For the second time this year Denny Hamlin looked to have a short track race wrapped up and in the bag. Just five races earlier the Cup series was at Bristol and Denny was leading on a green-white-checkered finish. When Hamlin’s car suffered a fuel pickup issue, the entire Richard Childress Racing team was there to take advantage as Jeff Burton, Kevin Harvick & Clint Bowyer each freight trained past Hamlin to a 1-2-3 finish for RCR.
Last nights race at Richmond International Raceway could also be referred to as a “field spanking” by the #11 FedEx car of Denny Hamlin. However, after dominating the field by leading 381 out of 400 laps, Denny’s seemingly assured drive to Victory Lane was ground to a halt on lap 383 with a flat tire. Just as it was at Bristol, a RCR car (the #07 of Clint Bowyer) was there waiting for the opportunity to take the lead.
However, that opportunity would not present itself until a battle between crowd favorite Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Kyle Busch took place resulting in Jr’s #88 Chevy spinning into the outside wall. It was, in my view, nothing more than good hard racing and Kyle did absolutely nothing wrong. It was not an intentional bump-n-run attempt by Busch. I won’t be surprised if the vast majority of Earnhardt Nation will disagree with my perception, but this is the type of racing we should all be happy to see. Busch was not content to ride there in the closing laps to finish 2nd, and Jr. wasn’t about to go down without a fight. It was hard, close racing and neither of them tried to take the other out of contention.
As Busch and Jr. tangled together the #07 of Clint Bowyer seized the opportunity and slid underneath Kyle Busch for the lead and the caution flag. This set the stage for a green-white-checkered in which Bowyer was able to hold off Kyle for the win.
Let’s now take a look at Bowyer’s post-race Loop Data Statistics.
- Starting Position = 31st
- Mid Race Position = 6th
- 40 Laps to Go = 5th
- Lowest Position = 32nd
- Average Position = 9th
- # of Fastest Laps = 7
- Laps in Top 15 = 338
- % of Laps in Top 15 = 82.4%
- Laps Led = 13
- % of Laps Led = 3.2%
- Final Driver Rating = 110.8
Video of battle between Kyle Busch and Dale Earnhardt Jr.
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