{"id":18582,"date":"2018-06-03T18:44:02","date_gmt":"2018-06-03T23:44:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=18582"},"modified":"2018-06-03T18:44:02","modified_gmt":"2018-06-03T23:44:02","slug":"nascar-sunday-pocono-raceway-notebook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2018\/06\/03\/nascar-sunday-pocono-raceway-notebook\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR: Sunday Pocono Raceway Notebook"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/b><\/p>\n

Ryan Blaney perseveres through trying day at Pocono<\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/b><\/p>\n

LONG POND, Pa. \u2013 <\/b>A promising Friday didn\u2019t produce a satisfying Sunday for defending Pocono 400 winner Ryan Blaney.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Ryan Blaney, driver of the #12 Menards\/Duracell Ford, and Kevin Harvick, driver of the #4 Busch Beer Ford, prepare to lead the field to green for the start of the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Pocono 400 at Pocono Raceway on June 3, 2018 in Long Pond, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Jared C. Tilton\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

After winning the pole position for the 14th Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race of the season, Blaney stayed out front for the first 11 laps of the event at Pocono Raceway before Kevin Harvick passed him for the lead. That was the last time Blaney would hold the top spot.<\/p>\n

After starting a cycle of green-flag pit stops on Lap 16, Blaney couldn\u2019t contend with the \u201cspeed\u201d cars of race winner Martin Truex Jr. and third- and fourth-place finishers Kyle Busch and Kevin Harvick.<\/p>\n

Toward the end of the first stage, Blaney surrendered positions to Clint Bowyer, Denny Hamlin and Chase Elliott. He finished seventh in the 50-lap stage and, ultimately, sixth in the race\u2014a disappointing result at the track that gave him his only victory in the series to date.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a really hard day,\u201d Blaney said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t start out very good and worked on it really hard. I thought we were about a fourth- or fifth-place car, and we were running fifth there when the caution came out (for debris on Lap 139).<\/p>\n

\u201cThat jumbled everyone up, and we came in and put two (tires) on it, and my car didn\u2019t really drive that good on two tires. We ended up sixth. I thought we were better than a couple cars that finished in front of us. We worked on it pretty hard all day, and to make gains like we did through the day is a positive.\u201d<\/p>\n

BUBBA WALLACE\u2019S RETURN TO POCONO ENDS WITH ENGINE FAILURE<\/b><\/p>\n

The anticipation Bubba Wallace felt on returning to the track where he made his Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series debut last season soon turned to disappointment when the engine in his No. 43 Richard Petty Motorsports Chevrolet expired after 108 laps, the result of a missed shift.<\/p>\n

That terminal failure followed a pit road speeding violation that forced Wallace to serve a pass-through penalty, putting the prospect of a strong finish in jeopardy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI made a mistake on pit road speeding again here at Pocono,\u201d Wallace said ruefully after steering his car to the garage. \u201cWe took the wave-around, and we were on older stuff (tires).  The No. 95 (Kasey Kahne) was a little bit better than us, well, for sure better. I just tucked in behind him so we didn\u2019t waste too much time and kind of did like a long shift and gave up a little bit of time.\u201d<\/p>\n

That led to the costly miscue.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did it earlier in the race around some cars and had no trouble with it. I just had too much weight and pulled to the left and went from third (gear) to second. I really hate it, and I have never done it before. It\u2019s a bummer. She screamed pretty loud for a second and that was it. It didn\u2019t re-fire after that.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Crew chief) Drew (Blickensderfer) came up with a good strategy to make us rebound from that penalty that we had, and I thought we were going to set ourselves up for a decent finish. That\u2019s what we needed. We kind of struggled with some front grip all weekend long, but we started hitting on it right there at the end.\u201d<\/p>\n

MATT KENSETH RALLIES FOR HARD-FOUGHT 13th-PLACE FINISH<\/b><\/p>\n

Matt Kenseth\u2019s return to Roush Fenway Racing hasn\u2019t been the panacea the organization had hoped it might be, but the No. 6 team made progress in Sunday\u2019s Pocono 400 after losing a lap to eventual race winner Martin Truex Jr. near the end of the first 50-lap stage.<\/p>\n

After starting 26th, Kenseth spent the first two stages outside the top 20 before taking a wave-around under caution after the completion of Stage 2. Kenseth and crew chief Matt Puccia parlayed the return to the lead lap into a respectable finish\u2014Kenseth\u2019s best since returning to the team\u2014but the team has miles to go before it will become competitive with the elite of the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a struggle all day for us,\u201d Kenseth said. \u201cI felt like we got fortunate at the end with some pit strategy by Matt and some cautions that got us back in position to finish 13th<\/sup>. \u201cBut we didn\u2019t run that well. I feel like we made a small amount of headway today, but we still have a bunch of work to do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service   Ryan Blaney perseveres through trying day at Pocono   LONG POND, Pa. \u2013 A promising Friday didn\u2019t produce a satisfying Sunday for defending Pocono 400 winner Ryan Blaney. After winning the pole position for the 14th Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race of the season, Blaney stayed out front for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18579,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[607,16,605,252],"class_list":["post-18582","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-nasacar","tag-nascar","tag-pocono-400","tag-pocono-raceway"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/mencs_pocono1_blaneyharvick_060318.jpg?fit=2839%2C2028&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-4PI","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18582"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18584,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18582\/revisions\/18584"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}