Matt Kenseth wins nutty Pocono race on fuel mileage
Joey Logano was cruising to victory in Sunday's race at Pocono. And then Kyle Busch looked poised to win his fourth race in a row.
But neither of them won. Instead, it was Busch's Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Matt Kenseth, who made his fuel tank last to the end while Logano and Busch ran out of gas.
Teams usually work the races at Pocono backwards, meaning they calculate their fuel mileage from the end of the race and try make their final pit stop as soon as possible. At most NASCAR races, teams pit whenever they can under caution periods for fresh tires as tires are more important than track position.
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At Pocono, laps at the 2.5-mile track can take so long that drivers can pit under green flag conditions without losing a lap. And with track position at a premium, pitting under green is more beneficial than pitting under a caution flag and potentially losing spots to other teams.
The second half of Sunday's race had lots of green flag laps and Jimmie Johnson set off the final round of green flag stops with 38 laps to go. As teams copycatted Johnson's strategy it meant they were pitting right on the edge of their fuel window.
With one caution period, gas wouldn't be an issue. But the race went green until the end and drivers were forced to try tactics like letting off early and refusing to shift gears in the corners to save fuel and attempt to make it to the end.
In contrast to the last 50 percent of the 160-lap race, the first 72 laps featured seven caution flags including one for Kasey Kahne's scary encounter with the inside pit wall.
Logano ran out on the backstretch with three laps to go. Busch was approximately a second behind Logano and took the lead from him. Then, with two laps to go, Martin Truex Jr., who was about five seconds behind Busch, ran out of gas in turn three. Busch had a large cushion to Kenseth, who inherited second.
But Busch then ran out of gas on the frontstretch as he took the white flag. Kenseth, who likely had been able to save more gas than anyone else because he had no close competition for his spot, passed him in turn two and ended up taking the win.
"I wanted to pass [Jimmie] because you just never know about those guys," Kenseth said. "And I knew that ... and so I wanted to get in front of him and just control the gap and once he started dropping behind me [crew chief Jason Ratcliff] told me to start saving – we talked about it a little before the race – and just saved as much as we could."
It's Kenseth's second win of the year.
Logano, who won the season-opening Daytona 500, was gunning for his second win of the year too. He instead finished 20th after he coasted back to pit road. Busch wasn't so lucky because he ran out of gas on the frontstretch and on the last lap. He ended up 21st.
After winning four of the previous five races, Busch's main goal was to get into the top 30 in points because he missed the first 11 races of the year. With a fourth-straight win or even a second-place finish, he would have accomplished that goal with five races to go before the Chase.
Now he's still on the outside of the top 30, though he gained points on 30th place. He entered the race 23 points behind 30th and is now 13 points back in 32nd with five races to go. He's still on track to make the Chase by the time it begins at Richmond, but if he misses it, Sunday's race will be seen as a big reason why.
"We got greedy," Busch said. "I don't know how greedy but that's the position we're in. If it came down to other things and we haven't had the success that we've had lately, we would have had to have pitted and just made the best opportunity of it and got the best finish we could. We went for broke today and came up a little bit short. Can't fault the team."
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Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
