Dover 2022 Winners and Losers

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.