Matt Kenseth steals win at New Hampshire as Harvick runs out of gas
Matt Kenseth swiped his second fuel-mileage win of 2015 on Sunday at New Hampshire and is now guaranteed a berth in the second round of the Chase.
Kenseth wasn’t in fuel conservation mode over the final laps of the race. He had pitted approximately 60 laps from the finish and had plenty of gas to make it. Kevin Harvick, the race’s leader, was attempting to stretch his fuel. He ran out of gas with three laps to go to give Kenseth the win.
As Kenseth finished fifth at Chicago in the first race of the Chase, Harvick, the 2014 champion, was 42nd. He was going for the win and the automatic berth into the next round. But either he was pushed too hard by Kenseth to save enough fuel or his team simply miscalculated. And because of it, Harvick is in a win-and-in situation at Dover.
He’s currently 15th in the points standings after finishing 21st and 23 points behind 12th. Not only does he have to make up the 23 points on Dale Earnhardt Jr. (or more on another driver), he has to leapfrog Kyle Busch and Paul Menard in the process.
Kenseth’s win is the fourth-straight for Joe Gibbs Racing and the second time this season that the team has won four straight races. Not only are Kenseth and Denny Hamlin now in the second round of the Chase because of their wins, teammate Carl Edwards is tied with Joey Logano for the most points among drivers without wins.
Kenseth won at Pocono in August when the drivers ahead of him ran out of gas.
While the No. 4 team’s fuel mismanagement will end up being the dominant storyline from Sunday’s race, another one emerged that could potentially change the complexion of the Chase over the next eight races.
After being lenient regarding the tacitcs and games drivers play on restarts throughout the entirety of the 2015 season, the sanctioning body penalized Brad Keselowski for jumping the race’s final restart. Here’s a replay of the incident.
Greg Biffle, the car on the outside, was the leader. He maintained his speed, though given that the cars behind him stacked up, he might have spun his tires on the start. As Biffle stayed stagnant through the restart zone, Keselowski accelerated. Since Biffle was the leader and Keselowski went before him, the No. 2 car was penalized. He had to serve a drive-through penalty.
“It’s a pretty basic understanding, it’s an entertainment sport and not a fair sport,” Keselowski said when asked by NBC of his understanding of the restart call. “We had a great car, the team on the No. 2 … was really strong. I don’t know if we would have beat [Kenseth] and [Denny Hamlin] it looked like they probably had four tires but like I said, heck of a rebound. Really proud of my guys today.”
Was it an egregious penalty if it was a penalty at all? It’s tough to tell. And that’s the problem NASCAR is facing when it comes to clarity about its restarts. In the first race of the Chase at Chicago, Jeff Gordon appeared to have jumped the restart much more severely than Keselowski did. NASCAR didn’t penalize him.
Why? who knows. The restart zone and those aforementioned tactics and the whole host of variables (tires spinning, a missed shift, etc) open up restarts for a whole lot of interpretation for drivers, fans and the sanctioning body itself. Keselowski recovered to finish 15th and is still safely inside the top 12. But if NASCAR calls another restart penalty later in the Chase, there could be much more severe points consequences.
Here’s how the Chase field looks heading into Dover:
1. Denny Hamlin and Matt Kenseth
3. Carl Edwards, +33 points on 13th
3. Joey Logano, +33
5. Jimmie Johnson, +27
6. Ryan Newman, +18
7. Kurt Busch, +17
8. Brad Keselowski, +16
9. Martin Truex Jr., +15
10. Jeff Gordon, +12
11. Jamie McMurray, +2
12. Dale Earnhardt Jr., +1: Junior was another driver who tried to stretch his fuel supply. He was forced to pit and finished 25th.
13. Kyle Busch, -1
14. Paul Menard, -1
15. Kevin Harvick, -23
16. Clint Bowyer, -39
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Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
