Almriola’s Crew Letting Him Down
Aric Almirola had a prime opportunity, just as he did in 2021, to steal a win in New Hampshire and advance to the postseason as a result. Instead, after running so well, his pit crew let him down…again.
Almirola had a top two or three car for the first half of the race and his crew chief, Drew Blickensderfer made the call to take two tires on the Lap 162 caution. That got him the lead in the race off pit road.
As the race leader, Almirola chose the outside lane on the ensuing restart. That was his demise. The crew never got the right rear tire tightened and when Almirola went off into Turn 1, he lost the tire and his car crashing into the outside SAFER barrier.
As a result, he went from a potential win to 27th in points (-105).
“I thought it (the right-rear) felt a little bit awkward leaving pit road, but then after that, working my tires in and going through the gears before the restart, ya know… I spun the tires a few times – everything felt normal,” Almirola said. “I didn’t really have any concerns going into the restart, and then, obviously, the right-rear wheel came off. So, just really, really disappointed.”
Dismal Weekend For Kyle Busch
Kyle Busch saw his seven-race streak of top 10 finishes come to an end in a frustrating race weekend in Loudon on Monday with a last place finish in 36th. He crashed early on in the race, ending his day prematurely.
However, his weekend wasn’t just predicated to Monday. He got into the Turn 2 wall in Saturday’s practice. The team felt like the minimal damage didn’t need to be fixed. So he went out to qualify later. His opening round time was good enough to get into the final round. However, he crashed in Turn 1 in that final session.
“No, I’ve been lacking right-rear grip the whole time we’ve been here,” said Busch. “Just couldn’t get the right-rear feel in the race track. You’re just going along trying to keep it under you as much as you can. It was getting late in the run, and I was trying a different line and it was just too high. I didn’t like to be that high on entry. I couldn’t give it wheel and have the right-rear stick with the lateral grip that you need.”
Three visits to the wall in as many times in the car. It was also his third DNF, all to crashes, in his last four Loudon starts too.
Where Busch should be concerned is the fact that Loudon translates well over to Phoenix and they just struggled all together. The Richard Childress Racing driver admitted multiple times over the season that their weakness is on short tracks.
While he dominated another like track from the pole in Gateway, he was last in Loudon. That plus being eighth in Phoenix this past spring, 14th in Richmond as well as 21st at both Martinsville and Dover should have them concerned for a final round appearance should it come.
McDowell Still Holding On
Michael McDowell’s goal over the next few races was to just keep it close. Following a great pit call and being rewarded by it in Atlanta, McDowell jumped up to the mix in the playoff race.
He went from -10 entering Atlanta to three points leaving. So, with tracks like Loudon, Pocono, Richmond and Michigan coming up, their main goal was to just keep it close over this month long stretch.
So far, so good.
McDowell finished 13th on Monday which has him still on the plus side of the wildcard column. He’s +1 heading to Pocono. It’s a place that he finishes a respectable sixth a year ago here, albeit his car later failed inspection at the R&D Center.
McDowell has four Top-10 finishes in the last six weeks too.
Great Bounce Back for 23XI Racing
Heading into Loudon, 23XI Racing was going backwards. Since Tyler Reddick won at COTA, he only had two top fives in the next 16 races run. 9 of his 16 finishes were 16th or worse including a stretch entering Monday’s race of finishes at 35th, 33rd, 30th, 28th and 27th respectively.
Similar for Bubba Wallace. After four straight top five finishes, three of which points paying and the other in the All-Star race at North Wilkesboro, Wallace slumped once the calendar turned June.
He finished 30th, 17th, 15th ,31st and 25th respectively entering Loudon.
So, for both drivers not only to make the final round in qualifying on Saturday, they’d each finish in the top 10 on Monday with Reddick in sixth and Wallace in eighth.
Wallace now moves from below the cutline to back above it at +2 heading into Pocono. He was eighth last year and fifth the year prior and back again in a Toyota.
Reddick was 11th, ninth and second in his last three Pocono starts.
Truex, Logano Take 1-2 In “Home Races”
Martin Truex Jr. has several “home tracks” that he calls his own, but in all reality, Loudon near the top of his list. Dover, Pocono and Watkins Glen are others. He’s won at those three, but Loudon has escaped him.
It’s a place that he made 29 past starts in and led nearly 1,000 laps in the process. He’d done everything but win.
After a dominating day, Truex had another driver who considers Loudon home in Connecticut’s Joey Logano running second. He had won here before. He wanted a third win.
He saw that Truex was struggling a bit and felt like he could track him down in the end.
“I thought I would have had something,” Logano said. “Right before that caution came out two cautions to the end when we had tires on it seemed like the 19 took a few laps to get going. I was running him down, I was like man, I’ve got a chance here.
“That caution came out right when I was thinking I could make a move on the outside into 3.
“And then it seemed like the cycles helped him get his pressures up to where he can refire and be pretty quick the last couple restarts.”
Truex even admitted that his car wasn’t as good at the end as it was earlier but when your car is so good for much of the day, how can you make any changes to risk it going the other way?
“You just never know in these races,” Truex said. “Guys get better all day long. Everybody works on their car. Our car was so good you don’t really know what to do to make it better, and sometimes guys start catching up because you’re afraid to do anything.
“That’s bit us here in the past. Today we were able to just make real small adjustments and the track didn’t really change that much but the groove changed a ton. I cannot believe where we were running at the end of that race, like in that old pavement way up high. That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever done here.
“Pretty cool that it kind of moved around and worked out that way and our car, we were able to just run anywhere. Yeah, just a super good race car that was very maneuverable and could run different lanes, was good in traffic. I could pass cars and do what I needed.
“I don’t know, I’ve had really good cars in the past at other places, and this place here you get out front, track position is a big deal, and we were able to take advantage of that today.”
Instead, Truex held Logano off for an emotional victory in the process.
“What we’ve been able to do here over the years is pretty remarkable, and to not win was really getting frustrating,” Truex admitted. “James (Small) and I talked about it many times. We thought about it all weekend, talked about it with Christopher (Bell) before the race. He’s like, ‘Man, you’ve led more laps here than I’ve even raced in Cup.’ Just really an awesome job by everybody. What a race car we had today. Just proud of the whole team. Pit stops were flawless. Race car was unbelievable. We had some challenges at times throughout the race and it was a handful at times, but we just kept our heads down, kept digging.
“I think it’s no secret that I’ve been after this one for a long time. It’s always been one that I wanted so bad, and maybe I think too bad at times.
But it was well worth the wait to be able to do it here today finally, take home the lobster and put another win at Loudon with the name Truex on it. Very special.
“Just an unbelievable day for our team and unbelievable job by everyone on our Reser’s Toyota Camry. The car was super fast again here like we’ve been in the past, but it definitely was fast all day long, not just the first two stages, so that was good.”
For Logano, he came home runner-up. However, being second here isn’t like being second elsewhere.
“Dang it, the home track, there’s no place you want to win more than this, so it stings to not get the Shell-Pennzoil Ford into Victory Lane,” he says. “But gosh, second just sucks sometimes, you know. It stings the most when you’re that close and feeling like you had a shot at it. Still a good day for us.”
This is a second sting for him as he was also runner-up in February’s Daytona 500 too.
“Second is the worst, man. You’re so close,” Logano said then. “Leading the white flag lap there, I was up front. Kyle gave me a good push and, yeah, you’re watching in the mirror and you’re three wide across there. I felt like the three wide was going a hurt a lane; looked like Kyle was getting pushed ahead, and then Ricky started getting pushed ahead.
“I knew if I went to the bottom my car didn’t handle good enough. I already got pushed off the bottom once and I thought, if I go down there I’m probably going to get wrecked, and I don’t know if I can get down there in time to throw the block and so I didn’t want to wreck my car either.
“Then you don’t expect them to wreck either. You think you’re racing to the checkered flag and you put yourself in the best position to try to win at the start-finish line, and just caution came out — you wish you could race to the end. Obviously you can’t when they wreck that much.
“Congratulations to Ricky. There’s nothing like winning the Daytona 500. That’s why it stings so much finishing second.
“Still proud of the team, still proud of the effort coming off the championship last year and bringing this Shell-Pennzoil Mustang back toward the front and getting a Ford close to the front. Wish it was in Victory Lane, though.”
Still this gives Logano big optimism for Phoenix if he can get back there in November. It’s no secret that the Ford’s are down in comparison to Chevrolet and Toyota. But, this looks a lot like last season for which Logano struggled mid season but turned it on late.
For Loudon, they wanted to try something new and for it to pay off with another runner-up, that’s a massive win.
“Yeah, directionally that was good we tried a lot of new things today,” he admitted.” We weren’t good here last year, so we tried a lot of different things. Some things better, some things not, but overall kind of can hang in the Top 5 all day and have a shot at the win.
“Still a lot of work to do to be the favorite at the moment, but we’re making the right steps right now.”
Logano was 11th in the spring race at Phoenix, but 7th in Richmond, 2nd in Martinsville and now 2nd in Loudon.
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