Almirola bounces back, finishes 6th
LOUDON, N.H. — A week ago, NASCAR driver Aric Almirola seemed doomed not to make it past Dover after the engine of his No. 43 Richard Petty Motorsports Ford blew up and left him a forlorn figure at Chicagoland Speedway, where he finished 41st in the Chase opener.
Confident he could rebound from that setback, Almirola did precisely that by starting 21st and reviving his Chase dreams with a sixth-place effort in Sunday’s Sylvania 300 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, the second race in the 16-driver Challenger Round of NASCAR’s revamped Chase for the Sprint Cup Championship.
The top 12 drivers advance to the Contender Round after next weekend’s elimination race in Dover, Del. But after Almirola’s flawed start at Chicago, he was in peril of not making the cut.
Now, after getting an immeasurable boost from his NHMS performance, Almirola remains in contention to advance, just 10 points out of 12th place.
“We cut it down to a realistic possibility going to Dover,’’ said Almirola, who qualified for the Chase by winning the rain-shortened Firecracker 400 in July at Daytona. “If we went to Dover 28 points out, we might as well go ahead and just throw in the towel, but that [sixth-place finish] was exactly what we needed.’’
Although he remained 16th in the driver points with 2,045, Almirola remained in the hunt with 12 points separating him from eighth-place
Matt Kenseth (2,057), who finished 21st.
“I said all week the best thing we can do if we can’t win is we need to go and try to run top five,’’ Almirola said. “We ran sixth and we’ve got to try and put pressure on those other guys. We’re down, but we’re not out.’’
Harvick in top five again
Kevin Harvick posted his second top-five result in as many Chase races after finishing third to race winner Jo
ey Logano. It followed Harvick’s fifthplace finish to Brad Keselowski, Logano’s top-seeded Penske Racing teammate, in the Chase opener at Chicagoland.
“You know the first two weeks have gone really well,’’ Harvick said. “It was important for us to get off to a good start to make sure we weren’t scrambling after Week 1.’’
While the race was marred by 15 cautions for 63 laps, including nine in the final 100 laps, Harvick was upset with some of the leniency shown Logano on the last two critical restarts, saying it appeared the driver of the No. 22 Ford started before entering the double-lined restart zone.
“I thought it was pretty clear on two stripes and one stripe,’’ Harvick said, referring to wall markings on the front stretch that defined the restart zone. “You start in between those two spots. It was pretty evident he was a car length or two car lengths starting before that. It was like nobody [from NASCAR] was watching upstairs.
“Maybe I just need to be more aggressive on my restarts and start sooner than the double lines.’’
Non-Chasers fare well
Rookie runner-up Kyle Larson, who finished third a week ago at Chicago, was the highest-finishing car among the non-Chase drivers in the 43-car grid. He was among three non-Chasers in the top 10, along with Jamie McMurray (4th) and Brian Vickers (10th), and seven among the top 15. “We struggled quite a bit most of the weekend,’’ said Larson, a strong candidate for Rookie of the Year honors. “Then to start the race, I started 10th, fell back to I think almost outside the top 20. We definitely weren’t even a top-15 car for the first hundred laps of the race.’’ . . . The biggest save of the day belonged to Jimmie John
son. The six-time and reigning Sprint Cup champion steadied his car exiting Turn 2 on Lap 189 and kept it on a straight and narrow path when Kyle
Busch’s No. 18 M&M’s Toyota spun out and careened across the nose of his No. 48 Lowe’s Chevrolet. “It was a wild day, especially with all those restarts,’’ said Johnson, who finished fifth, the highest among the four Hendrick Motorsports drivers: Dale Earnhardt Jr. (ninth), Kasey Kahne (23d), and Jeff Gordon (26th). “Man, I don’t know what it looked like from the grandstands today, but I can tell you that inside the car, I was hanging on, trying not to spin out.’’ . . . The No. 93 Iowa City Capital Partners Toyota driven by Clay Rogers was the first car in the 43-car grid to be retired from the race when it went behind the wall after completing 45 laps . . . Jerry
Gappens, executive vice president and general manager at NHMS, told the crowd during introductions that he would continue to probe the possibility of installing lights for a night race next July, but indicated NASCAR officials seemed luke warm to the idea. “They don’t want three consecutive night races at Kentucky, Daytona, and New Hampshire,’’ Gappens told the crowd. “They want more of a balance.’’