Kentucky Fantasy NASCAR Asterisk Mark Report
Kentucky was a wild race in 2013 when only two drivers who started in the top ten finished in the top (importance of staring up front). Last year in the Blue Grass State things were a little more straight forward. That doesn’t mean drivers had an incident free race though.
The first driver to have significant problems was Denny Hamlin. He started in 4th and just before the lap 30 competition caution while he was running in 3rd he had a flat tire and pounded the wall. That marked the end of his day and he finished dead last in the 42 car field.
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During the Denny Hamlin caution Kyle Larson had problems on pit road when he overshoot his pit box. That dropped him from 6th to 19th. While he was back in traffic he had problems working his way up through the running order. Then on lap 77 while he was running in 16th he pounded the wall and as a result he finished 40th.
During the Kyle Larson caution Kevin Harvick had a slow pit stop that dropped him down 14 positions.
For a more in-depth report of what happened at Kentucky last year read our Scouting Report
On lap 120 Matt Kenseth thought he had a tire going down. He was running in 6th at the time and that caused him to make an emergency pit stop that dropped him down a lap back to 28th. He was able to overcome this issue with time.
During the third caution Jeff Gordon faced adversity. He was running in 7th but his pit crew had a slow stop because of an air gun malfunction. That dropped him back to 24th.
On lap 153 the Kentucky semi-“Big One” occurred. Alex Bowman spun and Jamie McMurray and Aric Almirola wrecked. At the time McMurray was in 7th and Aric Almirola was running in 8th.
Aric Almirola didn’t get devastating damage from the earlier wreck and was able to return to the track. That wasn’t the last of his problems though. On lap 214 he hit the wall hard. This brought out the caution during the pit cycle which was at a favorable time for Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kyle Busch and Danica Patrick because it positioned them 1,2, and 3.
Joey Logano might’ve had a major problem in the closing laps but with 22 laps to go he didn’t drive as hard and nursed his car home to a 9th place finish. He thought that his engine would blow up.
