5 Poles and 1,000 Laps Led

The Cup series visits Bristol twice each year.  The second visit is planned to be a night race.  This year it was a night-day-night race.  It started at night on Saturday, but was red flagged for rain after only 38 laps.  Rescheduled to resume at lunchtime on Sunday, the weather did not cooperate until the middle of the afternoon.  By the time the race ended, it was nighttime on Sunday.

In preparation for this race, Carl's practice times ranked him 9th and 10th in practice.  But in qualifying, he and his teammates led the way.  The Stanley Camry advanced through all qualifying rounds.  The Gibbs cars grabbed four of the top five positions, with Carl earning his fifth pole of the season.

Carl's car ranged between pretty good and downright speedy.  Because he started on the pole, he got to choose which lane he would start in.  Believing that the rosin put down on the inside lane would prove to be advantageous, he selected the inside lane.  Apparently that was not the best option, as he fell back 6 spots in the first 18 laps.  When the race was suspended for the night, he was in 7th place.

When the race resumed on Sunday afternoon, he continued the backward slide until he found himself in the 12th spot.  But that is as far back as he would go.  He started to move back up through the field, getting back one position at a time.  It took about 120 laps until he got back into the lead, the result of a top notch pit stop that got him off pit road first.  He held the lead for about 25 laps, just enough for reach 1,000 laps lead at Bristol!

There were several cautions brought out by spins and collisions that collected innocent cars.  Other than debris hitting his grill during one of the cautions, Carl managed to avoid all of the on-track obstacles.  In spite of that, he struggled to get back to the lead.  He ranged from 2nd to 9th, finally ending the race in 6th place.  He fell one spot on the Chase grid, from 3rd to 4th, but moved up one position in the drivers' standings, from 5th to 4th.