There were many drivers on both ends of the spectrum in Sunday’s Pocono 400 at Pocono Raceway.
Checkered Flags
Martin Truex Jr.
That’s more like it for the defending series champion. Truex Jr. flexed his muscles down the stretch and overall led 31 laps on his way to win number two of the season. The Furniture Row Racing driver proved to be too much to deal with in the day’s last two restarts and his wound up with a relatively easy drive to Victory Lane.
Kyle Larson
He had a shot and didn’t make it easy for Truex Jr. on the last restart of the afternoon. However Larson came up just short and had to settle for second. Still he showed some of the flash of a year ago and Chip Ganassi Racing will look to build on the performance in the coming weeks.
Chevrolet
Larson was the best of the Chevy brigade that saw two others in the top-10 including Jimmie Johnson, who led his first laps of the year, and Chase Elliott. It’s been a long climb but for a second straight week the manufacturer showed some promise.
Team Penske
All three of Roger Penske’s drivers were in the top-10, the fourth time that has happened in 2018. Brad Keselowski led the way with a fifth place finish while pole sitter Ryan Blaney came home sixth and Joey Logano rebounded from some challenges to post a ninth-place finish.
Aric Almirola
The biggest mover of the day was Almirola, who after a poor qualifying effort on Friday when he didn’t make it out of the first round, started 34th but finished seventh. He has more top-10 finishes (6) this year than he did all of 2017 over the course of 29 starts.
Black Flags
Bubba Wallace
Tough day for Bubba after his missed a shift and blew an engine. As if his last place finish wasn’t painful enough, team owner Richard Petty cracked over the radio “maybe we need to get you an automatic transmission.” Ouch.
Denny Hamlin
Got turned around by Alex Bowman in a late incident that set up one of the day’s fateful restarts. But Hamlin, who is still looking for his first win of the year, was none too pleased with the turn of events and briskly left the infield care center with a “no comment” to the assembled media.
Erik Jones
He received the business end of contact from Joey Logano on a late restart that sent the Joe Gibbs Racing driver spinning into the front stretch infield wall and out of the race. Logano apologized over his in car radio for the gaffe but Jones still left Pocono with a 28th place finish.
Kasey Kahne
Mechanical gremlins reached out and but Kahne and the Leavine Family Racing team again, this time with a transmission failure on lap 120 that sent the No. 95 car to the garage and home with a 36th place finish.
Xfinity Series Rules Package
The much-anticipated return of the rules package that was so promising last year at Indianapolis proved to be a dud on Saturday. As Kyle Busch romped to another victory, the race didn’t look any different than the 2017 Pocono NXS race leaving officials scratching their heads on what the next move will be to create better racing. The same package will be in place Saturday at Michigan with fingers crossed for a much better result than what happened in Pocono.
The opinions expressed here are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the positions of the Motor Racing Network.
