dude’ Patrick got into the back of him.
Jimmie Johnson leads the field to green on lap 92 of 500.
Brad ‘It’ Keselowski gets the stage points.
Restarting on lap 139 of 500.
Sunshine is out at Martinsville.
Jamie McMurray is in for a tire change and the get the left rear quarter panel pulled off the tire after Erik ‘Da Brat’ Jones tapped his left rear.
Brad ‘It’ Keselowski gets the stage points again.
Restarting on lap 271 of 500.
The clouds seem to be fighting back over the track.
Caution on lap 303 of 500 for a spin by ‘Kutey’ Kyle Larson.
Restarting on lap 313 of 500.
Caution on lap 317 of 500 for a spin by Erik ‘Da Brat’ Jones (77) who got tagged by the 1 of Jamie McMurray and Cole Whitt in the 72.
Restarting on lap 320 of 500.
Caution on lap 360 of 500 for a spin by Landon Cassil.
Restarting on lap 368 of 500.
‘It’ has given leader Chase Elliott a tire rub on lap 447 of 500.
Caution on lap 458 of 500 for a spin by Carl Long.
Restarting on lap 464 of 500.
Joey ‘Squinty Douchey’ Logano seems to have a tire rub with 12 laps to go courtesy of contact with Denny Hamlin. Serves him right for pushing ‘It’ ahead of Chase shortly after the restart.
Caution on lap 491 of 500 as Squinty-Douchey goes around when the tire lets go.
Restarting with 496 of 500 laps to go.
Caution on lap 497 of 500 as Denny boots Chase out of the lead sending him around and into the wall.
Moody says Denny is being booed in the grandstands right now. Denny is from Virginia.
Overtime.
Hamlin and KyBu will take the green flag.
Hamlin gets out of shape quickly. Truex moves under him to take second. The 18 and 78 leg it out to the finish with Kyle Busch finishing just ahead of Martin Truex Jr.
KyBu wins.
Big wreck after the checkered flag.
Jimmie’s smoking car is sitting cross-ways on the track.
Hamlin tried to get back in line, turned around as he came down across Ryan Blaney who had nowhere to go but into him and the rest of the field piled in.
Chase Elliott is having words with Denny Hamlin after the checkered flag when he turned in fron of him then ran side by side with him along the wall. when the stopped Denny got out yapping and Chase went toe-to-toe with him. NASCAR officials stepped in quickly.
Denny threw a ‘bullshit chaos’ during his on-air interview. I’m guess there will be a fine/penalty behind that this week since tv felt the need to apologize for the language.
KHarv’s car was on fire during the big wreck.
Denny is saying he was ‘extremely too loose’ and got into the back of him. He also said he wasn’t saying he was trying to wreck him. He admits that he did bump him to try to move him.
The audience is cheering like mad when Chase is doing his post-race interview. They were booing throughout Denny’s interview. He watched the replay and said no one was pushing Denny into Chase. He also said he’s not worth his time and his mother told him if he can’t say anything nice he won’t say anything at all.
Denny claims he got out of the car and told Chase to knock it off because they were approaching cars doing lugnut checks.
Boring race overall until the fireworks at the end.
After starting in the rear Jimmie finished twelfth.
Ryan ‘Son’ Blaney finished 8th. He and Kevin Harvick had a chat after the race. It was low-key for Happy. Ryan said they discussed how to avoid that happening in the future. They had a bit of contact in the corners throughout the race. Happy and Ryan traded hard ‘friendly’ blows at the end of the conversation.
It seems to me since Logano was not running for the championship NASCAR should cite him for affecting the outcome of the race – even though it was only his teammate he caused to lose the lead. With playoff implications in every race, his staying on the track with that kind of tire rub could only have been intended to bring out the caution. While I’m not opposed to the result of his staying out with the tire rub, I am opposed to his obvious machinations to manipulate the finish of the race. He attempted to do so by pushing his teammate to the front. That can be explained/excused by his saying he was trying to push ‘It’ to the front so he too could pass Chase in the 24 and race for the win. I don’t believe those were his intentions, but I can see how he could use that as an excuse. I’m guessing he would say he was just trying to hold on for the best finish possible with regard to the tire rub. Because of his position at the front of the field, and the potential of wrecking everyone behind him when he wrecked from the tire going down, staying out to get the best finish possible isn’t an acceptable reason to endanger the rest of the field.
Wow. Denny tweeted a post race apology to Chase Elliott. He is seriously trying to curry favor with NASCAR to avoid getting penalized and further dropping his playoff position.
NASCAR News:
- Logano Wins Martinsville Pole.
- Round of 8 Ready to Roll.
- Drivers Complete Homestead-Miami Test.
- Wallace, Petty Teleconference Transcript.
- Wallace to Drive No. 43 in 2018.
- Champion’s Week Festivities Announced.
- RCR Retains Andy Petree as Advisor.
- Opinion: Rules of the Game.
- NASCAR Notebook: Truex Penalty Explained.
- Martinsville FanFest to Feature Cup Drivers.
- Kahne’s Crew Chief Named at LFR.
- Memorial Service Scheduled for Jim Watson.
- Weatherman to Make Cup Debut.
- Round of 8 Set.
- Eventful Day for Johnson.
- Blaney Races to Third at Kansas.
- Kansas Season Sweep for Truex.
- Kenseth Disqualified at Kansas.
- Engine Issue Eliminates Larson.
- FRR Crew Member Jim Watson Passes Away.
- SHR Partners With Biagi-DenBeste.
- First XFINITY Win for Bell.
- Bell to Compete in XFINITY Series Full Time.
- Gragson Gets First Truck Win.
- Gale Making Truck Return.
- Formula One star Fernando Alonso to race in Rolex 24 at Daytona.
- Things get ‘weird’ in Mountain Dew’s tribute ad for Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s retirement.
- Johnson spins in qualifying before Martinsville playoff race.
- ‘A good dude:’ Dale Jr. bids farewell to Texas in final Monster Energy start at TMS.
- Junior’s last spin in Texas brings circle to a close.
- Earnhardt interested in penning book on concussion recovery.
- RCR ‘going to turn it around’ – Petree.
- From Amish life to a job in NASCAR: Crew member’s unusual journey.
- Trio of NASCAR drivers are in gross Snapchat group.
- Marco Andretti will have to wait for space to race in NASCAR Xfinity with JR Motorsports.
- Christopher Bell cleared the air with Erik Jones after controversial NASCAR Xfinity win.
- Drivers face off in another edition of ‘Bad Joke Telling’.
- Epix Documentary To Take ‘Candid Look’ At Danica Patrick On, Off Track.