Matt Kenseth won Sunday's Sprint Cup Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway, a long, crash-filled and rain-filled affair similar to the spring race weekend at the track last year. The race this year was honoring Steve Byrnes, the Fox Sports announcer bravely battling cancer. All of the events throughout the race shook up the points standings as well as the Chase grid. Kenseth won the race from the pole. It was his fourth Cup win at Bristol and his first in the spring.
The race started more than an hour late, and only 22 laps were completed before another big rain shower came through. Just before that, Team Penske teammates Brad Keselowski (#2) and Joey Logano (#22) collided on the backstretch with the first couple of lapped cars in the way. There was a caution and then a more than three-hour red flag as the field waited out the rain. Denny Hamlin encountered neck spasms during the delay and Xfinity Series driver Erik Jones was brought in to drive the #11 Toyota for the remainder of the race. The track finally got dried and the race went back green. After a competition caution, there was a long green run, during which Kevin Harvick, Kurt Busch, Carl Edwards and Matt Kenseth led. Dale Earnhardt Jr., Greg Biffle and Martin Truex Jr. also encountered mechanical problems. After another brief red flag for a shorter rain shower, there were a few more green laps before Landon Cassill hit one of the SAFER barriers under construction. Cassill got out of his #40 Chevrolet okay.
There was then a pair of wrecks taking out drivers such as Jimmie Johnson, points leader Harvick, David Ragan, Jeb Burton and Casey Mears. Kyle Larson led late, but had to pit for fuel as he was short, turning the lead back over to Busch, who was then passed by Kenseth. At about the same time, fellow sophomore got up to second place behind Kenseth. Carl Edwards and Kurt Busch also got caught up in a crash that set up a green-white-checkered finish, during which yet another rain shower passed through. Finally, the track was dry enough for a two-lap sprint to the finish. Matt Kenseth held off Jimmie Johnson and his teammate Jeff Gordon to bring the #20 Toyota to victory lane for his first Cup points win since New Hampshire in September of 2013. Kenseth also won the Sprint Unlimited at Daytona this year, the week before the Daytona 500.
Harvick still has a 30-point lead over Logano, who is three points over Truex for second. All three of these drivers failed to finish in the top ten for the first time this season. The series next races in Richmond, Virginia in another Saturday night short-track showdown. Richmond is not very far from Bristol, so there wouldn't have been any big issues had Sunday's race at Bristol been delayed until Monday or possibly Tuesday.
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