Weekend Stat Sheet - July 16 & 17

Weekend Stat Sheet

Christopher Bell became the 14th different winner in the NASCAR Cup Series this season after he won at New Hampshire Motor Speedway (NH) on Sunday. Bell makes 14 drivers locked into the playoffs with six races today. It’s the second career win for Bell in the Cup Series. Chase Elliott was second to maintain his point lead after his fourth-straight top two finish.

Early on it looked like Martin Truex, Jr. was going to be the race winner to lock himself into the playoffs. Truex led over half the race, but ended up fourth. Truex has now led 916 laps at New Hampshire and he has no wins in the Cup Series at the facility. The finish was only the third top five of the season for Truex.

A strange occurrence happened at New Hampshire Motor Speedway behind race winner Justin Alliger. Second-place finisher Trevor Bayne, third-place finisher Brandon Brown, fourth-place finisher Jeremy Clements and fifth-place finisher Sheldon Creed all posted their best runs of the season. Other finishers inside the top 10 Ty Dillon, Kyle Weatherman, and Bayler Curry also had season best runs.

Sammy Smith may be from Iowa, but he sure is finding a home in Indiana. After winning the Winchester 400 last year he came back to win the Redbud 400 at Anderson Motor Speedway. Stephen Nasse finished fourth and completed all 400 laps for the fifth time in the last six seasons. He has run almost 3000 laps at the Redbud as he is still seeking that first win.

For the fourth-time in his SRX career Tony Stewart went to victory lane and for the third time it came on the dirt. Stewart led all 70 laps at Federated Auto Parts Raceway at I-55. Both Bobby Labonte and Ryan Newman each have a win and four top five runs as they head into the final week of the series.

On Friday night in PASS action DJ Shaw won for the sixth time in his career at White Mountain Motorsports Park after a late battle with Wayne Halliwell, Jr. At the time it was his fifth-straight podium finish on the PASS tour at White Mt. The streak would end the next night with a 10th-place finish.

Johnny Clark had a fine weekend at White Mt. Motorsports Park (NH) after he picked up a second on Friday night and a win on Saturday. For Clark it was his second win of the season and fourth at White Mt., however it’s been since 2016 since he last won at the New Hampshire track.

So far in 17 races this season at Bowman Gray Stadium (NC) there have been 10 different winners in the Modified division. Jeremy Gerstner became the 10th different winner on Saturday as Chris Fleming won for the third time in the race. The other part of this is that the two front point men Tim Brown, the 11-time track champion and Brand Ward have both gone winless despite their high point titles. How will it all shake out?

It took three hours to complete the job, but BJ Tidrick became the first driver to win the Montana 200 in back-to-back years since Gary Lewis in 2009 and 2010. The Montana 200 is now held at Mission Valley Speedway (MT) after Montana Raceway Park closed.

A familiar name went to victory lane at the Kalamazoo Klash XXX at Kalamazoo Speedway (MI). It had been 11 years since Phil Bozell won his only prior Kalamazoo Klash. On Saturday he got his second and the sixth for the family. After being third in the last three Klash races Phil Bozell also recorded his 10th top five in this race. Tyler Roahrig has been a dominate driver in the Klash in recent years recorded his seventh consecutive podium finish in the race, but he could not come up with his fifth win.