|
 It was the first of the 10-race Chase for the Sprint Cup
championship postseason.
Hamlin's Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Carl Edwards finished second,
Kurt Busch was third, Ryan Newman fourth, and a third JGR driver,
Matt Kenseth, rounded out the top five.
The yellow flag waved for the sixth and final time with six laps to
go, erasing a 3.5 seconds lead by Busch. Busch, Jeff Gordon and
Hamlin stayed out while everyone else on the lead lap pitted for new
tires. After battling Gordon for second on the restart, Hamlin took
the lead from Busch. Gordon dropped outside the top 10 by the
checkered flag.
Hamlin went a lap down early in the race, spinning after contact
with Jimmie Johnson on lap two. Edwards and Busch also fell off the
lead lap in the first half of the race. Edwards went a lap down
because of a pit road speeding penalty just past lap 50 of the
267-lap race. Busch went down a lap on lap 87 after making slight
impact with a retaining wall, cutting down tires. All three drivers
stayed out to take wave-arounds during a lap-122 caution to get back
on the lead lap and benefitted from another yellow flag a few laps
later.
After getting back on the lead lap and on the same pit sequence as
the other front-runners, Busch was in position to take the lead from
his brother, Kyle Busch, with 46 laps to go. Inside the final 20
laps, Kyle Busch lost second to Gordon.
Kyle Busch dominated the first half of the race, leading 93 laps
between taking the lead on lap 46 and losing the lead to Jeff Gordon
on a restart following a lap 137 caution. Gordon gave up the lead on
lap 185 at the start of a green-flag pit cycle. When the yellow flag
waved in the middle of the cycle, Gordon pitted again and restarted
sixth while Kyle Busch and Kurt Busch restarted on the front row.
Kevin Harvick had started on the pole, but lost the lead to Martin
Truex Jr. on a restart following the first caution that came out on
lap two for an incident between Denny Hamlin and A.J. Allmendinger.
Truex led 39 laps before Busch took over command of the race.
[to top of second column] |
After the first caution, the race ran green for 117 laps before the
second yellow flag on lap 122. During the lengthy green-flag run,
Kyle Busch managed to put all but 12 cars a lap down.
Kevin Harvick ran second to Kyle Busch through most of the long
green-flag run early in the race, but Harvick and Jimmie Johnson
made contact on a restart following the third caution of the race
around the halfway point of the 267-lap event. As a result, Harvick
suffered a tire rub and slammed into the wall, bringing out the
fourth yellow flag on lap 137. Harvick headed to the garage after
the incident.
NOTES: Kyle Larson pulled NASCAR triple-duty at Chicagoland
Speedway, running the Camping World Truck Series race and Xfinity
Series race, in addition to Sunday's Sprint Cup Series race. He ran
out of gas in the closing laps of both the truck and Xfinity races.
... Sprint Cup Series drivers Kyle Busch and Matt Kenseth finished
first and second in the Xfinity Series race at Chicagoland on
Saturday. ... Both the No. 2 Team Penske Ford team of Brad
Keselowski and the No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet team of
Dale Earnhardt Jr. made pit crew personnel changes in the days
leading up to Sunday's race. ... Keselowski won last year's race at
Chicagoland Speedway.
-----------------------------------------------
[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
