Denny Hamlin: Wins Bristol Xfinity Pole

There’s only three races left until the cutoff race in Richmond, Virignia, so expect any competitive driver without a win to be racing extra hard in coming weeks.

The 18-year-old Sunoco Rookie of the Year contender is a veteran at the Tennessee short track with a combined five starts in the NCWTS and NASCAR K&N Pro Series East. After proving to be successful with top-10 finishes at the half-mile track in the NASCAR K&N Pro Series East (NKNPSE), Jones cut his teeth in NCWTS at Bristol Motor Speedway making some of the earliest starts in his career at the track.

Blaney recovered from an early race penalty for jumping a restart to find himself closing on leader Matt Crafton with five laps remaining. Here’s a look at the odds for the race.

“It feels really good”, Blaney said. “The night race is the one of the coolest races you can come to as a driver”.

“When you get to Bristol and make those first couple of laps it takes you a minute just to catch your breath and really think about what did the vehicle actually do and what do I need to work on because it’s just so fast and so breathtaking”, noted Truex.

Busch also made a furious late charge. He has one win and eight top 5s this year. Past year was sub-par for Busch, who finished 29th and 36th; his last win came in spring 2011. That is, not until Ty Dillon got together with Ben Kennedy in turn 3 to bring out the fifth caution and send the race into a green-white-chequered finish, with the field closed up sufficiently to allow Blaney one last crack at Crafton. “It’s a shame. We had the thing won”. “You don’t do anything different to prepare for it. We’re lucky since the truck race is on Wednesday and you have that day to rest up before the Xfinity race”. “Obviously the inside isn’t the preferred line on the restart but we got a good jump and were able to pull away”.

Heading into Saturday’s race, Clint Bowyer holds down the final spot on the Chase grid. This is the third time this Chevrolet will take to the track in 2015 with Jones previously posting an eighth-place result at Dover and a career-best second-place finish at Iowa.

In the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series standings, just seven points covers the top three with Reddick narrowly ahead of Crafton and Erik Jones in third. “I was able to get on the outside of the #33 and the #88”.

The next Truck Series race will be the Chevrolet Silverado 250 at the Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in Ontario on August 30.