 By: Thomas Luttermoser Images Via Kurt Busch Twitter & screenshot Via FS1 Broadcast Winners Kurt Busch - Kurt Busch finally breaks his 27 race winless streak and scored 23XI their second win in the Cup Series. This marks the first time the Jordan brand has graced a NASCAR Cup Car and the elder Busch brother brought MJ's brand to Rouff Mortgage Victory Lane after leading 116 laps. Kurt has been a shining light to 23XI with this marking his 5th Top-10 & 3rd Top-5 of the season. He was hired to win races and mentor Bubba Wallace and he seems to be toing just fine. He also now marks the first driver to win in a Dodge, Chevrolet, Ford and now a Toyota. Toyota - Toyota had by far their Best outing of the season yesterday at the AdventHealth 400 at Kansas. JGR/23XI put all 6 cars into the Top-10 including 23XI's race winning Jordan Branded 45 Camry driven by seasoned veteran Kurt Busch. He was followed in P3 by little brother Kyle Busch, P4 was held by his team owner Denny Hamlin, P5 Christopher Bell, P6 Martin Truex Jr & rounding up the Top 10 with Bubba Wallace. Wallace could have very easily scored a finish much higher if not for a massive mishap on pit road on behalf of his pit crew. 23XI Racing - With Kurt Busch scoring the team their second win and their first of the season being followed up in 10th by Bubba Wallace. 23XI Racing showed up ready for war at Kansas. Kurt led a race high 116 laps and late in the race made some impressive passes from 3rd passed the Kyle & Kyle show to get that win. Bubba ran his way deep into the Top-10 several times throughout the race and made it as far up as 5th getting passed a hard charging Chase Elliott later in the race. His 10th place finish was in no way shape or form a true show of the way the driver of the McDonalds Camry showed tremendous speed and agility through the entire race. His Pit crew on the other hand...... Ricky Stenhouse Jr - Ricky ran very well for majority of Sundays Kansas race with an average running position of 13.369 including leading 3 laps. This 8th place finish showed a bit more consistency for the JTG Daugherty racing team than usual for the season. This is the teams 4th Top-10 of the season and 3rd in a row. Does this show what could continue for the season or is it just some luck from the racing Gods? We all know Ricky is aggressive but with 9 finishes of 21st or worse... it has yet to be seen this season.  Losers
GoodYear Tires - One of the big stories of the weekend was unfortunately once again tire failures. They plagued the Leaders and drivers near the rear of the field with big names such as (while leading) William Byron, Martin Truex Jr, Tyler Reddick, Chase Elliott & Daniel Suarez who ended up in the outside wall. Now this may have been a camber issue or a tire issue but that information has yet to become public. Chase Elliott - Although Chase still commands a 52 point lead in the standings, this weekends 29th place finish was by far his worst of the season. On lap 195 just after being passed for 5th by Bubba Wallace, Elliott's Left Rear tire came completely off the rim and caused him to spin wildly into the infield grass, on top of this... (I have to try not to laugh) The wrecker got stuck in the mud as well while trying to push him free after heavy rains the night and morning before. Luckily for him there was no contact with other cars or the wall producing no damage to the 9 car. Elliott ended up 3 laps down only able to gain 2 spots from 31st when un-stuck. Bubba Wallace's Pit Crew - Although scoring a 10th place finish and a spectacular amount of speed all race long. Bubba managed to race his way as high as 5th place. The downfall being, he could have very easily had a chance for a Top-5 or potentially an opportunity to race for the win with his teammate. Nearly Every pit cycle Wallace's pit crew lost him spots on pit road. He overcame each and every time impressively but it does bring up the "what could have been" thoughts. Erik Jones - Erik Jones has strung together a few impressive runs over the early part of this season, enough to get himself into playoff contention after a few weekends. But this weekend Erik had a bit of an issue... and not of anyone's doing, but just pure dumb bad luck. The 43 PettyGMS team ran Top-10/Top-15 majority of the first 80+ laps of the race until a freak issue occurred with his Right Rear lug basically freezing in place on the hub. The 43 Team worked admirably to get the lug off over a few pit stops and ran an entire green flag run on only 3 fresh tires. But the team ended up having to Sawzall the rim off the car to get access to remove the lug. unfortunately bringing the team 7 laps down to a 32nd place finish.
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 By Tom Luttermoser. Image Via NASCAR.com
2014 marks Chase Elliott's first national series championship. In 2014 He ran the #9 for JR Motorsports where he won the title along with 3 races in his rookie season for Dale Jr & his sister Kelly. You also have to go back to Daytona 2016 to find Elliott's last win in the series despite running 15 races since. You also have to go back to last years 2021 Pennzoil 150 at the Indy Road Course to find Chase's last entry in the series where he finished 4th. Tomorrow's Mahindra ROXOR 200 at Richmond markst the first entry for the Xfinity Series for Chase Chase has a very respectable average Xfinity finish of 9.4 since that last win in 2016. He also, has won himself a Cup Series title 2 CW Truck Series races and 14 Cup Races since then as well. Chase has only 1 Darlington victory in the Xfinity Series and you cannot say the same with the Truck or Cup series. He has a best finish of 4th at the Track Too Tough to Tame in the Cup Series back in the 1st race back Post Covid. Since then he has only finished P. 38, 20, 7, 31 respectively in Hendrick Cup equipment. The 88 car of JR motorsports has to go back to Dale Jr himself and Richmond 2016 to find it's last victory since being removed from the JRM full time roster and Chase was last in the ride at Daytona in 2018. The team hasn't seen a slew of success since 2009 with future Cup Champion Brad Keselowski behind the wheel. The car has not had spectacular performances since going part-time with it's best finish being 4th with none other than Jr behind the wheel at Richmond again. Chase will have a tough field to conquer tomorrow with previous winners such as Brandon Jones and last years winners (his teammates) Justin Allgaier & Noah Gragson. This has not been a spectacular track for Chase but he is in the car to get it done in my opinion.  By: Tom Luttermoser Images Via Chase Elliott Twitter & Tom Luttermoser capture of FS1 broadcast Winners! Chris Buescher - Chris scored his first Career Pole award in the NASCAR Cup Series showing that RFK has got some speed this year with the new car. RFK has 2 (non-points paying) wins this season at Daytona in terms of the duels with RFK Co-Owner Brad Keselowski & Chris himself scoring those but a very strong early run leading the first 18 laps, scoring 5 stage points in both stages & topping it all off with his 3rd top-10 of the season shows serious potential going into the summer months. Ricky Stenhouse Jr. - Ricky scored his best finish of the season with a runner up 2nd place. with his strong late race run yesterday, This was his best finish in over a year. We're having to go back to last spring's Dirt Race at Bristol to find his last Top-5 finish. Ricky has had some strong runs with the Next-Gen car including the Daytona 500 earlier this season but despite those runs been forced out of contention for good finishes for one reason or another from several races. This team is 27th in the standings and even with this fantastic run, at this point it looks like only a win will get them a playoff spot. Maybe this can be a shot of adrenaline for the team in their second year together. Chase Elliott - Chase Elliott is no stranger to victory lane, But it had been 46 races since his last time at an oval track. His win at yesterday's DuraMAX Drydene 400 at Dover was his second win at the Monster Mile in the Cup Series and Hendrick's 22nd and the team's second in a row. Elliott led 70 laps on his way to his first victory of the season putting him 3rd in terms of overall laps led on the year with 349 just behind his friend Ryan Blaney @ 370 and his teammate Willy B with a career best 520 laps led on the season. Erik Jones - Jones, like Stenhouse, has had some great runs this season with the newly minted PettyGMS. Erik has led 46 laps so far this season and scored 4 Top-10s so far (6 total last season). This is so far a good start to the season for my fellow Michigan boy despite his 2 DNFs and his 10th place finish jumped him up +3 points above the cut line for the playoffs. Without the 2 DNFs I'm fairly certain he would be all but locked in. Justin Haley - Justin and the #31 Kaulig Racing team have had some decent runs this season with the 2 previous best being 11th at the newly reconfigured Atlanta Motor Speedway and 12th at Talladega. Both of these tracks are a track type that Justin has performed well and won at in the Xfinity Series.. the Super Speedway type package. Yesterday's Dover race shows a bit of an improvement at 11th over their pervious Intermediate type track finish of 17th at Vegas. Leading 18 laps and remaining in the top-10 & Top-15 for a majority of the race, Justin is showing improvement at almost the right time. Now let's see if he can keep it consistent.  Losers
Team Penske - As a whole, Team Penske lost. With the 2 & 22 ending up with heavy wall contact resulting in a DVP (damaged vehicle policy) DNF for the 2 resulting in a dead last finish and a 29th place finish for Joey Logano, it just wasn't their day. The only highlight was for the 12 of 2nd in points Ryan Blaney's ability to stay out on old tires and hold off the hard charging Kyle Busch for the Stage 2 win. Despite this, Ryan and the 12 team finished an abysmal 26th position 3 laps down to race winner Chase Elliott. Denny Hamlin - Denny led a season high 65 Laps and showed the ability to run down and pass leaders including a pass to win Stage 1. That joy was short lived though as leaving pit lane first ended up costing him dearly. The Right Front tire was not tightened as the lug ended up in the 22's pit stall and the tire came right off the car as Hamlin left pit road. Obviously resulting in a team penalty, this also sent Denny right to the back of the pack to 29th. He used all of Stage 2 and showed just how strong his #11 FedEx Camry was by running himself back up to 4th until lap 241 when Cody Ware spun on the front stretch and peeled half of the 11's composite body off the right side. Denny never recovered fully and ended up 1 lap down in 21st. Kurt Busch - An "OK" start to the day ended up as a 12 lap down 31st place finish after lap 187 contact with AJ Allmendinger while running 15th. Kurt's Monster Energy #45 Camry suffered both front and rear body damage just absolutely ruining his day while his teammate had a late race opportunity at a top-10 finishing 16th. This is Kurt's 4th time finishing outside of the Top-30. the 45 team has shown a few glimmers off hope with 2 Top-5s and 4 Top-10s but he now leaves Dover 20th in points. Only a serious change in pace will get him into the Top-16 and with now 9 different winners including 2 outside of 16th, his chances of pointing his way into the playoffs shrink by the week as the entry point is now 14th in points.  by: Tom Luttermoser Image Via Front Row Motorsports Twitter
With Chris Buescher scoring his first ever pole and leading 18 laps yesterday. he ends the Stage with 3 points in 7th at stage end today. A rain delay before even finishing Stage 1 lasting until today at noon brought us to some beautiful blue skies and some fantastic racing. Stage 1 Results
Stage 2 was riddled with tire issues. Denny Hamlin after losing a tire off pit road ran back to 4th when he was clipped by a spinning Cody Ware. Larson around, Kurt Busch.. Very eventful. Ryan Blaney & Harrison Burton stayed out on the late Stage Caution, Blaney Held off a hard charging fresh tire'd Kyle Busch for his 4th stage win of the year. Burton finished 8th. Stage 2 Results
Total Stage Points earned for the day;
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