Michigan had a children’s chorus doing the anthem yesterday which was nice. They have a different chorus today which is even better. Love the choruses rather than the usual caterwauling. Their flyovers were nice also; five planes in formation trailing smoke. Only 37 cars will take the field today. The stages are 60-60-80 laps. A competition caution is scheduled for lap 20.
The top two lanes has resin laid down. The bottom lanes are untreated.
Kyle Larson (5) and Hendrick teammate and reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion Chase Elliott (9) will lead the field to the green flag.
Larson gets the early lead.
On lap 3 of 200 tv is already bored enough to start with the gimmick shots. This one out the windscreen. Now, on lap 4 of 200, we’re subjected to a split-screen. Looks like this is going to be another unwatchable race. Speaking of unwatchable, the NBCSN pre-race show was hosted by Marty Snider, Brad Daugherty, and Kyle Petty. Talk about three people I would enjoy never seeing on a race broadcast.
Martin ‘MTJ’ Truex Jr (19) has left-rear damage; a flared fender, which he says is like driving with a parachute. His teammate Kyle ‘KyBu’ Busch (18) got into the back of MTJ.
Competition caution on lap 20 of 200.
‘Desperate’ Denny Hamlin (11) wins the race off pit road with a fuel only stop.
Restarting on lap 25 of 200.
Chase Elliott (9) passes Hamlin on lap 27 of 200.
Caution on lap 30 of 200 for a crash into the outside wall by Joey Gase (15). Looking at the replay it looks like some broke on the right side of the car. Possibly he just lost a tire, but the car just angled right and headed for the outside wall at full speed.
Restarting on lap 35 of 200 with Chase Elliott (9) up front.
I get so sick of marketing-speak, “on the property”, “we’re going to have coca-cola activating”. I don’t know why we can’t call a racetrack a track anymore. And I have no idea what ‘activating’ means these days. The dictionary doesn’t seem to include a definition that has anything to do with a corporate brand at a track. Speak American please. I’m not even getting overly ambitious and asking for English.
Chase wins stage one.
Kyle Larson beats Chase Elliott off pit road with the advantage of the first pit box.
Restarting on lap 66 of 200.
Chase is trying to push Larson ahead of Dillon, but Larson gets squirrelly each time.
Matt ‘MattiD’ DiBenedetto (21) goes down low for the lead and loses the back end. He backs out of it and they get straightened out with Larson (5) in the lead and Elliott (9) behind him.
Rusty Wallace of MRN says Hendrick and Childress got together to work on the engines at the request of Chevrolet. He says sometimes Childress engines are in Hendrick cars and the cars are equal in regards to al the other parts and pieces.
On lap 76 of 200 Austin Dillon (3) is battling Kyle Larson (5) door-to-door for the lead.
Chase Elliott gets around Dillon for second position on lap 78 of 200.
Chase Elliott takes the lead from Larson on lap 82 of 200.
Kevin ‘KHarv/Happy’ Harvick (4) pits on lap 100 of 200. According to MRN’s Steve ‘Postman’ Post KHarv has used colorful language to describe his car. They decide to pit a bit early.
William ‘WilliB’ Byron (24) pits on lap 105 of 200 kicking off green flag pit stops.
On lap 107 of 200 KyBu has caught up to Kyle Larson.
Larson lights ’em up pitting on lap 110 of 200. He slowed from 185mph to 55mph according to MRN.
Chase Elliott (9) pits on lap 111 of 200.
MRN says the right rear of Ross Chastain’s (42) car was on fire when he came onto pit road and they can’t get the right rear off the car.
KyBu (18) pits on lap 113 of 200; as does teammate ‘Desperate’ Denny Hamlin (11).
Larson has passed Chase Elliot on lap 113 of 200.
MRN’s Postman reports the 42 crew are pushing the car to the garage.
Kyle Busch (18) is the leader on lap 116 of 200 on nascar.com.
The JGR teams KyBu (18) ran three additional green flag laps beyond the Hendrick teammates. After pitting they came out in front of the Hendrick cars.
KyBu (18) wins stage two.
Austin Dillon (3) slams the outside wall just after the caution flag flies. Brad ‘It’ Keselowski (2) turned Austin Dillon who went hard into the outside wall. They were racing side-by-side, It ran Dillon to the grass and when Dillon tried to get off the apron after they passed the start-finish line It tapped the right rear of the 3 car turning Dillon. Keselowski’s usual dirty driving. That hit was hard – hard enough the car lifted off the track onto its side, then set back down. Dillon is out and in the safety vehicle.
Some pit, Chase Elliott (9), Kyle ‘KyBu’ Busch (18), Christopher Bell (20), Denny Hamlin (11), Darrell ‘Bubba’ Wallace (23), some stay out like Kyle Larson (5), William ‘WilliB’ Byron (24), and Matt ‘MattiD’ DiBenedetto (21).
Restarting on lap 126 of 200.
It’s breezy at the track and there are some dark clouds around the track, but the sun is still shining overhead at the track.
Kyle Larson (5) is battling Kurt ‘KuBu’ Busch (1) door-to-door for the lead. Luckily Larson has teammate WilliB (24) behind him for a strong push to the lead.
Austin Dillon (3) says he feels fine. He also said its the best race car he’s had all season. He said he thought since they had passed the start-finish line and the apron is so rough he thought It would give him some room to come up off the apron. He said he feels better than he did after last week’s race “last week was pretty hard”.
At 1717 eastern it’s become cloudy at the track.
MRN says it’s pouring about two miles outside the racetrack, but is moving away from the racetrack at 1719 eastern.
Hendrick teammates WilliB (24) and Alex Bowman (48) pit on lap 154 and 157 of 200 kicking off green flag stops.
Kyle Larson (5) is out of fuel on lap 158 of 200 as he hits pit road for his green flag stop according to MRN.
KyBu (18) slid through his pit box on lap 167 of 200. He came in ahead of Chase Elliott (9) and left after Chase.
WilliB is currently shown as the leader on lap 174 of 200 closely followed by teammate Kyle Larson (5), ‘Desperate’ Denny Hamlin (11), and Kurt ‘KuBu’ Busch (1).
Caution on lap 179 of 200 for rain. As usual MRN is wrong when it comes to weather. Dave Moody of MRN says its a sprinkle while the sun is shining. They’re now predicting the rain will move through quickly.
Michigan is a two mile track. nascar.com reports the precipitation is in turn one. The sun is shining in turn two.
They’re rolling around under caution so they may burn up a lot of laps with the precipitation caution.
Moody says there are errant drops on his end of the track in turn one. Bagman says not a drop has fallen in turns three and four.
The top ten are staying out. Some outside of the top ten pit.
Restarting on lap 186 of 200 with WilliB (24) up front.
Larson is behind WilliB giving him a strong push. Hamlin tried to grab the lead but couldn’t.
Caution on lap 187 of 200. Tyler Reddick (8) made a big move down low, lost the rear end of the car, drifted back through the field trying to gather it back together and ended up in front of Joey Logano (22) who was getting pushed from behind and ended up spinning as well as Christopher Bell (20) who was also getting a push from behind from Michael McDowell (34) and Josh Berry who was subbing for Corey LaJoie (7). Ryan Newman (6) also spun in the incident.
Reddick was able to continue. Logano, Newman and Berry are on pit road.
Logano takes his car to the garage on lap 190 of 200.
Restarting on lap 192 of 200 with WilliB (24) up front. Ryan Blaney (12) is going to take his chances on the front row inside. Byron Larson and Hamlin are on the outside. KyBu is behind Blaney.
Blaney (12) gets the lead off a strong push from KyBu.
TyRed (8) spins on lap 193 of 200 after losing a tire. The green flag stays out.
This is some of the best racing of the event in the waning laps of the race 197 of 200.
1808 Blaney takes the white flag.
Ryan Blaney wins!!!
Kurt Busch finishes fourth. He made a hard charge on the bottom for second, got loose and had to work hard to get it back in line, losing several spots. Congrats to him on keeping it together for a good finish. He was gutted in his radio interview. He mentioned that he really wanted to win it for his team since a lot of his guys are unemployed.
The early racing was interesting – more interesting than we’ve seen at Michigan overall. The race following the last restart was a nail biter. That portion of the race was fantastic. I wish the majority of the race looked like that. It was relatively clear to me there was a lot of ‘saving my piece’ for a run at the end. The majority of the third stage looked a little better than ‘logging laps’, but did not feel like legitimate competition.
Byron is saying he knew Larson was going to fake left and when he did it allowed the 12 to get ahead. Sounds like the competition meeting at Hendrick won’t be too happy.
Once upon a time I would’ve been cheering for Hendrick; not today. I found myself cheering for Blaney and against Byron and Larson. It’s a personality, integrity thing.
Alex Hayden of MRN is under the misperception that the number of different winners displays parity in the field. We’ve seen far too many ‘conditional wins’ lately to use that as a measure of parity. This race is a good example. The battles of the race were mostly among three of the Hendrick cars, three of the Joe Gibbs Racing cars, Kurt Busch, plus the two Richard Childress Racing cars making a bit of noise. Out of a 35-40 car field, that doesn’t show parity to me. The aforementioned eight different drivers were:
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- Ryan Blaney – Michigan
- AJ Allmendinger – Indy Road Course – conditional win
- Kyle Larson – Watkins Glen
- Aric Almirola – Martinsville – conditional win
- Kurt Busch – Atlanta
- Chase Elliott – Road America
- Kyle Busch – Pocono
- Alex Bowman – Pocono
This list includes the drivers mentioned earlier with a few exceptions, a Penske driver, another Hendrick driver, and two drivers who won due to extenuating circumstances. That doesn’t display parity as much a displaying the lack of parity, with the occasional lucky break. Michael McDowell’s Daytona 500 win in February is the same. McDowell tends to have his best chances at winning at super-speedway races, because they offer more lucky break opportunities than the average race, but they are the exceptions that prove the rule. Parity is lacking in NASCAR, from the ARCA series through the Cup series. There seems to be a vague promise of more parity with the next gen cars. I feel as though I’ve heard that previously when they were changing cars and never saw it come to pass. Maybe this time will be different. I doubt it, but maybe.
I’m pleased with the Blaney win. I am not a Penske fan overall, but I am a fan of two of their drivers, Blaney and Logano. I recognized at the end of the race when I was cheering for Blaney and Kurt Busch that my Hendrick loyalty has waned. I’m a fan of Chase Elliott and Alex Bowman, but I want no part of the other two. Hendrick used to have a full-house of drivers for whom I could cheer. I was a fan of the team, until they hired Larson. I now realize how damaging that has been to my admiration and respect for Hendrick Motorsports values and way of doing business. As a NASCAR fan I’ve overlooked a number of missteps through the years. The Larson thing has stuck with me, like AJ Allmendinger’s drug test failures, the massive Carl Long penalty, and the Michael Waltrip Racing Richmond fiasco. I’ve learned to live with the Allmendinger thing, but it has colored my perception of him since then. I am still curious about the real reason for Carl Long penalty. There must be more to the story for the harshness to make sense. I feel like there was at least a little bit of justice served with the MWR incident, though I would’ve liked to have seen more of the participants receiving penalties as extensive as the one Carl Long received. Maybe one day I will believe that Larson is sincerely sorry for what he did – not just that he got caught and suffered a career setback – and is willing to accept responsibility for it and has had a change of heart. Until that day I find myself a fan of Hendrick drivers, but not so much a fan of Hendrick Motorsports. I hope they win me, and others like me who were injured by Larson’s hate speech, back.
Motorsport News:
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- Torrence wins at Brainerd for NHRA track sweep.
- Michigan post-race inspection complete.
- Force earns 5th straight No. 1 qualifying position.
- Corey Heim Rebounds From Crash, Wins ARCA Race at Springfield.
- NASCAR drivers consider getting vaccinated, reducing appearances with new protocols.
- Josef Newgarden Wins, Attrition Reigns at Gateway.
- Pato O’Ward Tightens IndyCar Championship Battle at Gateway.
- Erik Jones returning to Richard Petty Motorsports in 2022.
- Josh Berry Finishes 4th at Michigan After JRM 2022 Announcement.
- Sebastien Bourdais Charges to 5th at Gateway.
- Power pulls within 4 of Andretti’s poles record.
- World Superbikes: Razgatlioglu level with Rea in championship after Navarra win.
- Le Mans 24: Toyota win endurance race for for fourth successive year.
- Austrian MotoGP: Brad Binder holds on for surprise win after late downpour.
- Formula E: Nyck de Vries wins drivers’ championship as other contenders crash.
- Mercedes announce they will withdraw from Formula E at end of 2022 season.
- Kevin Harvick clinches 2021 NASCAR Playoffs berth.
- What next for Valtteri Bottas?
- Formula 2 champ Lundgaard to debut in IndyCar.
- F1 dismiss Vettel’s Hungary DQ appeal.
- Reaume Fielding Loris Hezemans at Indy.
- Marcus Ericsson Wins in Nashville as Dominant Colton Herta Crashes Out.
- Action Express Racing Wins At Road America, Claims 2nd Straight Victory.
- Colton Herta Ends Nashville Race Against Turn 9 Wall.
- Sad News – Bob Jenkins.
- Sad News – Ima Jean McDuffie.
- Loris Hezemans Driving for Reaume Brothers Racing in Xfinity Race at Indianapolis Road Course.
- Colin Garrett Returning to Sam Hunt Racing for Multiple Races Beginning at Michigan & Daytona.
- Watkins Glen post-race inspection complete.
- Chase Elliott Comes Up Just Short in Late Race Charge at Watkins Glen.