{"id":21958,"date":"2018-09-16T20:00:44","date_gmt":"2018-09-17T01:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=21958"},"modified":"2018-09-17T10:20:47","modified_gmt":"2018-09-17T15:20:47","slug":"nascar-sunday-las-vegas-notebook-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2018\/09\/16\/nascar-sunday-las-vegas-notebook-2\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR: Sunday Las Vegas Notebook"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Late cautions foil Kyle Larson’s winning chances at Las Vegas <\/b><\/p>\n

LAS VEGAS \u2013 The late caution flags in Sunday\u2019s South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway were just what Brad Keselowski needed.<\/p>\n

But they were inimical to the winning chances of Kyle Larson, who couldn\u2019t match Keselowski\u2019s short-run speed.<\/p>\n

Larson had just passed Keselowski for the top spot on Lap 245 of 272, but two laps later, Denny Hamlin spun off Turn 4 to bring out the ninth yellow flag of the afternoon. Three more cautions followed in short order, and Larson never had a chance to use his long-run advantage.<\/p>\n

Instead, Larson finished second in a two-lap overtime dash, 1.276 seconds behind Keselowski. The runner-up finish was Larson\u2019s sixth of the season without a victory.<\/p>\n

\u201cI needed it to stay green there (after the pass of Keselowski),\u201d Larson said. \u201cI felt like I could have won the race right there, because he was really good on the short run and I was terrible on short runs today, but once I could get the top (lane) going, I was really good.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight when I moved up top in (Turns) 3 and 4 and pulled away, the caution came out. I felt like I was going to be able to stretch it. I felt like the 78 (Martin Truex Jr.) would probably get by (Keselowski) at some point and then maybe chase me down. <\/p>\n

\u201cI knew if I could hold Brad off for a little bit, I would have a good shot, but it didn’t work out. And then we had a ton of restarts there. A couple of them worked out for me, a couple of them didn’t, and, thankfully, the last one worked out and we were able to get to second.\u201d<\/p>\n

JIMMIE JOHNSON FINDS SPEED IN VEGAS BUT CAN\u2019T SHAKE BAD LUCK<\/b><\/p>\n

Fans at Sunday\u2019s South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway might have had to do a double-take.<\/p>\n

After starting 17th<\/sup> and falling back early, Jimmie Johnson charged into the top five, a position he hasn\u2019t occupied for much of the 2018 season.<\/p>\n

Johnson was running seventh for a restart on lap 257, but on that circuit he was part of a four-car tangle with Playoff contenders Alex Bowman, Clint Bowyer and Kurt Busch. Johnson\u2019s No. 48 Chevrolet was heavily damaged, and after repairs, he finished 22nd<\/sup>, two laps down.<\/p>\n

The seven-time Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series champion leaves Las Vegas 13th<\/sup> in the standings, six points behind Bowman, his Hendrick Motorsports teammate.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe could have closed with a top-five finish that would have really helped and given us a cushion,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cToday was really a good day for the Lowe\u2019s team. We had good speed in the car, good pit stops\u2026 everything was going well and, unfortunately, cut a right-front tire when we touched the No. 41 (Busch) off of Turn 2.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know how next week is going to go (at Richmond), I really don\u2019t, and I sure as hell don\u2019t know how the (Charlotte) Roval is going to go (Sept. 30).  So, sure, we finished higher than some guys, but any cushion we could have gotten today would have been nice.\u201d<\/p>\n

AUSTIN DILLON IS A SURVIVOR IN A WAR OF ATTRITION IN THE DESERT<\/b><\/p>\n

Austin Dillon got his wish\u2014Sunday\u2019s South Point 400 didn\u2019t finish the way it started for the No. 3 Richard Childress Racing team.<\/p>\n

The reigning Daytona 500 winner was relegated to the rear of the field for the opening green flag because of unapproved adjustments to the body of the Chevrolet. But Dillon persevered, and when attrition took care of more than half the Playoff contenders, he rolled home with an 11th<\/sup>-place finish that left him 10th<\/sup> in the standings heading to Richmond for the second race in the first round of the postseason.<\/p>\n

Dillon finished behind teammate Ryan Newman in ninth and former teammate Paul Menard in 10th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I\u2019m proud of our guys,\u201d Dillon said. \u201cThey brought a really fast race car. We gave up a lot of track position throughout the day, not just from starting in the back, but on pit stops we really struggled.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut, you know, proud of the effort. I felt like I got out all I could out of it. Bummer at the end.  We needed a top 10.  Eleventh is good, but racing my teammate to the line there, I thought we would get him, but we didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

Compared with pole winner Erik Jones, though, Dillon\u2019s turnaround could be described as spectacular good fortune\u2014Jones started first and finished last.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service Late cautions foil Kyle Larson’s winning chances at Las Vegas  LAS VEGAS \u2013 The late caution flags in Sunday\u2019s South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway were just what Brad Keselowski needed. But they were inimical to the winning chances of Kyle Larson, who couldn\u2019t match Keselowski\u2019s short-run speed. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":21960,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_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}},"categories":[11],"tags":[67,16],"class_list":["post-21958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-las-vegas-motor-speedway","tag-nascar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/mencs_lvms_jonesstart_091618.jpg?fit=4326%2C2881&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-5Ia","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21958","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\/676"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21958"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21958\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21959,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21958\/revisions\/21959"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}