Sprint Cup Chase race No. 4: Jimmie Johnson snaps winless streak at Charlotte
By Ted Fleming
No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet visits winner’s circle for first time in 24 events and locks him into the Round of 8.
Jimmy Johnson ended a 24-race drought with a dominating late race performance to win the weather delayed Bank of America 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway Sunday afternoon. He would lead 155 of the 334 race laps.
After losing a spot on pit stops following a caution due to Denny Hamlin blowing an engine, Johnson surged past leader Matt Kenseth on lap 316 and ran away with it. Hamlin was running third when his motor let go.
“No, I didn’t wonder, I just knew it was taking way too long,” Johnson said, if he questioned whether he would ever win again. “When you drive for Rick Hendrick and have all the great people at Hendrick Motorsports working for you, the great support from Lowe’s and everyone in their stores and Chevrolet…..there are just so many great people behind us and that support us to make this happen. We knew we would get back. Yes, it was slower than we wanted it to be but to be here today and have this victory is great.”
For Johnson, this was his 78th career victory in 537 starts in the Sprint Cup Series and third of the season. In addition, this was the eighth time he has taken the checkers at CMS. He now takes a five point lead in the Chase second round, but more importantly he secured his spot in the Round of 8. Since NASCAR launched this Chase elimination format, Johnson has never advanced past this round and now he will.
Kenseth was never able to catch up once Johnson took the lead and finished as the runner-up. It was his 19th top-10 in 35 races at Charlotte and 15th top-10 of 2016.
Chris Buescher, who made the Chase, but didn’t advance, was the highest finishing rookie at 16th.
PIT NOTES:
After one event in the second round of the Chase for the Sprint Cup, Austin Dillon, Chase Elliott, Joey Logano and Kevin Harvick are below the cutoff line with two races left.
Logano complained after the second caution that he thought tires were the cause for both incidents. “We’re not the only car that had the issue, but we’re the ones that hit the wall when it happen, so that’s not the best place to have them go down,” he said. “We had a fast car. Our car was capable of winning the race. We drove up from 10th and were up to third and running down the leaders, so I felt really good about what we had. I don’t know. Things happen. It’s part of racing, I guess.”
When Alex Bowman and Casey Mears got tangled, Bowman was running third at the time. “Blew a tire I guess,” said Bowman. “It’s really unfortunate. I hate it for these Axlata guys. Everybody at Hendrick Motorsports worked so hard. They brought a great race car here, brand new and destroyed it. Really unfortunate, but it’s not anybody’s fault. We didn’t hit nothing we just must have run over something.”
Meanwhile, Mears had nowhere to go when Bowman blew hit tire hitting him and spinning the No. 88 wildly into pit row. “I don’t know. I just was going into the corner and I saw him come up all of a sudden. I don’t know,” he said. “It’s too bad he didn’t put us out of our misery there. We were having a rough start of it. We were just kind of hanging on and actually those guys were going by us. They either blew a right-front (tire) or had something come loose or something and came up into us.”
Just prior to Joey Logano bringing out his first caution, Kevin Harvick was slowing on the track and was forced to the garage at lap 112.
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CAUTIONS:
Lap 25: Competition Caution – Ragan gets free pass
Lap 62: Bowman and Mears crash – Cassill gets free pass
Lap 116: Logano blows tire, hits wall – Harvick gets free pass
Lap 155: Logano hits wall – Kyle Busch gets free pass
Lap 228: Debris on track – Patrick gets free pass
Lap 253: Allmendinger into wall – Stewart gets free pass
Lap 258: Restart crash collects 11 cars – RED FLAG
Lap 308: Denny Hamlin blows engine. Day done.
BANK OF AMERICA 500 FINAL RESULTS:
1 – Jimmie Johnson
2 – Matt Kenseth
3 – Kasey Kahne
4 – Ryan Newman
5 – Kyle Larson
6 – Kyle Busch
7 – Brad Keselowski
8 – Kurt Busch
9 – Tony Stewart
10 – Jamie McMurray
11 – Danica Patrick
12 – Carl Edwards
13 – Martin Truex Jr.
14 – Michael McDowell
15 – Aric Almirola
16 – Chris Buescher
17 – Clint Boyer
18 – Trevor Bayne
19 – Landon Cassill
20 – Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
21 – Regan Smith
22 – Brian Scott
23 – David Ragan
24 – Michael Annette
25 – Matt DiBenedetto
26 – Jeffrey Earnhardt
27 – Cole Whitt
28 – Reed Sorenson
29 – Josh Wise
30 – Denny Hamlin
31 – Ryan Blaney
32 – Austin Dillon
33 – Chase Elliott
34 – Paul Menard
35 – Greg Biffle
36 – Joey Logano
37 – AJ Allmendinger
38 – Kevin Harvick
39 – Alex Bowman
40 – Casey Mears