Chase Race One, the Sylvania 300 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway was actually a chaotic race for the Chasers. But in the end, Clint Boywer, the "black horse of the chase" cruised into victory lane proving that he's a real race survivor having the enough fuel mileage to grab the chequered flag.
Few weeks ago, Clint Bowyer was struggling to retain his 12th standings Chase spot against Ryan Newman, Jamie McMurray and Mark Martin. Boywer not only mange to keep that spot with a consecutive top-10 finishes, his momentum was so strong that he has also won the first chase race, Sylvania 300 terminating as well an 88-race winless drought.
Bowyer had the most dominant car on the race leading comfortably 177 out of 330 laps but due to minor carburetor problems he lost the lead to Tony Stewart on a restart during a sequence of cautions late in the race that dropped from the front lead 7 Cup chasers.
Tony Stewart wouldn't have been caught, but he and Bowyer were both trying to stretch their fuel during the final 92 laps and it was anyone's guess if they could make it to the finish line. Bowyer conserved his gas, but Stewart ran wide open in an attempt to secure his lead. As a consequence Stewart ran out of fuel right before the white flag lap, and Bowyer cruised to the lead. He still had to preserve his lead from a hard-charging Denny Hamlin, who recovered after a mid-race spin with Carl Edwards. In the end Hamlin couldn't threat Bowyer who consumed every single drop of Sunoco gas to take the chequered flag.
Clint Boywer commented on the Victory Lane:
“I don’t know what happened to our car halfway through the race. The carburetor started missing. I couldn’t get going on restarts. I hate it for Tony. You hate to win races like that, but I’ve lost a few this year, too.
This is momentum. That’s exactly what this team needed. I’m excited. Second in points. Let’s go get ’em.
I thought I could run [Stewart] down, but I was using so much fuel through the middle of the corner that I just had to back down. I could tell in [crew chief Shane Wilson's] voice -- once you get that relationship with somebody, you can tell in his voice how nervous he was, and he sounded pretty nervous."
Stewart dropped from first to a dramatic 24th, a spread of 94 valuable chase points.
“We went down swinging for sure. It’s hard to lose one that way.”
Denny Hamlin, the top seed entering the Chase, survived a spin in Turn 4 that dropped him temporarily from third to 22nd. On Lap 214, as Hamlin was rolling through the corner, Carl Edwards' No. 99 Ford slid up the track into Hamlin's car and caused the spin.
Hamlin commented ironically:
"Can't hold his line, can he?... I got mad on the radio for like 10 seconds, and it was like, 'Alright, what do we got to do? Just tell me what we've got to do to get back up there,. Normally, I think years ago, I really would have kind of flipped out, but I think now it's just a little bit more relaxed."finished second.
Jamie McMurray finished third and Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished a surprisingly 4rth position. Kevin Harvick, who led the standings after the first 26 races, ran fifth despite fighting handling problems throughout the race and is third in the standings, 45 points out of the lead. Both, Earnhardt Jr. and Harvick took advantage of Edwards-Hamlin, Kurt Busch-Burton and Kyle Busch-Johnson consecutive contacts. Yet Hamlin kept his chase lead, and Bowyer jumped 10 spots to 2nd, 35 points behind Hamlin. Jimmie Johnson finished a lap down 25th after an unscheduled pitstop due to a loose tyre.
