Kenseth in control at Michigan, wins 3rd Cup race of season

He remains well on the wrong side of sixteenth in the championship, though, and still needs a win to make the Chase. Kenseth won at Pocono earlier this month, and at Bristol in April.

“We’ll take this and build some more momentum”, Dillon said. “If it was too hot today, I may not have come”, he said. Going to be a dramatic few weeks, but the drivers have to be hoping they get more opportunities to run up front than they did on Sunday. That means drivers like Jeff Gordon, Jamie McMurray and the rest will be desperate to get a win and solidify their position.

Austin Dillon cowboyed up to post a career-high fourth-place finish at Michigan global Speedway on Sunday.

But congratulations to our teammate Matt Kenseth and the “20” bunch. Six of the past eight races have been won by a JGR driver this year, and all four teams have made it to the winner’s circle at least once. “I got to the lead twice on him, but the first run I had a big enough lead where we had clean air, and my auto was turning pretty good out front”.

Yet Kenseth was able to stay ahead of the pack for 146 laps. The Joe Gibbs Racing star has said in the past he thinks theres no reason to have grass near racing surfaces, and he addressed the issue again Saturday — with a heavy dose of sarcasm.

“I think in the end, there’s some people in the garage area that really like this package and some don’t. We drove up to where we were, and I’m just proud of my guys”. Crew chief Slugger Labbe elected not to pit when the competition caution was called on Lap 21. “We were up front the whole time and that’s what you want, right?”

Crafton rallied back to the top-five after pitting for the final time on Lap 68.

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.

When nine drivers assembled – after a considerable organizing effort on the radios and in the pits – in the third practice session – at least some of the cars got more unstable, rather than less. Great race cars. And trying to attack this new aero package. Joe Gibbs Racing swept the top three in qualifying on Friday, with Matt Kenseth on the pole and Denny Hamlin and Carl Edwards starting second and third.

Busch will now start at the back of the field, in a backup vehicle. NASCAR took the splitters removed from the No. 2 (Keselowski) and No. 22 (Logano) cars to its research-and-development center in Concord, N.C., for further evaluation. Busch wrecked his auto in practice Saturday and had to start the race from the back, but he had a solid, uneventful day, even leading for a couple stretches.