CNHI
6-30-10 — Jimmie Johnson has four NASCAR Sprint Cup championships, but until
Sunday, he had been winless on road courses.
That¹s all history now, as he won the Toyota/Savemart 350 ahead of Robby
Gordon.
Marcos Ambrose was leading the race when the caution came out with eight
laps remaining. Ambrose, trying to save fuel, cut off his engine under
caution and accidentally stopped on the course. He ended up rejoining the
field in seventh. Johnson inherited the lead.
³I thought Marcos (Ambrose) was really going to give us a hard time,²
said Johnson. ³I don¹t know what happened to him, I just saw him pulling
off.
³We had the fastest car at the end, but it was because Chad (crew chief
Chad Knaus) kept on me to save my tires. It really paid off.
³It really feels good to finally win on a road course. I¹ve worked hard
to be a better road course driver and it finally paid off.²
The win was Johnson¹s 51st, and it moved him from sixth to second in
Chase points.
Robby Gordon¹s runner-up finish was his best since 2005 at Watkins Glen.
³We came up about 10-laps short on tires,² said Gordon. ³The team did a
great job, and if we could have had a few more caution laps, it might have
been a different race for us. The tires were the difference in winning the
race and finishing second.²
There were lots of incidents between different drivers. One of them
involved Jeff Gordon and Martin Truex Jr. Gordon got into Truex and knocked
him off the track.
Truex was furious.
³There he (Gordon) is, out there still racing and I¹m wrecked,² said
Truex.
Gordon, who finished fifth, said afterwards that he did some things on
the track that he wasn¹t proud of.
³We had an awesome race car on the long runs,² said Gordon. ³But it was
wild out there. On the restarts there were guys making it three wide. I¹m as
guilty as they are. When they started doing it to me, I started doing it to
them.
³I completely messed up Martin, and I¹m going to try and patch that up
with him.²
Kevin Harvick, Kasey Kahne, Jeff Gordon, Marcos Ambrose, Greg Biffle,
Boris Said, Tony Stewart, and Juan Montoya were the remaining top-10
finishers.
Top-12 Chase contenders after 16 of 36: 1. Harvick-2334, 2.
Johnson-2194, 3. Kyle Busch-2193, 4. Hamlin-2183, 5. J. Gordon-2142, 6. Kurt
Busch-2118, 7. Kenseth-2092, 8. Burton-2027, 9. Biffle-2011, 10.
Stewart-1983, 11. Martin-1947, 12. Edwards-1932
EDWARDS GETS NATIONWIDE WIN
Carl Edwards ended Ford¹s winless streak, as he won the Nationwide
Series race at Road America for the manufacturer¹s first victory of 2010 in
any of NASCAR¹s top three series.
The remaining top-10 finishers were Ron Fellows, Brendan Gaughan, Brad
Keselowski, Owen Kelly, Brad Coleman, J.R. Fitzpatrick, Jason Leffler, Steve
Wallace, and Trevor Bayne.
Top-10 points leaders after 15 of 35: 1. Brad Keselwoski-2466, 2.
Edwards-2229, 3. Allgaier-2051, 4. Kyle Busch-1945, 5. Menard-1860, 6.
Harvick-1852, 7. Gaughan-1685, 8. S. Wallace-1674, 9. Leffler-1597, 10.
Logano-1593