Pole-sitter Matt Kenseth wins Pure Michigan 400 NASCAR race at Michigan

Matt Kenseth drove like a man possessed at Michigan on Sunday, and that might be the understatement of the season.

Sprint Cup points leader Kevin Harvick finished second and said he just didn’t have anything to match Kenseth in his post-race press conference. It was supposed to improve passing, but aside from one brief duel at the front between Kenseth and Dillon with about 55 laps left, there was little drama in terms of lead changes. However, on turn one, David Ragan got loose, and skidded off the track. The last time NASCAR was in Michigan, there were some very lengthy rain delays that eventually led to the race being called since it was over halfway done. The first of the two was due to debris.

PANNING OUT: The day’s second caution flew for an unusual reason. Usually after qualifying, the afternoon before the race a few garages are busy.

Jimmie Johnson spun on Lap 183 to bring out a caution and potentially set up a late-race shootout.

Yet Kenseth was able to stay ahead of the pack for 146 laps. He won by a robust 1.7-second margin over second-place finisher Kevin Harvick and with a couple of brief exceptions, wasn’t seriously challenged.

Scott Steckly lapped all but second place finisher Marc-Antoine Camirand to win the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series Wounded Warriors Canada 300 at Riverside global Speedway in Antigonish, N.S. It was Steckly’s third win of the season in the No. 22 Canadian Tire Dodge.

Matt Kenseth picked up his third win of the season on Sunday, and suddenly things are heating up as “The Chase” draws near. The fourth JGR driver, Busch, had to go to a back-up auto and start Sunday’s race in the back because of a practice crash on Saturday…. It is the ninth Sprint Cup victory for NASCAR’s hottest team. They seemed genuinely excited about the low-downforce package NASCAR experimented with in June at Kentucky and will use again Labor Day weekend at Darlington. He started at the front of the race, and ended up at the front.

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. The organization has three Sprint Cup titles, but none since Tony Stewart’s in 2005. The top sixteen drivers in wins and points qualify for the championship run-off. Whatever they want to do, I’ll race it. It’s my job. The 2011 Brickyard 400 victor now sits at 13th in the standings with 654 points, two top-5 finishes and four top-10 finishes.

The tour rolls on to Bristol Motor Speedway in the Tennessee mountains this week, and it wouldn’t be wise to ignore the Gibbs bunch there, either.