Last week the news broke that hall of famer Jeff Gordon was resigning from Fox Sports and moving to Hendrick Motorsports to become Vice Chairman. Gordon became a household name as a champion driving for Hendrick and invested money in the team in the late 90’s. He will become second in command at Hendrick and work daily with competition and marketing for the team. While I was never a Gordon fan I really liked him in the booth and thought he did a good job. I wonder if his replacement will be a driver that retires at the end of this season?
In a surprise move NASCAR fined the crew chiefs for Martin Truex Jr. and Kurt Busch for loose lug nuts at Nashville, but announced no further penalties for the team of Chase Elliott.
You know we can’t go a week without a Kyle Larson Dirt update. Larson left Nashville with a win to head to Huset’s Speedway in South Dakota to race in the Winged Outlaw inaugural Huset’s 50 for $30,000. Although he didn’t win he did place fifth both nights in the feature races.
WoO at Lernerville Speedway in Sarver, Pennsylvania June 24-26 for the Firecracker 100 Weekend. Thursday night Brandon Sheppard returned to earlier form and took the checkered flag holding off rival Chris Madden who came in second as Scott Bloomquist showed signs of life and placed third. Darrell Lanigan finished 10th in the feature Night two saw Brandon Overton go from 11th on night one to victory lane getting by Chris Madden. Darrell Lanigan completed a strong weekend by coming in fourth on night two.
It was a two for weekend at Pocono as NASCAR raced both Saturday and Sunday at the Tricky Triangle. The race on Saturday was a good race as Kyle Busch did everything possible to break up the Hendrick cars. Kyle Larson, William Byron and Alex Bowman were the three hot Hendrick cars saturday as Larson suffered heartbreak and Chase Elliott who was starting toward th middle of the pack had trouble all day. Ryan Blaney returned to early season form coming in fifth and battling at the front for most of the race. Kyle Larson took control of the race and looked to be on his way to an easy win. He was three quarters around the track on the way to another win when his tire blew out sending him to the wall and Alex Bowman flew past for the win with Busch right on his rear end.
Sunday the top 20 were inverted from Saturday’s race which put a lot of good cars starting back in the field as well as drivers who had to run new cars to the rear. Chase Elliott probably wished he had skipped Pocono all together as his troubles continued on Sunday. Kyle Busch was finally able to put an end to the Hendrick streak and it wasn’t easy as just out racing the competition. Sunday also came down to Gas mattered more than speed as both William Byron and Denny Hamlin both ran out of gas in the lead spot in the final couple of laps. The story of the day however was Busch running the majority of the race with transmission trouble. At first his car wouldn’t stay in fourth gear at first and then as the race progressed it wouldn’t come out of fourth. He started the last stage out of the top twenty, but ended up in first place crossing the line on fumes. 23XI and Bubba Wallace picked up the team’s first top five finish also this weekend as Wallace finished fifth.
SRX raced at Eldora this weekend and Tony Stewart took the win at his track holding off Kody Swanson and Helio Castroneves. One thing is for certain Paul Tracy has quickly become the series villan with his agressive driving style. So much in fact that when he tried to apologize to Bill Elliott after the race Elliott was having none of it and let him know that. Next week the series is at Lucas Oil Raceway.
Jeff Gordon exits booth to Hendrick, Kyle (Busch) wins again
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