Johnson climbing
Penske, Gibbs teams endure rough patches
Jimmie Johnson is ascending the list of all-time Cup race winners as two other teams are struggling,
DOVER, DEL. Jimmie Johnson’s third win of the season and 83rd of his career was the top story line from the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race at Dover International Speedway. He tied boyhood idol Cale Yarborough for sixth on the career wins list.
Richard Petty has 200 victories and seems untouchable. David Pearson is at 105. Former Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jeff Gordon, who retired from fulltime driving in 2014, has 93. Bobby Allison and Darrell Waltrip are tied for fourth at 84. No one knows how much longer Johnson will be behind the wheel, but, at 41, it seems third place on the list is within his grasp. He averages 5.2 wins a season.
While the seven-time Cup champion continues to nab victories and grab headlines, his was not the only big moment Sunday:
uFence climber: John Infanti, 43, of Greenwood, Del., ascended the Turn 4 fence during a green-flag run in the AAA 400. Dover police spokesman Mark Hoffman told USA TODAY Sports in a text message that Infanti “kicked an officer in the knee while we took him into custody. ... Simply running from the police is a misdemeanor, but when he kicked our officer, that makes it ‘with force.’ ”
The kick resulted in a felony charge for resisting arrest. Infanti also faces two misdemeanor counts: disorderly conduct and of- fensive touching of a police officer.
uDoldrums: An unsatisfying run continues for Team Penske. Brad Keselowski was racing inside the top five and otherwise minding his own business when Kurt Busch’s No. 41 Ford wobbled and checked him into the wall. Keselowski’s No. 2 Ford could not be repaired, and he finished 38th, a week after hitting an oil slick and crashing into Chase Elliott from behind in the Coca-Cola 600. That led to a 39th-place result, and he has dropped from third to seventh in points. But he is a two-race winner and has no playoff qualifi- cation concerns.
Teammate Joey Logano, though, has displayed neither speed nor success since his victory at Richmond International Raceway was encumbered — meaning he can’t use it to qualify for the playoffs — because of a post-race laser inspection station penalty. Since the penalty, Logano has crashed twice and posted finishes of 21st at Charlotte Motor Speedway and 25th at Dover. He’s 11th in points.
uJGR not quite there: Joe Gibbs Racing’s four-car contingent has competed better recently but has not managed a win. That’s a stark shortfall, considering that the team won seven of the first 12 races last season. Toyota partner Furniture Row Racing continues to outpace JGR, with two-time winner Martin Truex Jr. leading 102 of 406 laps at Dover.
Rookie Daniel Suarez led JGR with a sixth-place finish Sunday, with Denny Hamlin eighth, Matt Kenseth 13th and Kyle Busch 16th. Team owner Joe Gibbs wouldn’t identify a shortfall compared with last year, saying the team needs “things to go our way better at the end of races,” noting that Busch has had multiple chances to win. Still, he said, being close isn’t good enough.
“I think we had a tough day to- day,” Gibbs said. “Until you win races up here, that’s what it’s all about. We need to be winning races. That’s our measurement stick for us. I think we showed improvement in a lot of ways, qualifying and things like that, but you’ve got to win.”
uChip Ganassi Racing ’s
not going away: Kyle Larson’s runner-up finish — after leading 241 of 406 laps — didn’t provide the payoff his dominant No. 42 Chevrolet team wanted, but it was a nice recovery from a rare blip of a 33rd-place finish after crashing last week at Charlotte. Teammate Jamie McMurray finished seventh. Larson remained second in driver points, nine behind Truex, with McMurray fifth, 130 off the pace. Both have eight top-10s in 13 races. uTruex eats playoff points: The Furniture Row Racing driver claimed the first two stages of Sunday’s race, raising his serieshigh total to eight. Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch are next with three each. Truex’s trove of points to carry through to the playoffs is at a series-best 18. uGordon Ramsay doesn’t want your track food: The celebrity chef and grand marshal suggests that fans braise some ribs and finish them on the grill rather than eating “gray burgers.”