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Dillon brothers claim front row in qualifying for Xfinity race at Talladega

By Jerry BonkowskiMay 2, 2015, 12:36 PM EDT
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Brothers Austin and Ty Dillon made it a family affair during Xfinity Series qualifying Saturday at Talladega Superspeedway.

Austin earned his first career Xfinity pole at the 2.66-mile track, while younger brother Ty will start the Winn Dixie 300 race later Saturday afternoon alongside his sibling.

Austin’s speed was 180.540 mph, while Ty’s was 179.892 mph. It’s also Austin Dillon’s third Xfinity Series pole of the season, having also taken the green flag first at Daytona (finished 4th) and Las Vegas (won).

It was an outstanding qualifying session for Richard Childress Racing, which not only put the two Dillon brothers on the front row, but fellow RCR drivers Brian Scott (179.538 mph) and Brendan Gaughan (178.600 mph) also had strong runs, qualifying third and seventh, respectively.

“ECR engines obviously 1-2-3 right there, it says a lot about us,” Austin Dillon said.

Here’s how Saturday’s Xfinity Series qualifying played out:

1 Austin Dillon … 180.540 mph

2 Ty Dillon … 179.892

3 Brian Scott … 179.538

4 Erik Jones … 179.316

5 Boris Said … 179.312

6 Daniel Suarez … 179.054

7 Brendan Gaughan … 178.600

8 Darrell Wallace Jr. … 178.587

9 Ryan Reed … 178.587

10 Elliott Sadler … 178.384

11 Regan Smith … 178.357

12 Chris Buescher … 177.999

13 Dakoda Armstrong … 178.311

14 Chase Elliott … 178.085

15 Aric Almirola … 177.897

16 Joey Logano … 177.761

17 Kasey Kahne … 177.669

18 David Starr … 177.511

19 Jeffrey Earnhardt … 177.471

20 Brennan Poole … 177.445

21 John Wes Townley … 177.258

22 Kenny Wallace … 176.907

23 Mike Bliss … 176.666

24 Blake Koch … 176.659

25 Benny Gordon … 176.601

26 Cale Conley … 176.578

27 JJ Yeley … 176.438

28 Derek White … 176.104

29 Ryan Sieg … 176.084

30 Jeff Green … 175.832

31 Chad Boat … 175.581

32 Mark Thompson … 175.401

33 Mario Gosselin … 175.275

34 Eric McClure … Owner Points

35 Landon Cassill … Owner Points

36 Harrison Rhodes … Owner Points

37 Jeremy Clements … Owner Points

38 Ross Chastain … Owner Points

39 Joey Gase … Owner Points

40 Peyton Sellers … Owner Points

DID NOT QUALIFY: Chris Cockrum, Mike Harmon, Bobby Gerhart, Derrike Cope, Carlos Contreras

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NASCAR America at 6 p.m. ET: Las Vegas recap

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By Daniel McFadinSep 16, 2019, 5:30 PM EDT
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Today’s episode of NASCAR America airs from 6-7 p.m. ET on NBCSN and will look back at the weekend’s racing at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Steve Letarte will be joined by Kyle Petty and Nate Ryan.

If you can’t catch today’s show on TV, watch online at http:/nascarstream.nbcsports.com. If you plan to stream the show on your laptop or portable device, be sure to have your username and password from your cable/satellite/telco provider handy so your subscription can be verified.

Once you enter that information, you’ll have access to the stream.

Click here at 6 p.m. ET to watch live via the stream.

After Las Vegas incidents, Kurt Busch, Kyle Larson look for Richmond rebound

By Jerry BonkowskiSep 16, 2019, 1:59 PM EDT
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Sunday’s NASCAR Cup playoff opener at Las Vegas leaves Chip Ganassi Racing with a mixed bag of potential strategies to develop heading into the next race, this Saturday night at Richmond Raceway.

Kurt Busch, the first NASCAR playoff champion in 2004, was involved in a wreck at Vegas with eventual race winner Martin Truex Jr. on Lap 189 that knocked him out of the event, ending with a last-place finish of 39th.

“We were trying to go for the same spot in the middle, it wound up four-wide, got a fender rub and our day’s done,” Busch told NBCSN after he left the medical center. “It just happened that fast. Everyone wants to try to get to the middle and that’s where you make up the most spots and Truex and I were going for the same piece of real estate.”

As a result of the poor finish, Busch finds himself in 14th place among the 16 playoff contenders, a distant 63 points behind points leader Truex Jr.

How Busch rebounds at Richmond will go a long way toward determining whether he will advance to the Round of 12 following the Roval elimination race at Charlotte in two weeks. Busch is currently 14 points behind 12th-ranked Aric Almirola, but he is also only 12 points ahead of 16th-ranked Erik Jones.

There’s no question Busch is in need of a big comeback at Richmond, a track that he has had decent success at, including two wins (last time was in spring 2015), seven top five and 15 top-10 finishes in 37 career Cup starts there.

A win would immediately wipe out the Las Vegas nightmare and push Busch into Round 2.

And then there’s teammate Kyle Larson, who had a car that looked like it could challenge for the win at Vegas. But a costly pit road penalty — a behind-the-wall crew member trying to grab tires back over the wall slipped, touching the ground on pit road — pushed Larson back and he wound up playing catch-up the rest of the race. He settled for an eighth-place finish that potentially could have been a top five showing had it not been for the penalty.

“Our car was better than what I thought it was going to be,” Larson said. “We were able to battle up front there in the second stage. Then, we had the pit road penalty and had to come from the back.

“The restarts were crazy and I was just being safe. It probably cost us a little bit, but we still got a top-10 out of the day and some decent stage points. So, all-in-all, it wasn’t a bad day.”

Busch has one win this season, while Larson is still looking for his first.

“Our cars have definitely been good enough to win, we just have to put the whole races together at this point,” Larson said. “We want to win. We’ll keep working at it and hopefully we can knock one out before the season is over.”

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Best of the rest: How non-playoff drivers did in Las Vegas

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By Daniel McFadinSep 16, 2019, 11:47 AM EDT
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The Cup playoffs began Sunday night in Las Vegas, and the playoff drivers made their presence known by occupying every spot in the top 10.

But what about the rest?

The first 16 spots were not filled by the 16 playoff drivers. In fact, playoff drivers only made up 13 positions in the top 20.

Here’s a look at the top-finishing drivers who are not contending for the championship:

Jimmie Johnson – finished 11th

With him not participating in the playoffs for the first time in his career, the spotlight wasn’t focused on Johnson very often Sunday.

But the Hendrick Motorsports driver finally put together his first complete run six races into Cliff Daniels’ tenure as his crew chief.

It was their first race together to not be involved in some sort of incident and it saw Johnson earn his first top-15 finish with Daniels. It’s only his second top 15 in the last nine races.

Austin Dillon – Finished 12th

The Richard Childress Racing driver earned his second straight 12th-place finish and his third consecutive finish of 12th or better.

He’s earned a top-15 finish in four of the last five races. That’s after only having one in a 12-race stretch.

Dillon also finished sixth in Stage 1.

“When the caution came out on Lap 180, we pitted to take another swing at loosening up this Chevy,” Dillon said. “Unfortunately, we had an uncontrolled tire penalty but it did allow us to come back down pit road to top off with fuel and adjust on the car more. We got the car better and made a good strategy to stay out for track position during a late caution to pick up additional spots.”

Paul Menard – Finished 14th

Menard took part in his first race since announcing last week that he would retire from full-time competition after this season.

The Wood Brothers Racing driver kicked-off his final 10 races for the team with his sixth top-15 finish in the last nine races. He finished outside the top 15 just once in his last 11 starts at Las Vegas.

Ty Dillon – finished 16th

The Germain Racing driver earned his best finish at Las Vegas in five starts (previous was 24th).

Dillon has finished 20th or better in six of the last nine races.

Daniel Hemric – finished 17th

The rookie driver earned a top-20 finish after two straight DNFs for wrecks. He has only three top 20s in the last nine races.

“Our handling balance would swing a lot from being really tight and then halfway through the run it was like a light switch and I would get super, super loose,” Hemric said. “We got that better throughout the race and back to where I could run more throttle, which allowed us to move forward into the top 10 and be more aggressive on restarts and make some hay during those time. On that last green flag stop we just got a little too free to where I couldn’t make the most time coming off pit road and just struggled a bit on that last run.”

Chris Buescher – finished 18th

The JTG Daugherty Racing driver extended his streak of finishes inside the top 18 to 16 races. The streak began at Kansas Speedway on May 11.

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Brad Keselowski rebounds to ‘steal’ third-place finish in playoff opener

By Daniel McFadinSep 15, 2019, 11:43 PM EDT
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Usually when you see a race car on pit road with its hood up in the middle of a race, it’s a sign that a team’s race is over or will be soon.

It’s not typically a prelude to a third-place finish.

But that’s what happened to Brad Keselowski in Sunday’s Cup playoff opener at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

The adjustments made to his No. 2 Ford on pit road during the Stage 2 break, including adjustments to the front suspension, helped cure what was a “miserable” first 160 laps for Keselowski.

“Nothing I was doing was working,” Keselowski told NBCSN after his top-five finish. “We were losing spots to everybody out there.”

Keselowski, the race’s defending winner, qualified 18th. But while his Team Penske teammate Joey Logano went from 22nd to first in 34 laps, Keselowski was “just kind of bleeding positions.”

“I am disappointed we didn’t start the race any better than we did but very proud that we didn’t freak out and everyone kept their head on their shoulders,” Keselowski said.

After Stage 2, Keselowski pitted from 13th. He would pit twice under the caution before the start of the final stage.

“The team worked on it really hard there and got us back to a spot to where we could kind of almost steal a win,” Keselowski said. “I thought for a minute we might be able to.”

Keselowski thought if he had gained one or two spots on the final restart with 71 laps to go, he might have been the winner instead of Martin Truex Jr.

Instead, “we kind of stole a third place today,” Keselowski told NBCSN. “I guess I can’t complain. … Decent recovery, great fight. That’s kind of what these playoffs are about. Minimizing your bad days. That’s what we were able to do.”

Keselowski’s finish is his ninth straight top 10 at Las Vegas. He hasn’t finished worse than seventh on the 1.5-mile track since 2012.