Matt Kenseth dominates at Richmond as Chase field is set

Sept. 12, 2015 By Reid Spencer NASCAR Wire Service RICHMOND, Va. – Joe Gibbs Racing brought guns to a knife fight on Saturday night at Richmond International Raceway. But JGR’s Matt Kenseth did his teammates one better — he brought a howitzer. Leading 352 of 400 laps in a race he owned from the outset, Kenseth pulled away from Kyle Busch after a restart with 18 laps left and won the Federated Auto Parts 400 by .951 seconds over his teammate. Kenseth’s fourth victory of the season, tying him for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series lead with Jimmie Johnson and JGR teammate…

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Chase Elliott breaks 39-race drought with Richmond victory

Sept. 11, 2015 By Reid Spencer NASCAR Wire Service RICHMOND, Va. – Reigning NASCAR XFINITY Series champion Chase Elliott was first off pit road under caution on Lap 218 of 250 and held the top spot the rest of the way in breaking a 39-race winless streak on Friday night at Richmond International Raceway. Elliott’s victory in the Virginia529 College Savings 250 trimmed his deficit to 21 points behind series leader Chris Buescher, who finished 10th. Elliott’s first victory of the season was also the first in 24 races for an XFINITY Series regular at RIR. “We always want to come and…

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Richmond Preview: Some Will Play It Safe, Others Need To Win

By Jared Turner The regular-season finale at Richmond International Raceway typically offers a lot of suspense as it’s the race where the 16-driver Chase for the Sprint Cup field is locked in. But, barring an unforeseen set of circumstances, Saturday night’s Federated Auto Parts 400 at RIR is going to be little more than a formality in terms of its impact on setting the championship field. With 25 of 26 regular-season races in the books, the only current Chase driver in any real danger of falling out is 16th-place Clint Bowyer. But with a healthy 29-point buffer on Aric Almirola, his closest…

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Breaking Down the Chase Picture Before Richmond

By Jerry Bonkowski It’s come down to this: win and you’re in. Anything less and you’re done. That’s the scenario for Saturday night at Richmond International Raceway, the final qualifying race for the Chase for the Sprint Cup. Fourteen drivers are left with one last chance to make the Chase: Aric Almirola, Kasey Kahne, Greg Biffle, Kyle Larson, Austin Dillon, AJ Allmendinger, Casey Mears, Danica Patrick, Tony Stewart, David Ragan, Sam Hornish Jr., Trevor Bayne, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Justin Allgaier. Given the hard-luck season most of them have had in 2015, it’s hard to envision them winning in the season’s most…

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5 Lessons Learned: The Chase Is All But Settled

By Jared Turner Joe Gibbs Racing Is Still The Team To Beat Just when you thought Joe Gibbs Racing couldn’t be any more dominant, think again. With Carl Edwards win in the Bojangles’ Southern 500, a JGR driver has now gone to Victory Lane in seven of the past 10 races. At Darlington, JGR drivers accounted for three of the top seven finishing positions, with Denny Hamlin (third) and Kyle Busch (seventh) joining race winner Edwards in the top 10. So can the JGR juggernaut be stopped? Don’t count on it happening this weekend at Richmond, a track where Hamlin and Busch…

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