Charlotte Recap

Hello everyone and welcome back to Captain Josh's Pit Stop. Today I recap the weekends action from Charlotte. The Truck Series had an off weekend. Lewis Hamilton won the Japanese Grand Prix on Sunday, extending his championship lead to 59 points after Sebastian Vettel had an engine failure on the start. Alex Bowman won the Xfinity race on Friday night. Now let's head to the Cup race. Photo courtesy of Google images.

The Bank Of America 500 ran on Sunday afternoon with Denny Hamlin earning the pole and his teammate Matt Kenseth accompanied him on the front row. The first and second stages consisted of 90 laps, and the final stage made up the final 154 laps. The race was 334 laps, 500 miles long. Dale Jarrett also drove his 1999 championship winning 88 car in honor of Robert Yates who passed away earlier last week due to cancer. Yates was the owner of the 88 Ford. Photos courtesy of Google images.

The first caution came in stage 1 with 47 to go in the stage. Ryan Newman and Clint Bowyer made contact in turn 2. Newman tried to slide in front of Bowyer, but wasn't cleared and Newman hit the outside wall and spun into the inside wall on the backstretch. Newman's car then caught fire trying to get back to the pits. No injuries to any of the drivers. Photo courtesy of Google images.

Kevin Harvick dominated the stages in the race. He won both stage 1 and 2. A clean sweep of the first two stages. Could he hold on for the win? Tune in to find out. Photo courtesy of Google images.

Not much happened until late in stage 2 with 65 to go in the stage. Michael McDowell went for a spin off of turn 2. McDowell drove off and continued on. My apologies for not having a photo. I was unable to find one since my source is Google images.

One of the big stories of the day came in stage 2 with 44 to go in the stage. Kyle Busch broke loose in turn 4 and hit the outside wall with the right rear corner. The impact unfortunately knocked the crush panel out of the car. The crush panel seals off the cockpit from the exhaust fumes. Since the panel was knocked out, Busch would later suffer the effects from this after the race. He also spun out later on due to the damage on the car. Photo courtesy of Google images and NBC Sports.

Gray Gaulding had to pit due to his brakes being on fire late in stage 2. The incident occurred with 6 to go in the stage. The photo isn't completely accurate, but picture a car similar to the one above in the pits. I apologize for the photo. Photo courtesy of Google images.

The day didn't go so well for Stewart Haas Racing. Clint Bowyer got into it with Ryan Newman earlier in the race, and Danica Patrick also had an end to her day in the final stage when she hit David Ragan who spun off turn 2. The incident occurred with 69 to go in the race for the final stage. Photos courtesy of Google images.

Continuing the theme of the bad day for Stewart Haas Racing, Kurt Busch had a rough end to his day as well. Busch broke loose underneath Kyle Larson going into turn 1 and spun off turn 2. Larson also suffered damage from the contact. This incident occurred with 3 to go, creating an overtime restart. Photo courtesy of Google images.

Martin Truex Jr ended up taking his 6th win of the season. He didn't have the usual dominant car after starting 17th in the race. But he made adjustments to his car through the race and came through the back to win. I am a huge fan of Truex, and I'm pulling for him to win the championship. Who's your pick to win? Also to note, I mentioned that Kyle Busch had felt the effects from the crush panel being knocked out of his car. Well as shown above, Busch had to lie on the ground after almost collapsing. He was ok after receiving treatment from the infield care center. He said it was mainly the heat that had made him sick. Photos courtesy of Google images.

Here are the playoff standings after Charlotte. Martin Truex Jr advances to the next round with his win. The bottom 4 now are Matt Kenseth, Brad Keselowski, Ryan Blaney, and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. The 13th through 16th drivers have already been eliminated from the playoffs. Next race is Talladega. Who will escape the big one? Find out Sunday afternoon. See ya then. Photo courtesy of Google images and Fox Sports.