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The Top Five: Breaking down the Michigan race

Five thoughts following Sunday’s rain-shortened race at Michigan…

1. Ford Sure

From Friday onward, there seemed to be no doubt this would be a Ford-dominated weekend. And…yep! It definitely was. Fords accounted for seven of the top eight finishers — including a Stewart-Haas Racing podium sweep (the first by a single team since 2008, according to ESPN).

We hear all the time about how much this track matters to manufacturers, which is pretty much a cliche at this point. It’s like, “Yeah, OK, we get it. Michigan is important to the OEMs.”

But it really is SO important to those who work in the auto industry, which makes an ass-kicking of this magnitude quite special to Ford.

“Man, it’s just an unbelievable start to the season with the wins and success we’re having,” said Mark Rushbrook, global director of Ford Performance Motorsports. “(We) come here to our home track with our employees here watching with their friends and family — to have this performance and strength across all of our teams, to win the race, it’s just tremendous for all the company.”

Ford has been having a great season (eight wins in 15 races plus the All-Star Race), but Michigan was the most dominant of Ford days.

So why this track? Perhaps the most crucial factor at the sweeping 2-mile oval was the engines.

“It’s a real honor to drive the Roush‑Yates engines when you get to a place like this because you can be a lot easier on your car,” Harvick said. “Doug Yates and those guys, they like to make big horsepower on the big end of the motor and put a lot of effort into this particular race weekend.”

Kurt Busch said Michigan is about bragging rights, and he can see the importance when all the bigwigs from various departments show up. And aside from just the engine, it’s hitting on every facet that truly elevates an organization.

“It’s a team effort to not have any weaknesses,” he said.

2. Boy oh Bowyer

Clint Bowyer’s career renaissance continued with his Michigan win, and there are likely more to come before the season is over.

A year like this one following a long slump makes for some fun stats, including:

— Bowyer went from October 2012 to March 2018 (nearly 5.5 years) between wins. Then it only took less than three months until his next win.

— Bowyer has almost as many wins this year (two) as he had top-10s in 2016 (three).

— Bowyer has now led 308 laps this season, which is more than double the previous four seasons combined (145).

No wonder the guy is so happy lately.

“We’re going to drink a little bit tonight, by the way,” he said. “That’s going to happen. I know you guys are questioning it. It’s going to happen tonight.”

3. No Hail Mary

Another wild-card type race, another lost chance for a driver outside the top 16 in points to steal a playoff bid. There was no Chris Buescher or Aric Almirola stealing a rain-shortened win this time, as a driver who already had a win just got another one.

Kasey Kahne crew chief Travis Mack had his driver stay out initially, but then called him to the pits before the final restart when the rain didn’t come in time.

Aside from that, it seemed surprising no one actually tried to pull some crazy strategy — especially in the win-and-in era. What do some of these teams have to lose?

I asked Bowyer crew chief Mike Bugarewicz about that, but he seemed to think the strategy wouldn’t have worked.

“In one sense, if you do that, yeah, maybe you win the race,” he said. “But I think if you’re that far off — if you’re a 24th-place car — I don’t know you’re going to compete with the top five cars (on a restart), to be honest. Maybe you can hold them off for a lap.

“Look at Harvick on the inside of us. We felt like we were a very competitive car. Him on four tires, it was a battle from that point coming to the start/finish line on the first lap. I think a guy staying out with no tires, already kind of struggling in the race, would have been a real challenge to try to pull that off.”

Maybe so. But based on the success of Kahne and Paul Menard using track position and clean air to run up front earlier in the race, you would have thought somebody would go for it with the rain about to arrive at any second.

 

4. NASCAR got it right in the rain

A rainy weekend like this one makes for intense scrutiny on NASCAR calls, but officials pretty much nailed it.

OK, there was that mixup at the end of the race where the pace car came down pit road when it wasn’t supposed to. But that didn’t affect anything about the race, since officials were just trying to end it at that point.

Other than that, all the calls were correct — even in tough circumstances.

Let’s start with Xfinity. Officials got past the end of Stage 2 despite a soggy day, then restarted the race after a caution as rain started to fall — a ballsy move, to be honest. It could have ended badly if the field had wrecked in the wet, but instead the fans at least got a battle for the win before the race-ending weather caution.

Then came Sunday. Everyone woke up a bit surprised with a drastically changed overnight forecast (which is why NASCAR hadn’t moved the race up with the 24-hour policy). A Monday race was starting to look like a foregone conclusion.

But officials waited out the rain, dried the track as fast as possible and then got the race started. There was an initial hiccup at the end of Stage 1 — NASCAR said pit road would be open before quickly realizing there weren’t enough laps in the stage to do so, then restarted the race with one lap to go in the stage.

NASCAR’s Richard Buck later said that was in line with policy. First of all, pit road is closed with two laps to go in a stage; second, teams had asked NASCAR to avoid situations under caution that would result in a strategy shakeup. That’s the fairest thing for everyone, which actually makes sense.

And finally, NASCAR called the race at the right time. With rain arriving again, there’s no chance the track could have been dried before darkness fell (Michigan doesn’t have lights).

Sometimes it seems that NASCAR makes questionable decisions, but I agree with all the ones they made this weekend — particularly under pressure.

5. Up Next

With no underdog taking advantage of a rain-shortened race at Michigan, there are seemingly three wild card races remaining of the 11 regular season events on the calendar: Sonoma, Daytona and Watkins Glen.

After an off-week next weekend, it’s time for Sonoma. It’s tempting to think an AJ Allmendinger type could win there, but recent Sonoma winners who are still active have been names like Harvick, Kyle Busch and Truex. So actually, it may be one of the familiar faces in victory lane instead.

That would be another blow to the playoff hopes of drivers mired deep in the standings — Jamie McMurray (19th), Daniel Suarez (21st) and Ryan Newman (22nd) among them — who could really use a road course win to propel them into the final 10 races this fall.

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The Top Five: Breaking down the Michigan race

Five thoughts following Sunday’s race at Michigan International Speedway…

1. Oh, that restart

Kyle Larson’s brilliance behind the wheel of a race car — it doesn’t matter what kind — is the sort of raw ability that every race fan can appreciate. And that was on display for all to see on Sunday.

Larson’s fourth-to-first move on the overtime restart — first slicing his way up the middle, then getting right to the bottom before anyone had time to really counter — was perhaps the best moment of his NASCAR career so far.

Today’s NASCAR is so much about the car and less about the driver, but Larson has shown several times how much the driver still matters. He is willing to try things others do not or cannot, and it provides for quite a show whether the attempt succeeds or fails.

This time, it worked — and Larson completed a week where he forced those who scoffed at his “last true racer” comment several months ago to wonder if maybe he was right.

2. Truex vs. Kyle

In the majority of races this season, the fastest cars have been either Truex or Kyle.

It’s just that the “Kyle” role has switched between Larson and Busch.

Larson was leading the points until he dropped off a cliff recently and tumbled to third with five finishes outside the top 20 in a seven-race stretch. It looked like he lost all his momentum as the Toyotas took over, but questions remained whether that was a product of losing his crew chief to a suspension.

That meant Michigan was going to be a huge test: Would Larson run well on a 2-mile track (a layout which has now generated all four of his career victories)? If not, that would seem to confirm his summer slump.

Apparently, things are just fine. Even though Larson didn’t have a dominant day, he was there at the end and figured out a way to win.

We’re back on the bandwagon now. Pencil him back in for the Final Four at Homestead, along with Truex, Busch and Jimmie Johnson.

3. Kenseth’s nightmare scenario

Matt Kenseth was in a lose-lose situation on the final restart that ended up with the lesser of two evils.

Going into overtime, Kenseth lined up third — on the inside of the second row — behind Erik Jones. His best shot would have been to push Jones on the restart and hope he could make it three-wide, but that could have resulted in a Jones victory.

And that was not going to be good for Kenseth. A new winner from below Kenseth’s spot in the points could have knocked him out of the playoffs (he’s currently holding on to the last spot). Plus, it would have meant helping Jones, the driver who is replacing Kenseth, get his first career win. That probably wouldn’t feel great.

I am not sure what happened and didn’t see any quotes from Kenseth after the race. But on the restart, Kenseth appeared to lay back and try to get a push from Chase Elliott (either that, or he spun his tires).

Ultimately, Kenseth ended up with a flat tire in the ensuing mess and finished 24th. He’s now 31 points ahead of Clint Bowyer for the final spot (see standings below) with three races to go.

The overtime finish cost Kenseth roughly 20 points, which is pretty painful in the battle for a playoff spot. But actually, that wasn’t the worst-case scenario. Because if Jones had won, Kenseth might not have had any points race to worry about at all.

4. Did you notice?

Chris Buescher is having a much better season this year than 2016, when he made the playoffs thanks to his rain-shortened Pocono win.

Buescher finished sixth at Michigan — his best finish of the year — and was right in the mix for a top five on the overtime restart. That was really impressive for a car that doesn’t typically contend there.

Overall, Buescher has improved his average finish from 26.1 to 20.7, already has as many lead-lap finishes as all of last year (11) and picked up his third top-10 of the season.

He’s not going to make the playoffs this season, but he’s trending in the right direction regardless.

5.  Uncertain futures

Bubba Wallace’s victory in the Truck Series race on Saturday was both a feel-good story and a frustrating reminder of the state of NASCAR.

Wallace has been sitting at home for a month, got into a truck for a one-off deal — and won. That’s great on the surface, because everyone watching probably went, “Yes! This will help his chances of getting a ride — and he deserves it.”

But will he get one? Despite being both talented and marketable, there’s no good news yet.

It’s the all-too-familiar problem of today’s NASCAR: Unless a driver personally has money — whether through family or a loyal sponsor — he can only hope the exact right opportunity at the exact right time magically comes his way.

I got another reminder of this on Sunday while watching the race with Gracin Raz (we recorded the post-race podcast, which you can find here). Raz finished fourth in K&N West Series points as an 18-year-old and then was fifth last year. Now 20, Raz has been forced to cut to a part-time schedule running a Late Model he and his dad work on in their garage.

We were chatting during the race and I was asking what the next steps are. The answers aren’t clear, but the solution is: Money. There’s not really much — if anything — Raz can do to jump in a car and prove himself, because that’s not what matters. It’s what money he can bring somewhere to get an opportunity.

Here’s a talented young driver who was just starting his career (and won a K&N West race in 2015), but there’s no pathway forward. The ladder to the top has broken rungs. The same can be said for Wallace, who waits in the same situation — just at a higher level.

It’s a sobering reminder: How many young drivers are there out there, scattered across the country, who could excel if they got the right opportunity?

Sadly, only a lucky few will ever find out — and that’s not healthy for a sport that should be built on the best talents.

———–

PLAYOFF PICTURE

By patron request, I’m going to start including the playoff picture at the bottom of the Top Five each week. Here’s how it looks now:

IN (13): Truex, Larson, Harvick, Ky. Busch, Keselowski, Hamlin, Johnson, Blaney, Ku. Busch, Newman, Stenhouse, Kahne, A. Dillon.

Points Bubble with four races to go:

14. Chase Elliott +62

15. Jamie McMurray +52

16. Matt Kenseth +31

—-

17. Clint Bowyer -31

18. Joey Logano -98

(Everyone else more than 100 points or one win behind)

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The Top Five: Breaking down the Michigan race

Five thoughts on Sunday’s race at Michigan International Speedway…

1. Lesson learned

Remember two weeks ago at Dover, when FOX foreshadowed Kyle Larson screwing up his chance to win on a late-race restart before losing to Jimmie Johnson? Larson’s lack of closing ability was starting to dog him to the point where his failures were becoming predictable late in the race. And that’s the sort of thing that really messes with some drivers.

“You always kind of have in the back of your mind all the races you lost on restarts,” Larson said Sunday.

Fortunately for Larson, he was able to close out a race when he needed to — and that shouldn’t be underestimated in terms of his confidence. If Larson has learned from those situations and has now adapted to the point where the can convert those opportunities to wins, then the rest of the field should be pretty nervous.

Larson is a title contender, no doubt. However, there remains plenty of room for him to improve before the fall. He’s won three races in a row on the 2-mile ovals — August Michigan 2016, Fontana 2017 and Sunday at Michigan again — but those are his only three career wins.

Given his talent level, Larson can and should expect more. The next item on the agenda is to win on a smaller oval to start building momentum for the playoffs.

2. Fountain of Youth

NASCAR now has had young drivers win three of the last four races, with Austin Dillon and Ryan Blaney winning for the first time and Larson winning for the third. In addition, Ricky Stenhouse Jr.’s first win was only five weeks ago.

It’s been an exciting time for NASCAR to have such a surge of energy and enthusiasm from its victory lane winners, and now the sport just needs these fresh faces to keep winning. Victories by Chase Elliott, Erik Jones and perhaps Daniel Suarez all seem possible in the next couple months.

And that’s the best thing NASCAR can hope for right now. No matter who the driver is, the same face in victory lane always seems to get old quickly. It’s the whole sense of, “Ugh, that guy again.”

It’s not that fans don’t like greatness, but any form of racing is the most fun when you have no idea who is going to win. That’s been the case lately, and it’s helped build a relatively positive vibe as the midseason lull in the schedule approaches.

3. Delete debris

Debris cautions remain one of NASCAR’s great frustrations for both fans and drivers. Officials would do themselves a favor by really making this a priority before the playoffs begin in a few months.

Late-race cautions of any kind can dramatically alter the race, as was the case at Michigan when a caution came out with 20 laps to go. The official reason was “Debris Frontstretch,” although it was never shown to viewers (at least that I saw).

After the debris caution, there were two more cautions for crashes involving a total of six cars — three of them under the Stewart-Haas Racing banner. So it’s no wonder team owner Tony Stewart was frustrated by the initial caution.

“It’s a shame that so many drivers and teams day (sic) was ruined by the results of another ‘debris’ caution towards the end of the race today,” he tweeted.


“Debris” was in quotes, which isn’t much of a hidden message. But is he wrong? If NASCAR isn’t more transparent about why it calls debris cautions, these questions will persist.

Officials have said in the past they can’t always show the debris because sometimes a driver has either hit it or it moved after it was initially spotted. With all the technology available today, though, you’d think it would be in NASCAR’s best interest to make sure it works with FOX or NBC to show what its officials are apparently seeing — or at least tell the viewers what the debris was. And if the TV cameras are unable to find it, was the debris really worth a caution?

That leads to another point: NASCAR continues to need to get more consistent on why it calls for these yellows. There was a debris caution for a plastic bag on the track on lap 7 — but not one for a cowboy hat on the track later in the race. And was the final debris caution worth it? We don’t know.

Until this is resolved, fans and drivers will continue to take a cynical view of how NASCAR calls a race — which is most likely a disservice to the officials who really are trying to be fair.

4. Joe Gibbs Racing is going to be OK

Through 15 races, the dominant team of the last two seasons has yet to reach victory lane. That seemed crazy after five races, let alone 10 and now 15. Heck, there are only 11 races left until the playoffs start.

But the Joe Gibbs Racing cars are clearly improved from their early-season struggles, so we shouldn’t wait until one wins to declare the team is “back.”

Just look at Kyle Busch. The increasingly frustrated driver has led at least 19 laps in each of the last six races (and 40 or more in five of those), where he only reached double digits in laps led during three of the first nine events.

Similarly, Denny Hamlin has finished 12th or better in seven of the last eight races — but did that in only two of the first seven events.

So the JGR cars are qualifying better, running closer to the front and generally showing up with better performances. Yeah, the team might still have some gains to make, but let’s not pretend it’s as far off as it was a few months ago.

5. Apps are amazing

I watched the Michigan race with a group of NASCAR fans in the Portland area, and three people were using NASCAR RaceView on their phones to follow the race. Two were listening to Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s audio and watching his progress and another was doing the same for Kasey Kahne.

Each of them knew when a caution was out before it aired on TV and they were generally more informed about the progress of the race than anyone else — even those of us scrolling through Twitter.

Forgive my ignorance, but these apps must have apparently come a long way in the last couple years. I used to occasionally use Sprint Cup Mobile when I wasn’t at the track, but the radio chatter was so far behind the actual race that I gave up after while. Apparently I need to try again because these days, the apps seem to have made enough progress to really be relied upon as a second screen.

Of course, this gives people another reason to not watch the actual race on TV — they can go anywhere and use these apps if needed, just like Twitter — but as long as they’re still engaged in the sport, perhaps that’s what matters to NASCAR.

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Post-Michigan Podcast with Portland-area NASCAR fans

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For this week’s post-race podcast, I was joined by several of the race fans who watched the Michigan race with me at a local sports bar near my new home in Oregon. The fans gave their impressions of the Michigan race and also gave their picks for the championship favorite at this point of the season.

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DraftKings Fantasy NASCAR picks: Michigan

I’m playing DraftKings this season and will be posting my picks here each week. Disclosure: If you want to play and sign up using this link, DraftKings will give my website a commission. Disclosure No. 2: I might be America’s worst daily fantasy player.

Last race’s results: Didn’t play last week.

Season results: $26 wagered, $17 won in 10 contests.

This week’s contest: $4 Brake Pad single entry game.

Michigan picks:

— Kyle Larson ($10,200). Taking the polesitter and the most expensive driver seems like a bad idea, but I’m counting on Larson to be the hammer and control the race. After all, he’s won the last two races at the big 2-mile tracks (Michigan and Fontana) and his confidence isn’t higher anywhere else.

— Martin Truex Jr. ($10,000). Like Larson, not much of ceiling for a guy starting second. But I’m banking on Truex leading a lot of laps at some point during the race and having the points add up that way. Yes, there are fewer available laps to lead at Michigan than other tracks, but those points can still add up if a driver dominates (which has been the case at times in recent Michigan races).

— Jamie McMurray ($8,200). This seems like a steal at the price, because the Chip Ganassi Racing cars are both looking quite strong at Michigan. McMurray qualified eighth, so there’s not a huge upside for positions differential — but he could still end up in the top three by the end.

— Erik Jones ($8,000). I’ve picked Jones a lot this year, but it seems like another tempting opportunity this time. He qualified 14th with one of the best cars there, has extra motivation racing at his home track and is coming off his career-best finish last week at Pocono (third). All that adds up to a great bargain for the price.

— Daniel Suarez ($7,500). For a moderate price, you get a rookie who has finished on the lead lap of six straight Cup races. Suarez takes care of his equipment, which is reason for optimism he can use a fast car to make some nice gains from his 20th starting position as Joe Gibbs Racing continues to show improvement.

— Ty Dillon ($6,100). After having his qualifying time disallowed, Dillon starts 37th. Even if he only finishes in the 20s, that’s still a lot of positions to be gained.