A clean sweep of the season series at Pocono Raceway for Dale Earnhardt, Jr. He led the final 14 laps but needed a great restart with three laps left against Kevin Harvick to claim his third win of the season.
The Sprint Cup Series enters the second half of its 26-race regular season with the first of two visits to Pocono Raceway this Sunday. So now drivers will be keeping a close eye on the standings as the start of the Chase for the Sprint Cup Championship gets closer. The top 10 drivers in the points standings get in along with two more wild cards based on wins from among drivers ranked 11th through 20th.
It was a combination of good luck and bad weather that allowed Jeff Gordon to win his first race of the season. Teammate Jimmie Johnson got loose on a restart and knocked Matt Kenseth into the wall. Kenseth then bounced off the wall and took out Denny Hamlin and that’s the opening Gordon needed to take the lead. And for Gordon it couldn’t have come at a better time. Rain started falling and with 98 of the scheduled 160 laps completed, officials called the race and Gordon was awarded the win.
Sprint Cup and Trucks are at Pocono this weekend, Nationwide is at Iowa. Can you believe Jeff Gordon is 40? The four-time Cup champion celebrated his birthday yesterday and there'd be no greater gift than winning at Pocono again.
Gordon won there in June, tying Bill Elliott for most victories at Pocono with five and also picked up his 84th career win matching him with Bobby Allison and Darrell Waltrip for third place on the series' all-time race winners list.