Monday, November 02, 2015

The Frontstretch Newsletter: Jeff Gordon Claims Emotional Martinsville Win; Matt Kenseth Intentionally Wrecks Joey Logano

THE FRONTSTRETCH NEWSLETTER
Presented by Frontstretch.com
The Best Seat at the Track, The Best View on the Net!
Nov. 2, 2015
Volume IX, Edition CXCVII

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What to Watch: Monday

- Guess what, race fans?  There will be hot takes today from all over the NASCAR industry over Matt Kenseth's actions late in Sunday's race.

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Monday's TV Schedule can be found in Couch Potato Tuesday here.

Top News
by the Frontstretch Staff

Jeff Gordon Victorious in Martinsville

Jeff Gordon passed AJ Allmendinger for the lead with 22 laps to go, then held off Jamie McMurray on a two-lap dash to the checkered to take his first victory of 2015 and cash a ticket to the Championship round of the Chase in Homestead.  Denny Hamlin, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. and Kyle Busch rounded out the top-5 finishers in a finish overshadowed by Matt Kenseth intentionally wrecking leader Joey Logano on lap 455.  Read more

Matt Crafton Holds Off Tailgate Mob for Kroger 200 Victory

Saturday, Matt Crafton led the final 63 laps to claim his fifth victory of the season in the Kroger 200 and close up on Erik Jones in the points with three races to go.  John Hunter Nemechek finished second followed by Cameron Hayley, Cole Custer and Tyler Reddick.  Read more

Austin Cindric Grateful for Martinsville Opportunity

For 17-year-old Austin Cindric Martinsville was a learning experience.  The young racer who split 2015 between the IMSA Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge and Global RallyCross Lites had never driven a truck before being named to drive the No. 29 last weekend.  Cindric ran as high as sixth in the race before crashing and finishing 25th.  Read more

Have news for The Frontstretch?  Don't hesitate to let us know; email us at phil.allaway@frontstretch.com with a promising lead or tip.

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Chasing the Chase: Jeff Gordon's Ticket is Punched, 3 Likely Must Win
by Phil Allaway

Jeff Gordon did everything he needed to do in order to qualify for the Championship Round of the Chase Sunday.  While yes, he did get some help from Matt Kenseth, Gordon got around Denny Hamlin and AJ Allmendinger to take his first win of the year.  That victory also gives him the lead in the standings, opening up an eight-point gap over both Kyle Busch and Martin Truex, Jr.  Kyle Busch finished fifth and did not lead a lap while Truex ran sixth, leading 27 laps and earning a bonus point.

Kevin Harvick had a strong car Sunday but got bogged down in the pack late in the race. His eighth-place finish was good enough for fourth in the standings, just two points behind Kyle Busch and Truex.  Behind him, Carl Edwards is fifth, but he had quite the adventure getting there.  Edwards significantly damaged the front end of his XFINITY Toyota in a crash early on, then lost a lap during a long green-flag run.  The Matt Kenseth-Kurt Busch-Brad Keselowski crash allowed him to get back onto the lead lap and from there, Edwards moved up to a 14th-place result.

Brad Keselowski led 143 laps Sunday and was in position to battle for victory until contact with Matt Kenseth on the lap 435 restart broke his tie rod and forced him to the garage for repairs.  The incident cost him ten laps, dropping Edwards to a 32nd-place result.  Kurt Busch, meanwhile was wrecked in the same crash that put Keselowski inside the garage.  However, the damage on Kurt's Monster Energy Chevrolet was far more severe.  Kurt finished the race 14 laps down in 34th.  Finally, we have Joey Logano, who led 207 laps Sunday but fell victim to Kenseth's payback move on lap 455.  That's rough.

Eliminator Round Point Standings: 1) Jeff Gordon 4047, t-2) Kyle Busch -8, t-2) Martin Truex, Jr. -8, 4) Kevin Harvick -10, 5) Carl Edwards -17, 6) Brad Keselowski -34, 7) Kurt Busch -36, 8) Joey Logano -38.

Best of the Rest: 9) Denny Hamlin 2251, 10) Ryan Newman -20, 11) Dale Earnhardt, Jr. -30, 12) Jamie McMurray -50, 13) Matt Kenseth -54, 14) Jimmie Johnson -58, 15) Paul Menard -74, 16) Clint Bowyer -127, 17) Aric Almirola -1374, 18) Kasey Kahne -1379, 19) Kyle Larson -1439, 20) Greg Biffle -1445, 21) Austin Dillon -1496, 22) Casey Mears -1529.

Regular Point Standings (1-16): 1) Joey Logano 1213, 2) Kevin Harvick -21, 3) Dale Earnhardt, Jr. -104, 4) Brad Keselowski -119, 5) Martin Truex, Jr. -148, 6) Denny Hamlin -172, 7) Jimmie Johnson -180, 8) Matt Kenseth -204, 9) Carl Edwards -210, 10) Kurt Busch -215, 11) Jeff Gordon -216, 12) Ryan Newman -244, 13) Jamie McMurray -255, 14) Paul Menard -326, 15) Aric Almirola -336, 16) Kasey Kahne -341.

Drivers Outside the top 16 in the Chase: 21) Kyle Busch -475.

Race Winners: Joey Logano (Daytona-1, Watkins Glen, Bristol-2, Charlotte-2, Kansas-2, Talladega-2), Jimmie Johnson (Atlanta, Texas, Kansas-1, Dover-1), Kevin Harvick (Las Vegas, Phoenix, Dover-2), Brad Keselowski (Fontana), Denny Hamlin (Martinsville-1, Chicagoland), Matt Kenseth (Bristol-1, Pocono-2, Michigan-2, Richmond-2, Loudon-2), Kurt Busch (Richmond-1, Michigan-1), Dale Earnhardt, Jr. (Talladega-1, Daytona-2), Carl Edwards (Charlotte-1, Darlington), Martin Truex, Jr. (Pocono-1), Kyle Busch (Sonoma, Kentucky, Loudon-1, Indianapolis), Jeff Gordon (Martinsville-2).

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Letter of the Race: Sunday's Goody's Headache Relief Shot 500 was brought to you by the letter "I," for "Intentional Wreck." Despite Matt Kenseth claiming that he had some kind of tire issue it was pretty clear that he intentionally steered Joey Logano into the wall on lap 455 Sunday, ruining Logano's race and stoking angry emotions.  It took a lot of focus away from Jeff Gordon's big win.  - Phil Allaway

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Quotes to Remember: Goody's Headache Relief Shot 500
compiled by Phil Allaway

"Oh my gosh, I didn't think they could get any better but to win here at Martinsville in front of this crowd that stuck around...  I tell you, there's nothing better than crossing the finish line and having that kind of reaction from the crowd.  That reaction from my team and to have my family come up... this is unbelievable.  I feel like I'm dreaming right now.  I'm afraid I'm going to wake up and this is not going to be true.  We were just trying to do our best throughout the whole day… trying not to burn the rear tires off it, needing some long runs.  Of course, a lot of things unfolded that were unfortunate but sometimes you have to be there and take advantage of those opportunities.  This team did that today.  I'm so proud of them.  So proud of Alan, this whole team, they have been working so hard and we wanted this moment so bad and here it is.  It happened." - Jeff Gordon, race winner

"Not as bad as our car was for the first 40 laps of a run, obviously we had a very, very fast car after that. All these short runs and everything just killed us and we just went backwards on every restart. That's kind of where we sealed our fate there at the end with the 47 (AJ Allmendinger), he held us down there just enough to where I was tight and I didn't want to jam him up in the wall. I was trying as hard as I could to keep him out there and he cleared me and the next thing you know the 24 (Jeff Gordon) is coming with tires. I'm proud of our FedEx Ground team, that didn't keep us from having a good day. There were two pit road penalties and that's just the driver trying to make too much up on pit road, trying to do too much and obviously I come for a grandfather clock – that's the only reason I come to this place. Happy for Jeff and those guys, that's a good win for that team. Looks like Kyle (Busch) and those guys are doing okay as well. Hopefully, we get some of these JGR cars to Homestead and hopefully they can race him. [As far as payback goes] I don't even know anymore, the structure in which we have around us is not very strong as far as an authority figure saying, 'No, you cannot do that anymore.' It's just tough for us because this is what's been created. I love Brian France, but when he says that drivers are doing what they have to do, it seems like he's promoting this type of racing so that's tough to crown a true champion when things go like this." - Denny Hamlin, finished third

"It was not quite the day that we wanted but we had a really great M&M's Crispy Camry. The car was fast today and [we] made a mistake early on and got in the water there with the 3 (Austin Dillon) car and we spun out there. I hate it that I did that. From that point, we kind of bent the front end of the car a little bit. It wasn't the same from there on out but we just kept working on it and kept making good changes to the car. Adam (Stevens, crew chief) and the guys did a really good job for me and we were able to come home with a top-5 finish. I felt like we had a top-5 car and the way the restarts kind of worked out at the end, it worked out in our favor and just real proud of that effort. We'll go on from here." - Kyle Busch, finished fifth

"Kasey (Kahne) and I both did.  That was what was really cool; seeing two Team Chevy drivers come from the back like that. He and I both worked pretty good going through the pack there.  I'm happy with it.  Getting hung on the outside is just the kiss of death here.  We have struggled here the last three races that we have run.  We did something in Happy Hour with this second car that, to be honest, it was actually something I had a little input on.  I'm not very smart and it wasn't because of me for sure, but it was Chad (Johnston, crew chief) and I everybody working together and trying to find a solution that might fix our problem.  We kind of made the change and stuck with it and knew that we weren't exactly where we wanted to be in Happy Hour but felt like in the race it was going to be better and it was." - Tony Stewart, finished tenth

"I got hit from behind and pushed me into the 20 and my right-front wheel hit Kenseth's left-rear and it just broke the right-front suspension off the car.  The car wouldn't turn and just kept going straight until I couldn't do anything and I started wrecking everybody.  I just didn't have any steering wheel left." - Brad Keselowski, finished 32nd

"I got clipped by everybody and it was just collateral damage off turn two.  Our Monster Energy Chevrolet SS was where we needed to be.  We were running third with a set of fresh tires and 70 laps to go.  And who knew that restart was going to get that crazy.  When you are an innocent victim of collateral damage, it's tough.  We put in a solid year and this is a fantastic team, this No. 41 team.  We were debuting a new sponsor in Monster Energy today.  Thanks to Gene Haas, Haas Automation and everybody at Stewart-Haas.  We are down but we're not out.  We can go to Texas and win, we can win at Phoenix, and we want to get an invite to Homestead.  You know, Jeff Gordon hasn't won all year and I knew he had Martinsville circled on his schedule, and he won today.  Congratulations to Jeff." - Kurt Busch, finished 34th

"Yeah.  I think what happened at Kansas is a completely different deal.  We were racing for the win and he blocks you a few times and then we raced hard and he blocked me the last time and we spun out.  That's what happened there.  Here, it was just a complete coward move, especially for a championship race car driver and race team.  Just a complete coward.  I don't have anything else to say. It's a chicken-you-know-what move to completely take out the leader when your race is over.  We'll move on.  We're gonna work hard and we're gonna get our car back out there hopefully.  We've just got to go win." - Joey Logano, finished 37th

"Well, it's a really disappointing day. I thought we were going to have a shot at the win there and they [Team Penske] were jacking up the restart real bad to let each other in as teammates, which is fine and I probably went in there and I got on the other side of Joey (Logano) and I was going to try to race him for the win and Brad (Keselowski) wiped me out for some reason. I'm not really sure why. And then we had so much damage on the right front I should have probably just put it in the garage and just got into (turn) 1 and couldn't get it to turn and ran Joey over. So, disappointing ending for sure. There's people that say a lot of things. The splitter was dragging the ground and got into the corner and certainly ruined his day. I know what it's like to be that too. Some days you're the bat, some days you're the ball. It's never fun when you're the ball so like I said it's a disappointing end, a disappointing end to our Chase and he's (Joey Logano) got a couple races left, he's got the best car, he might get a couple of wins here and still have a shot at it. Certainly disappointed it came down to that. Man, I was out there trying to race as hard as I could for Dollar General and try to get the win. I really thought we were going to have a shot for the win before they got me the first time. Disappointed to get wiped out twice in the last four weeks with a shot to win, for sure." - Matt Kenseth, finished 38th (parked by NASCAR)

"I got hung up on the outside there and just got turned. Not sure what happened but we still had a long way to go. A little patience would have gone a long way there." - Clint Bowyer, finished 43rd (Crashed Out)

Phil Allaway is the Newsletter Manager for Frontstretch.  He can be reached via e-mail at phil.allaway@frontstretch.com.

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by Jerry Jordan

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FRONTSTRETCH TRIVIA:

Q:  Prior to the construction of Texas Motor Speedway there were USAC Gold Crown races run at Texas World Speedway near College Station.  The run-up to the 1978 Texas 200 was marred by protests.  What happened?

Check back Tuesday for the answer, here in the Frontstretch Newsletter!

Friday's Answer:

Q:  Last year, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. celebrated in Victory Lane at Martinsville, something that he considered quite the achievement.  Back in his rookie year, the then-NAPA AutoCare 500 was a nightmare for Earnhardt Jr.  What happened?

A: First, Earnhardt Jr. blew a right front tire in turn 2 and stopped on track to draw the second caution of the race.  By lap 185, Earnhardt Jr. was 41st, nine laps down.  Bobby Hamilton and Kenny Wallace spun to bring out the yellow.  Earnhardt Jr. wasn't involved in the caution but Stacy Compton basically ran over his left front corner, putting him behind the wall.

Late in the race, Earnhardt Jr. drove up the right rear of another car and went hard into the wall in turn 1 to bring out the 13th caution, which ended his day.

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COMING TOMORROW

In The Frontstretch Newsletter:
We'll have breaking news from Monday and S.D. Grady returns with Sitting In The Stands: A Fan's View.

On Frontstretch.com:
Danny Peters returns with Five Points to Ponder after Sunday's race in Martinsville.
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