The seasons longest race lasted a race record in duration from start to finish. With what started as a race on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, ended on the actual Holiday itself. But, the longest race in the 61 year history of the Coca-Cola 600 saw a record in closest finish too. Brad Keselowski extended Jimmie Johnson’s losing streak to 102 consecutive races by holding off the seven-time NASCAR champion by 0.293-seconds in overtime to win the Coca-Cola 600 early Monday. It was his 31st career trip to victory lane in NASCAR’s premiere series.
Keselowski, started in the back of the field, worked his way to the front at Charlotte Motor Speedway and then gambled in not pitting when caution stopped Chase Elliott from winning with two laps remaining.
Elliott pitted and Keselowski led a train of eight cars that stayed on the track. He lined up in front of Alex Bowman on the inside line with Johnson on the bottom ahead of Keselowski teammate Ryan Blaney.
Keselowski got the push to get into clean air and denied Johnson a victory. Keselowski celebrated as he usually does by waving a giant American flag out his window during his victory burnouts.
It is the first win for Keselowski this season, his first Coca-Cola 600 victory and the first win at this event for Ford since 2002. It was also his third win in what could be seen as NASCAR’s crown jewels as he also won the Southern 500 as well as the Brickyard 400 in consecutive weeks back in 2018.
For the third time of his career, Johnson had to settle for second in his No. 48 Chevrolet while Elliott, who had the win snatched away just two laps from the finish, rallied to third for Hendrick to take two podium positions.
Elliott had a comfortable lead and was coasting to the win when his Hendrick Motorsports teammate William Byron spun with a tire problem.
“That’s got to be a joke,” Elliott said over his radio. He was wrecked by Kyle Busch last week trying to race for the win at Darlington Raceway on Wednesday night.
The Sunday before Memorial Day is a supposed to be a smorgasbord of motorsports that begins with Formula One at the Monaco Grand Prix, then IndyCar and the Indianapolis 500, followed by NASCAR and its longest race on the calendar.
The coronavirus pandemic has wiped out the first part of F1′s schedule and, like IndyCar, it is still waiting to start its season. Roger Penske, the new owner of Indianapolis Motor Speedway, has moved the Indy 500. It marks the first time since 1946 the 500 is not being run on Memorial Day weekend.
NASCAR was able to go forward for its third Cup event in seven days under a health plan approved by state officials that allowed the sport to resume after a 10-week hiatus. NASCAR ran three events in South Carolina, and the Coca-Cola 600 kicks off four consecutive days of racing at Charlotte.
A rain delay of nearly 90 minutes during the first stage of the race pushed the finish into Monday but it still ended up just fine for Penske, the owner of Keselowski’s car.
Hendrick Gives Win Away
For Hendrick, they have to be kicking themselves. They put two cars in the top three of the finishing order, but this will forever be known as the race that got away. Jimmie Johnson held the lead with 50 laps-to-go. Chase Elliott got the top spot with 37 to go. Alex Bowman led a race high 164 of 405 laps run. One of them should have won. They had the better cars.
But, Johnson had a bad restart to allow Keselowski to get by and stay ahead, which was the winning move in the end. The fourth HMS member William Byron spun while Elliott was leading by a large margin with three laps-to-go. Elliott, pit when he shouldn’t and neither came away with the victory.
“Just trying to make the best decision you can, “said Elliott of the questionable pit call. “Those guys were obviously going to do the opposite of us. That’s just part of it. You make decisions and live with them. It wasn’t the pit call. Being on offense is fine. Like I said, those guys were going to do whatever the opposite of we did. Part of it.”
Johnson, an eight time Charlotte winner, four of which coming in the ‘600, feels for Elliott.
“It’s so hard to know what the right thing to do is,” Johnson said. Cliff (Daniels) had a great sense on what pit call to make. I feel for Chase (Elliott). Wednesday, he had such a great car. To be leading here and have a caution come out with a couple to go, I feel bad for him.”
Johnson, is happy to come home runner-up though, the third time of his career at Charlotte as well as earning his 17th career top five on the 1.5-mile track and 28th top 10, including four straight and six in his last seven to go along with four top eight finishes already this season.
“I’m very proud of my team,” Johnson continued. Very proud of everybody. Second’s okay. Proud of the effort everyone is giving. Second stinks too. It’s tough to be this close to victory lane but we’re getting there.”
Bowman, faded to 20th with Byron coming home 21st.
For much of this race, they all ran in the top 10. Elliott, was third, fifth and 18th in the three stages. Byron, was ninth, fourth and 10th. Johnson, was eighth, 10th and fourth while Bowman was first, first and second.
Charlotte Leads To More Dominance, But Keselowski Stole The Show
For whatever reason, Charlotte just leads to some dominating performances. It doesn’t matter what rules package that we race with, someone always lands the setup right. Sunday wasn’t any different.
Five time in the last eight oval events, the race winner led 100 or more laps. In fact, three of those six were 200 or more. Keselowski, may have only led 21 laps in his No. 2 Ford, Alex Bowman though led 164, Martin Truex Jr. 87 and Kurt Busch 54 more.
Truex Jr. led 116 laps in his win last year. He led 392 in 2016’s win. His teammate Kyle Busch led 377 laps in his 2018 victory.
Then, look at the past Fall race. Truex Jr. led 91 laps in the last one in 2017. Kevin Harvick led 149 more in his third place result that year. In the ‘600 that year, Austin Dillon may have only led two laps in stealing the win, but Truex also led 233 himself in a third place run as well.
In 2016, Jimmie Johnson led 155 laps en route to a Fall race victory. In 2015, Joey Logano led 227 laps in his Fall win.
Over the last 11 Charlotte oval races, the eventual race winner led at least 91 laps in eight of them with six of those nine leading at least 115 laps.
1 Groove Race Track, Clean Air Kings On Sunday Night
You have to give Charlotte credit, they’re trying. With so much domination lately, they’re trying to help improve the racing on the North Carolina race track. They know, with all this new attention on the sport and this being NASCAR’s longest race of the year, they can’t have a single file parade for 600 miles. So, track officials ran the tire dragon over the top couple of lanes multiple times this weekend in hopes of creating a more racing lanes to run on. Unfortunately, that didn’t work. Passing was difficult all night, as customary there. It didn’t matter if they sprayed traction compound, ran the tire dragon or what, the low line was the preferred line and nothing was going to change it come hell or high water.
It took until Lap 224 before we even had a pass for the lead. TWO-TWENTY-FOUR. That’s 337.5 miles of racing before a pass for the top spot was even made. Drivers complained on their radios all night long just how the top grooves weren’t coming in. That in resulted in a lot of high speed parade racing.
Another byproduct of this was clean air ringing king as well. A prime example of this was a late stage restart/pit strategy in the third segment.
Matt Kenseth brought out the fifth caution of the night on Lap 275. All but three drivers hit pit lane. Those three were Joey Logano, Kevin Harvick and Chase Elliott, in that order. On the restart, Logano, in the lead, stayed put. Harvick, dropped from second to 14th in three laps. Elliott, fell from third to 17th in the same time frame. That hurt Elliott the most as he was 10th prior to that round of stops.
Logano, well he won the stage without even leading a lap all night prior. Logano, didn’t have a better car necessarily than those two (Harvick/Elliott), he just had clean air. The best cars before that was Bowman and Truex but they had nothing for Logano. That says everything in a nut shell.
It gave Logano the track position it took to remain up front, the same way Bowman benefitted from that in Stage 1. The pit calls for two tires at the right times were the winning calls when it was all said and done.
Keselowski, didn’t have a car capable of beating either of the eight combined HMS or JGR cars, but here he is celebrating because he had clean air in the end.
Charlotte and NASCAR though, they can’t like this type of racing. Too much dominance in NASCAR’s home race. For a prestigious event, we saw another parade.
Joe Gibbs Racing Better Under The Lights, Still Lacking
Denny Hamlin said prior to this weekend that the Toyota’s weren’t up to par yet in terms of race pace. While they won 19 of the 36 races a year ago and put three drivers in the Championship 4, heading into Darlington on Wednesday night, they were just 1-for-5 with their lone victory on a superspeedway in the season opener at Daytona.
Then, they found speed. JGR went 1-2 with Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch finishing first or second respectively. Throw in Erik Jones and you get three of their four drivers coming home in the top five and all four in the top 10. Combined, they led 55 laps overall. Prior to Wednesday, they led just 108 laps all year. 93 of those 108 laps were led in the season opening Daytona 500. The only laps that they’ve led since then was all by Martin Truex Jr. who led one lap in Las Vegas, three in Fontana and 11 in Phoenix. On Wednesday, three of their four drivers led at least one lap.
Hamlin though, warned that maybe the speed showed on Wednesday was a mirage. Wednesday’s race was under the lights. The end of the Daytona 500, the other race that they’ve won? Under the lights. The other four races, the ones that they’ve looked pedestrian? Day races.
Sunday, kept the theory going but showed that Hamlin was right, they’re not quite there yet.
“(That) was by far the best race that we had as far as being competitive on speed,” said Hamlin after his win this past week. “So, I don’t know what that says because it was a night race. There was more on-throttle time. I think we’re still behind; I don’t think we can sugarcoat it in any kind of way and say we’re in good shape now.”
His teammate Martin Truex Jr agrees.
“I think we’re right there,” said Truex of speed. “We’re probably not the strongest team right now. I don’t think our cars are the fastest cars out there. I think if you look at the stats, we’ve had some really good race cars with the 19 (team).
The ‘600 was run mostly under the lights and Toyota’s shined for a while. Hamlin, had his pre race issues, but the other three cars were some of the best out there. Track position was key, which allowed Alex Bowman to dominate the first half of the event, but once Truex found the lead, he was gone. Then, when he lost the clean air, he was back to being pedestrian again. He finished seventh.
Jones, steadily climbed all night and was a top five driver. He faded to 12th though. Busch, was a top 10 driver all night and says he “stole” a top five with finishing fifth.
With Wednesday night’s race being under the lights, can they find the speed to win? They for much of the race had three of their four cars running inside of the top 10. Hamlin, Busch and Jones failed to lead a lap. Busch, hasn’t led a lap since Daytona still. Truex, did lead 87 circuits though, second most of the race.
Hamlin To Be In Trouble
Luckily for Denny Hamlin, he’s won twice this season. That’s because his No. 11 Toyota team is about to get hit hard in the penalty department. Hamlin, was slated to start 13th in Sunday’s race, but a ballast fell off his car as he was exiting pit road just prior to the pace laps at Charlotte.
The tungsten weight fell from his Toyota, which forced him to have to hit pit road after for repairs. He’d lose nine laps in the process as his night was over before it really even began. Not only was that an issue, so was this – according to the rulebook, an improperly secured ballast is subject to a post race penalty that includes a four race suspension for the crew chief, car chief and head engineer.
Translation?
Hamlin’s likely going to lack in the performance department over those four races. That’s a big hit to take.
Coca-Cola 600 Results
- 2 Keselowski
- 48 Johnson
- 9 Elliott
- 12 Blaney
- 18 KyBusch
- 4 Harvick
- 19 Truex Jr.
- 1 KuBusch
- 8 Reddick R
- 95 Bell R
- 17 Buescher
- 20 Jones
- 41 Custer R
- 22 Logano
- 3 ADillon
- 10 Almirola
- 38 Nemechek R
- 21 DiBenedetto
- 34 McDowell
- 88 Bowman
- 24 Byron -1
- 77 Chastain -2
- 37 Preece -2
- 32 LaJoie -2
- 47 Stenhouse Jr. -3
- 13 TDillon -4
- 42 Kenseth -4
- 6 Newman -5
- 96 Suarez -6
- 11 Hamlin -7
- 15 Poole R -7
- 27 Gaulding -8
- 78 McLeod -12
- 53 Smithley R -14
- 66 Hill -15
- 00 Houff R -15
- 51 Gase -20
- 7 Yeley OUT
- 43 Wallace Jr. OUT
- 14 Bowyer OUT
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