Young drivers show their power
FORT WORTH – Five takeaways from the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 race at Texas Motor Speedway as teams prepare for Bristol Speedway and the second short-track race of the season this weekend.
Youth served: TMS President Eddie Gossage has signage promoting the young drivers on the circuit, and they delivered Sunday. Erik Jones, Ryan Blaney, Darrell Wallace Jr. and William Bryon were four of the seven drivers featured on the poster, and all four posted top-10 finishes. Jones led the charge by finishing fourth, contending for a win and leading twice for 64 laps.
“We’ve been kind of inching there each week, getting closer and closer,” said Jones, who is 11th in points.
It could have been worse for Harvick: Joe Gibbs said his team has had issues with the NASCAR-issued pit guns all teams use. Race winner Kyle Busch’s crew chief, Adam Stevens, said the same thing.
But it was Kevin Harvick who was most upset Sunday as he believed the guns led to two bad stops and forced his team to take a green-flag stop for a loose wheel. He’s confident that cost him a chance at his fourth win of the season as he instead settled for second.
“We’ve had four of five issues with the pit gun as we’ve gone through the year,” Harvick said. “It’s unfortunate we have to use a piece of equipment that’s handed to us and that dictates your day.”
As angry as Harvick was, his team caught a break. It should have been penalized when a tire got away from the crew on his final pit stop. No penalty was issued. Had it been, he almost certainly would not have finished second behind Kyle Busch.
Another bad day for JJ:
Jimmie Johnson’s rough start to 2018 continued. He started ninth but got a lap down early because of a tire issue.
Johnson wasn’t on the lead lap when Aric Almirola and Denny Hamlin made contact. That sent Hamlin spinning into Johnson.
Time to roll for Busch: Busch had done everything but win a race in 2018 before Sunday. Now that Busch has accomplished his first win, the points leader could start pulling away from the field. Busch has won six times at Bristol, including last fall.
“I still feel like we need to improve more and more,” Busch said. “It feels good to be able to run as fast as we are with still the improvements I think we can make. We go to another couple of really good tracks for us the next couple of weeks . ... I’m looking forward to that.”
Speaking of Bristol: The series heads to the short track at Bristol for the Food City 500. Hopefully the action will be better than the racing at the first short-track stop at Martinsville, where Clint Bowyer won a race that featured just one caution that wasn’t either a competition caution or end-of-stage caution.