![\"NASCAR](\"http:\/\/maineracer.com\/images\/Sprint-Cup-Logo.jpg\"){kind=logo}
\nCONCORD, N.C.\u2014Spare Matt Kenseth the toilet humor.<\/p>\n
\nCONCORD, N.C.\u2014Spare Matt Kenseth the toilet humor.<\/p>\n
The driver of the No. 17 Roush Fenway Racing Ford was delighted to win Saturday night\u2019s Bank of America 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway with new sponsor Fluidmaster on his car\u2014make that with any sponsor on his car.<\/p>\n
In a race that saw five-time defending champion Jimmie Johnson suffer a Chase-changing accident in the final 20 laps, Kenseth pulled away from Kyle Busch and teammate Carl Edwards during a 12-lap run to the finish and notched his third victory of the season and the 21st of his career.
\n
\nKenseth finished .968 seconds ahead of Busch, with Edwards coming home in third, miffed by the way Busch raced in Turn 2 as the two were contesting second place in the closing laps.<\/p>\n
Kenseth climbed to third in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup standings halfway through NASCAR\u2019s 10-race playoff in an event that was as much an audition as a triumph for the 2003 Cup champion. With Crown Royal leaving as primary sponsor of his car after the current season, Kenseth needs financial backing for next year.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why he didn\u2019t mind the puns about Fluidmaster, which makes systems designed to conserve water when toilets are flushed.<\/p>\n
“After all the toilet jokes about my restarts, we finally got a good one today,” said Kenseth, who got the jump on Busch on the last restart of the race, on Lap 323 of 334. “Thankfully, we got a good one there at the end.<\/p>\n
“Crown Royal\u2014it\u2019s not too late to come back. We don\u2019t have any sponsors for next year, so this should be a good audition. And Fluidmaster for being on this week\u2014it was a great night for us.”<\/p>\n
Kenseth is seven points behind Edwards, who expanded his Chase lead to five points over sixth-place finisher Kevin Harvick.<\/p>\n
“That\u2019s good, but it only matters where you are in the last lap at Homestead (in the season finale). But it\u2019s been a great five races, and it feels great to win.”<\/p>\n
Busch, who led a race-high 111 laps, wasn\u2019t elated with second, but considering that he started at the rear of the field after an engine change, Busch had reason to feel encouraged.<\/p>\n
“It was the best run we\u2019ve had here in a while, but we still came up short,” Busch said. “We\u2019ve got to keep finishing like this. It\u2019s not that hard. We finally finished where we ran\u2014except we didn\u2019t. We still lost a position, which is four points essentially, because you get three bonus points for winning a race.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s frustrating, but we\u2019ll take it, and if we can finish second here on out, we might win this deal.”<\/p>\n
Edwards was upset by the line Busch took as they raced for second after the final restart\u2014and Edwards told Busch as much after the race.<\/p>\n
“We should definitely be racing each other hard,” Edwards said. “It\u2019s just that there\u2019s a difference between racing hard and then cutting across a guy\u2019s nose.<\/p>\n
“What I told Kyle is I just wonder why, coming off of Turn 2 when I got underneath him, that he drove down instead of going up to the wall like we would normally do. And I just let him know that next time that happens, I\u2019ll just stay where I\u2019m at and he can drive across my hood and wreck himself.<\/p>\n
“It just surprised me. Now he told me that he didn\u2019t mean to do it, and so I got to believe that, but I don\u2019t know what else there is to say about it. Just it\u2019s racing, and we didn\u2019t wreck, and we\u2019re going to race hard like that\u2014that\u2019s just how I saw it.”<\/p>\n
Busch had his own explanation.<\/p>\n
“I got loose, and it was steering me down the track instead of my butt going up the track, and I was just trying to hold on and not do anything. Then I side-drafted him to stay along side of him down the backstretch, and that was it. I was trying to keep my position.”<\/p>\n
Running in close quarters with Ryan Newman on Lap 316, Johnson slid sideways and slammed nose-first into the Turn 2 wall. With a 34th-place finish, Johnson fell from third to eighth in the standings, 35 points behind Edwards.<\/p>\n
“I\u2019m OK\u2014that one stung for sure,” Johnson said after the wreck. “Just thankful to have safe racecars, safe walls, softer walls, and everything did its job. Pretty big impact. Unfortunate that we wrecked. We got into Turn 1 and the 39 (Newman) was real tight on my outside and pulled me around. From there on I was just hanging on.”<\/p>\n
Johnson\u2019s hopes for a sixth straight title may have started circling the bowl\u2014and that\u2019s a toilet joke Kenseth might actually enjoy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
CONCORD, N.C.\u2014Spare Matt Kenseth the toilet humor. The driver of the No. 17 Roush Fenway Racing Ford was delighted to win Saturday night\u2019s Bank of America 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway with new sponsor Fluidmaster on his car\u2014make that with any sponsor on his car. In a race that saw five-time defending champion Jimmie Johnson […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[15775],"class_list":["post-8308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nascar","tag-nascar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8308\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}