1 8 29 Kevin Harvick Shell/Pennzoil Chevrolet
2 33 11 Denny Hamlin FedEx Express Toyota
3 24 99 Carl Edwards Aflac Ford
4 6 16 Greg Biffle 3M Ford
5 7 17 Matt Kenseth Crown Royal Ford
6 4 14 Tony Stewart Office Depot/Old Spice Chevrolet
7 5 42 Juan Pablo Montoya Target Chevrolet
8 9 56 Martin Truex Jr. NAPA Toyota
9 23 19 Elliott Sadler Henry Ford Museum: Racing in America Ford
10 27 20 Joey Logano Home Depot Toyota
11 29 6 David Ragan UPS Ford
12 2 48 Jimmie Johnson Lowe’s Chevrolet
13 3 33 Clint Bowyer Cheerios/Hamburger Helper Chevrolet
14 1 9 Kasey Kahne Budweiser Ford
15 37 47 Marcos Ambrose Little Debbie Toyota
16 14 00 David Reutimann Aaron’s Dream Machine Toyota
17 16 43 A J Allmendinger Insignia HDTV Ford
18 18 18 Kyle Busch Interstate Batteries Toyota
19 38 88 Dale Earnhardt Jr. National Guard Drive the Guard/AMP Energy Chevrolet
20 19 1 Jamie McMurray Philips Norelco Chevrolet
21 20 78 Regan Smith Furniture Row Racing Chevrolet
22 30 21 Bill Elliott Motorcraft/Quick Lane Tire & Auto Center Ford
23 17 39 Ryan Newman Tornados Chevrolet
24 11 31 Jeff Burton Cat Financial Chevrolet
25 31 82 Scott Speed Red Bull Toyota
26 34 83 Reed Sorenson Red Bull Toyota
27 36 24 Jeff Gordon DuPont Chevrolet
28 12 5 Mark Martin GoDaddy.com Chevrolet
29 25 26 Patrick Carpentier Air Guard Ford
30 32 38 Travis Kvapil Long John Silver’s Ford
31 39 34 Tony Raines Front Row Motorsports Ford
32 28 77 Sam Hornish Jr. Mobil 1 Dodge
33 40 71 Bobby Labonte TaxSlayer.com Chevrolet
34 26 12 Brad Keselowski No. 12 Penske Dodge Dodge
35 10 98 Paul Menard Mastercraft/Menards Ford
36 42 37 David Gilliland Taco Bell Ford
37 41 7 P J Jones SpeedFactory.TV Toyota
38 15 09 Landon Cassill Phoenix Construction Chevrolet
39 35 07 Robby Gordon SpeedFactory.TV Toyota
40 13 2 Kurt Busch Miller Lite/Vortex Dodge
41 21 13 Max Papis GEICO Toyota
42 43 55 Michael McDowell PRISM Motorsports Toyota
43 22 87 Joe Nemechek NEMCO Motorsports Toyota

By Reid Spencer
Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service

(August 15, 2010)

BROOKLYN, Mich. — When you have a comfortable points lead, you can afford to gamble.

That’s what Kevin Harvick did—successfully—in Sunday’s Carfax 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Michigan International Speedway.

Staying out on old tires under the final caution of the race, Harvick tracked down Denny Hamlin on Lap 190 of 200 and pulled away to beat Hamlin to the finish line by 1.731 seconds. Harvick extended his series lead to 293 points over Jeff Gordon and became the first driver to clinch a spot in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.

After NASCAR threw a yellow for debris on Lap 167, Harvick restarted second behind Tony Stewart on Lap 173. Hamlin, who restarted third, took the top spot from Stewart on Lap 178, with Harvick following. Running the top of the 2-mile track, Harvick passed Hamlin through Turns 3 and 4 after Hamlin’s Toyota began to lose grip on the bottom.

The victory was Harvick’s first at Michigan, his third of the season and the 14th of his career. Roush Fenway Racing drivers Carl Edwards, Greg Biffle and Matt Kenseth claimed positions three through five. Stewart, Juan Pablo Montoya, Martin Truex Jr., Elliott Sadler and Joey Logano completed the top 10.

“The biggest concern I had was the tires,” Harvick said of the call to stay out.

“Once we got through those first three or four or five laps, the new tires kind of evened out. Our car was so good up on the top. We were a little off on the restarts, but what a great day. This hasn’t been the best track for us.”

Harvick’s pass of Hamlin represented a 20-point swing in bonus points to start the Chase. Harvick now has 30, 10 for each win, and prevented Hamlin from adding to his 50-point total. The bonus points will kick in after the Chase field is set Sept. 11 at Richmond.

Hamlin, who also stayed out during the final caution, said he wasn’t sure whether the strategy would serve him well until the last restart.

We didn’t know whether the guys with four tires were going to eat us up or not,” Hamlin said. “I think five laps into that (run) when me, Harvick and Tony started pulling away, I realized it was a three-car race for the win at that point.

“But really it just seemed like whoever could get their car up front was pretty strong. You lose one spot, next thing you know your car handles a little worse and you lose more. It’s a tough balance out there to try to get track position, but you got to have everything working right for you to get that track position. Once you get it, obviously the fastest car won today. So it was at least good to see that.”

In the race within a race, Mark Martin dealt a blow to his chances to qualify for the Chase in the opening laps. Racing in dirty air in close quarters with Edwards, Martin scraped the outside wall, damaged the right-front of his No. 5 Chevrolet and crippled the handling of the car.

Martin finished 28th and lost the 12th position in the standings to Clint Bowyer, who came home 13th. Martin trails Bowyer by 35 points with three races left before the Chase field is set.

Notes: Polesitter Kasey Kahne faded in the late stages of the race and finished 14th. … Dale Earnhardt Jr. ran 19th and dropped to 17th in the standings, 129 points behind Bowyer. … Edwards posted his sixth straight top-10 finish, as Roush Fenway Racing placed three cars in the top five for the first time this season.

Race Recap | Michigan
10 Joey Logano
9 Elliott Sadler
8 Martin Truex Jr.
7 Juan Pablo Montoya
6 Tony Stewart
5 Matt Kenseth
4 Greg Biffle
3 Carl Edwards
2 Denny Hamlin

Victory Lane

1 Kevin Harvick 3rd win of the season, first career at Michigan, and is locked into the chase with 10 more bonus points.

Other Stories on the day

Jimmie Johnson leads lap 1 but finished 12th

Mark Martin pounded the wall early on and finished 28th

Clint Bowyer finished 13th and is again top 12 in points

Kurt Busch’s motor blew to bring out the first caution

Kyle Busch’s pit crew was amazing with 12.1 second stops, he later pounded the wall and finished 18th

Jeff Gordon has a tire down while battling up front around lap 46

Greg Biffle dominated most of this race, led the most laps but couldn’t seal the deal

By Jared Turner
Special to the Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service

(August 14, 2010)

DARLINGTON, S.C. In a season where seemingly nothing can go wrong, good fortune smiled on Todd Bodine once again in Saturday night’s Camping World Truck Series Too Tough to Tame 200 at Darlington Raceway.

The series leader by 174 points coming into the race, Bodine cruised to his second straight win and third this season in the first truck race at Darlington since 2004.

“We love this place,” Bodine crew chief Mike Hillman Jr. said after watching his driver cross the finish line.

The key moment of the race occurred with 47 laps to go when Austin Dillon elected to give up the lead and pit for tires under caution. Expecting Bodine and others to follow suit before the finish, Dillon dropped outside the top 10 in the running order and never challenged for the lead again as a flurry of late cautions allowed the leaders to remain on track without needing to stop for tires or fuel.

Timothy Peters finished second after starting from the pole and having the dominant truck early. Ron Hornaday Jr. came home third after leading briefly when he beat Peters off pit road under the third of nine cautions.

Johnny Sauter finished fourth followed by Dillon.

On a night that featured plenty of spins and general mayhem, Darlington lived up to its reputation as one of the toughest tracks in NASCAR.

Brian Ickler, Mike Skinner and Ricky Carmichael were among the contenders eliminated in accidents. Carmichael took the hardest hit, slamming the Turn 4 wall head-on after being clipped in the right-rear quarter panel by the spinning truck of Mario Gosselin.

“That’s typical RC luck right there,” Carmichael said. “I just can’t do anything.”

By Reid Spencer
Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service

(August 14, 2010)

BROOKLYN, Mich. Despite clutch problems that plagued him on pit road, Brad Keselowski dominated Saturday’s Carfax 250 Nationwide Series race at Michigan International Speedway.

“I don’t need no stinking clutch,” Keselowski said shortly after crossing the finish line 3.179 seconds ahead of second-place Carl Edwards.

No, he didn’t. Clutch or no clutch, Keselowski’s No. 22 Penske Racing Dodge was the class of the field, starting from the pole and leading 89 of the 125 laps, in the first race for NASCAR’s new Nationwide Series car on a downforce track.

Keselowski pulled away from Edwards after a Lap 117 restart, necessitated by the second caution of the race. Slow leaving the pits after a green-flag stop on Lap 105, Keselowski was running second, 3.4 seconds behind Edwards and closing, when the caution flag flew.

The caution bunched the field and gave Keselowski the opportunity to pass Edwards on the restart. Keselowski now leads second-place Edwards by 347 points in the series standings.

“The clutch problems just affect our pit stops, and at the end, it affected my (celebratory) burnout,” Keselowski said. “It still was an awesome racecar. When you’ve got cars this good, man, life is a lot easier.”

Kyle Busch finished third, followed by Justin Allgaier and Paul Menard. Joey Logano, Elliott Sadler, Reed Sorenson, rookie Colin Braun and Kevin Harvick completed the top 10. Danica Patrick came home 27th, four laps down, in her sixth race in the series and her first in the new car.

The Nationwide Series will use the new car in upcoming races at Richmond and Charlotte before its introduction as the full-time car in 2011. Saturday’s race dramatically increased Keselowski’s comfort level with his new Dodge Challenger.

“For me, I was nervous about this car for a lot of reasons,” Keselowski said. “I was nervous because, quite honestly, I haven’t run that well on the (Sprint) Cup side, and this chassis is based off the Cup car. I looked at it and thought, ‘Geez, if I haven’t run that well in the Cup car, what am I going to do when they bring it to the Nationwide side?’

“I was a little bit nervous about it from that standpoint, and obviously, the reliability of anything that’s new. So to be able to go out and win in that car, knowing it’s the same chassis as the Cup car—with some very subtle differences—is a huge boost of momentum that, hopefully I can carry over to (Sunday’s Cup race) as well.”

Edwards was aware that the second caution had deprived him of his best opportunity to win the race.

“Until that last caution, I thought, ‘Man, we might win this thing,’ ” Edwards said. “Then we had the caution, and Brad was able to just launch out front on that last run. It was just a battle for second then.

“But I could taste victory. I thought, ‘Man, this is going to work out—we’re going to steal one here today.’ But the best car ended up winning. Those guys did a good job.”

Keselowski and Edwards have a history of violent confrontations on the racetrack. In fact, both are on probation until the end of the year after a massive wreck on the last lap of a Nationwide race at Gateway International Raceway in July, where Edwards retaliated after Keselowski bumped him.

At Michigan, however, they raced hard but without contact. The ingredients were there for another melee, Keselowski said, but on Saturday it didn’t happen.

“The cake didn’t bake,” Keselowski said.