Truex wins at Las Vegas; Kyle Busch, Logano brawl on pit road
RESULTS AT RACE REPORT
March 12, 2017
By Reid Spencer
NASCAR Wire Service
LAS
VEGAS – In a race whose aftermath left hometown driver Kyle Busch with a
bloody forehead, Martin Truex Jr. passed the faltering car of Brad
Keselowski on the white-flag lap
and cruised to a sweep of all three stages in Sunday’s Kobalt 400 at
Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
As
Truex approached the checkered flag to win a Monster Energy NASCAR Cup
Series race for the first time this season and the first time at LVMS,
Joey Logano’s Ford slid up into
Kyle Busch’s Toyota in a battle for third position. Busch spun into the
inside wall on pit road and limped across the finish line in 22nd
place.
Logano
salvaged fourth behind Truex, runner-up Kyle Larson and Chase Elliott,
but the battle wasn’t over when Truex took the checkers. Busch hustled
up pit road to confront Logano
and threw a punch at Logano’s head.
Logano’s
crew stepped into the fray, and took Busch to the pavement. In the
melee, Busch sustained a bloody bruise to his forehead.
That
battle stole some of the thunder from the afternoon-long battle between
the dominant cars of Truex, who led 150 of the 267 laps, and
Keselowski, who led 89.
Keselowski
appeared well on his way to his second straight Monster Energy NASCAR
Cup Series victory when he radioed suddenly that something had broken on
his No. 2 Team Penske
Ford. As Keselowski slowed on the next-to-last lap, Truex passed him
off Turn 2.
Busch
and Logano ducked to the inside to avoid Keselowski on the backstretch
and made contact as they approached Turn 3. Logano drove hard into the
corner and couldn’t keep his
car beneath Busch’s through Turns 3 and 4.
But
if Busch and Logano came to blows, Truex had nothing but reason to
celebrate his serendipitous victory in the newly redesigned 2018 Toyota
Camry. This win was his eighth
in the series, with four coming last year, and he became the first Cup
driver to sweep all three stages of a single race under the competition
format adopted this season.
“We
definitely had our share of races where we’ve dominated and gave one
away, and it looked like today was going to be another one of those,”
said Truex, who fell behind Keselowski
after a restart on Lap 259. “The runs just didn’t work out the way we
needed them. We were struggling on the really long runs.
“We
had to run that last set of tires on that last caution longer than we
did all race long (from Lap 211 until caution for Danica Patrick’s blown
engine on Lap 252. I was out
of control, and Brad was really good on the long run. I hate that he
had problems. He was strong and we weren’t going to do anything with
him, but then he lost the brakes or something. A little bit of a gift,
but we’ve given some away, so it feels good to
come out on the good end for once.”
Keselowski,
who held on to the fifth spot, was on the receiving end of a gift last
week in Atlanta, when Kevin Harvick sped on pit road and surrendered the
lead late in the second
Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race of the season. Accordingly, the
driver of the No. 2 Ford was philosophical about the change in fortunes
at Las Vegas.
But he didn’t know precisely what had happened to his car.
“No,
they’ll have to take it apart,” Keselowski said. “At the end, we have
to go to inspection and stuff, so we’re not allowed to look. I just know
it was something major. It
wouldn’t turn and I lost brakes, so that’s a pretty good indicator, but
that’s the way it goes. That’s racing and that’s why you watch until
the end and you never know what’s going to happen.
No comments:
Post a Comment