Kenseth wins Pure Michigan 400 Sunday

Beyond Kenseth, JGR dominated the top 10 Sunday, with Denny Hamlin finishing fifth and Edwards sixth. However, on turn one, David Ragan got loose, and skidded off the track. For the most part, Busch played it safe throughout race. Usually after qualifying, the afternoon before the race a few garages are busy.

One step forward, two steps back.

The frustration of others had nothing to do with Kenseth, who appeared to clearly have the best auto. J.F. Dumoulin in the No. 04 Bernier Crepeau Chrysler/Bellemare Dodge rounded out the top five….

There was an accident or two on the 2-mile superspeedway, but nothing of Talladega-type proportions, and there were only eight race leaders through the course of 200 laps.

His Penske teammate, Brad Keselowski, echoed the sentiment after his ninth place finish. With pit strategies varying slightly, the final round of green-flag stops was lengthy, but Kenseth eventually cycled back to the lead, with Harvick a distant second. Favre continues to lead the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series standings with Joel O’Donnell’s second Dale Earnhardt junior third Truex moves up to overtake Ford. After running out of fuel early Kevin Harvick battled back but came up just short of the Finnish driver in the Stewart Haas racing Chevrolet home to second Ileana.

With the thickness of the splitters at issue, NASCAR asked the teams to err on the side of caution and replace them.

NASCAR used a special high-drag aerodynamic package for this race and in the Brickyard last month at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. We didn’t do many adjustments that we — we haven’t run up there a lot and it’s hard to change a vehicle that’s capable of staying up there. However, the package seemed to have the opposite effect. The bigger hole is supposed to leave more clean air behind the cars, so drivers attempting to pass are not suddenly slowed down.

Another by-product of the new package was heat build up in the cars. NBC Sports showed a reading of over 150 degrees in the cockpit of Casey Mears’ vehicle – and that was still during the first quarter of the race.

Worst luck of the day belonged to Clint Bowyer, who bounced off both the outside and inside walls on lap 126, damaging both his suspension and his chances of making the Chase. With three races until the Chase, the tricky.5-mile concrete oval is a definite wild card race, and you can bet Chase bubble drivers will be on pins and needles through the 500-lap event on Saturday night.