Sunday Indianapolis Motor Speedway:
INDIANAPOLIS — Jeff Gordon may have won the 21st annual Crown Royal presents The John Wayne Walding 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, but Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) finished second, third and fourth on Sunday, turning some heads as the 2014 edition of The Chase nears.
What’s more important from JGR is the team is showing gradual improvement as The Chase inches closer and with a little more work, they could give Hendrick Motorsports a run for their money for the 10-race shootout. Even though Matt Kenseth is (still) winless this season, the recent performance surge from the Huntersville, North Carolina-based team has him solidly fourth in the championship standings, safely secure with a Chase spot.
But why that’s all fine and dandy, Kyle Busch, who led the Joe Gibbs Racing train on Sunday with a second-place finish said that JGR needs to turn those strong finishes into wins.
“I finished second at Kentucky, Loudon and here. We had some good races going. It would be certainly more beneficial to pick up some trophies, take some trophies home, get some of those benefits for the Chase,” said Busch. “Three second places, that’s 11 extra points that you miss out on. That sucks pretty big for the Chase and for those bonus points
“But, you know, if we keep going that way, then things will pay off sooner or later. We’ll start winning some.”
Third-place finisher Denny Hamlin, after starting 27th drove the wheels off his No. 11 FedEx Express Toyota Camry agrees that Joe Gibbs Racing needs to win, but also noted that you need fast racecars too.
“Our focus all year has been to build the best racecars we did for September because that’s when it really, really counts,” offered Hamlin, who matched his best-career finish at the 2.5-mile speedway since 2008. “You can lead the regular season. You can have 10 wins before the Chase starts. If you have one bad race or you don’t run as well for those first three races of the Chase, you’re out.
“So our biggest thing is trying to time this correctly and trying to get our cars to run well in the fall when it really, really counts. So we’re starting to turn the corner, I feel like, for that reason. We’ve been working hard to try to run well all year. We really have. We’ve been off. But our cars are starting to turn that corner and become more competitive, obviously.”
Of course, you cannot base the team’s chances off of just one race, especially Indianapolis Motor Speedway, a track like none other on the schedule, but the team’s attitude and determination is sailing.
Like every team in the Sprint Cup Series garage, they know Hendrick Motorsports is the team to beat come Chicagoland Speedway in September, but if JGR continues to dish out similar performances like they did Sunday, it could setup one of the best possible team battles in The Chase that we’ve ever seen.
KASEY KAHNE COMES UP SHORT; SETTLES FOR SIXTH:
He led the most laps on Sunday at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, 70 in fact, but when the checkered flag waived in the Crown Royal presents The John Wayne Walding 400, Kahne had virtually nothing to show for it.
Without question, Kahne and Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jeff Gordon had the best two cars in the 43-car field Sunday, but a botched late-race restart, not to mention the stress of possibly running out of fuel proved to be the smoking guns to leave the driver of the No. 5 Time Warner Cable Chevrolet SS frustrated with his sixth-place result and still not locked into The Chase.
“We had a really good car, and I was happy with the speed of the car. Just didn’t get the win but we were close. The team had a really great effort and did a nice job. I was really happy with that.”
“I mean the positive is I finished sixth. If I wouldn’t have done that I would have finished dead last on the lead lap. There are positives we ran well. It is the strongest effort the team has put out all season long. All of us working together, yeah, we can take a lot out of here. That was a good performance today.”
Of course on the final restart of the afternoon, Kahne decided to take the bottom lane, the exact place where Gordon wanted him to go, but Kahne at the time felt like that’s what he needed to be to win the race.
“Looking back, I should have chosen the top (lane) obviously; but I pretty much let Jeff (Gordon) control that last restart. I took off and never spun a tire. And the inside had been more grip; in a straight line throughout the race. And I had started on both sides. So I thought I made the right decision. I didn’t spin a tire and Jeff was driving by me like before we were even at the second red.
“But either way, he was going to pass me in (Turns) 1 and 2. So looking back, I probably should have chosen the top and that would have put us in a better place. But we ended up sixth. Because of that, I was able to save fuel and make it. If I had beat him, I would have had to race the heck out of him. He was faster than I was. So, we probably would have finished a lot worse. So, I guess for points it was good. I would have loved to win at the Brickyard. We had a good car. I thought I gave it all I had. The team gave it all they had and we just came up a little short.”
Despite vaulting to 15th in the championship standings with his eighth top-10 finish of the year, Kahne isn’t locked into the Chase. With Aric Almirola (22nd) and Kurt Busch (25th) hailing victories, they hold a spot in the Chase heading into Chicagoland Speedway in about a month and Kahne despite barely nestled inside the top-16 does not.
But the good news? Kahne still has six more races to earn his first win of the season and virtually guarantee him a spot in the championship Chase.
Even better?
Five of those six remaining tracks are places that Kahne runs well.
STEWART HAAS RACING MISSES THEIR MARK:
In a race where Tony Stewart has won the Crown Royal presents The John Wayne Walding 400 twice in his paramount NASCAR Sprint Cup Series career, Sunday’s race is one that the Columbus, Indiana native would soon like to soon forget.
Furthermore, Stewart, a two-time Cup Series champion couldn’t capitalize on one of his strong starting positions of the year. While the 160-lap race started off strong for the man dubbed as Smoke, he went backwards and never recovered. The effort was tough to swallow for the driver of the No. 14 Mobil 1 / Bass Pro Shops Chevrolet SS, as he had been marked by many as a potential race favorite on Sunday.
But, Stewart was the only member of his Stewart Haas Racing clan to struggle.
Kurt Busch, driver of the No. 41 Haas Automation Chevrolet struggled to find their groove on Sunday. Busch, the 25-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series winner after qualifying seventh plummeted like Stewart and settled for a discouraging 28th place finish.
Danica Patrick in her No. 10 GoDaddy Chevrolet SS had a good car on Sunday and while her teammates lost their footing at the 2.5-mile speedway, Patrick, the highest finishing female in Indianapolis 500 history held her own inside the top-15 until rear axle problems sent her to the garage approaching Lap 73.
She later returned to the race finishing 42nd.
“We looked at everything, and it looks like the launch was fine,” Patrick said. “It’s just one of those things. It’s too bad and these things never happen when you’re having a bad day (laughs). We were having a good day. It’s disappointing and the GoDaddy guys built me a really good car. Hendrick gave me great horsepower. We were the fastest car out there at times. We qualified better and had a good car for the race, it just didn’t end the way we wanted it to. The good thing is, I get to come back to Indy and that makes me happy.”
While Patrick could salvage her finish with a return trip to the bricks, Stewart is being haunted by still being winless 20 races into the season. And he’s running out of time to get that win.
Following Indy, Stewart sits 19th, 30 points behind Austin Dillon for the last Chase spot. Time is running out and at a point in the season where Stewart is normally known to explode with greatness, everyone’s left wondering when or if that will happen.
INSPECTION REVEALS POSSIBLE ISSUES WITH NO. 11 TOYOTA (Reid Spencer / NASCAR Wire Service):
During post-race inspection, NASCAR found what the sanctioning body called “possible issues” with several rear firewall block-off plates on the third-place No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota driven by Denny Hamlin.
The parts were confiscated and taken to NASCAR’s research-and-development center in Concord, North Carolina, for further inspection and evaluation.
If penalties are warranted, they are likely to be announced during the coming week, as is NASCAR’s custom.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
