The NASCAR race at Dover International Speedway was an interesting one willed with twists that included Kyle Busch taking the win in the last laps of the Apache Warrior 400.
The race only had four caution periods including the two that ended the first two stages of the race. One of the other two came at time that changed the look of the race and the Chase Grid situation for some of the contenders. That caution came near the end of the first stage that Brad Keselowski was able to win as a result of the shuffle of the running order of the race at that point of the race.
Kyle Larson was the winner of the second stage of the race. Chase Elliott ran strong all afternoon and ended the race with the most laps led for the day with 138 laps leading in the 400 lap race.
It looked as though Chase would score his first Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series win of his career as he was leading by more than four seconds with just 20 laps remaining. However, Kyle Busch was coming on strong and began cutting into that lead.
Chase had problems getting around lapped traffic quickly which allowed Kyle to get to his bumper with just a few laps left. Chase couldn’t get around Ryan Newman quickly enough to prevent Kyle from passing them both on the second to last lap of the race.
Kyle was able to hold the lead for the last lap of the race and claim the victory in the race. The win was Kyle’s fourth of the 2017 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season, third career Cup Series win at Dover and second in the 2017 NASCAR playoffs.
Chase Elliott held on to finish in second place in the race. Jimmie Johnson, Martin Truex Jr. and Kyle Larson finished in third, fourth and fifth places respectively. See the complete race results for the Apache Warrior 400 presented by Lucas Oil here.
The round of 16 was completed following the race at Dover. Martin Truex Jr. remains the leader in the point standings with Kyle Busch moving up to second place. Kyle Larson slips down to third place with Brad Keselowski holding steady in fourth place. Jimmie Johnson moves up to round out the top five. See the complete Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series point standings here.
The four drivers that were removed from championship contention were Ryan Newman, Austin Dillon, Kasey Kahne and Kurt Busch. The Round of 12 is now set on the Chase Grid. See how that looks here.
The second round of NASCAR’s playoffs begin this weekend with the Bank Of America 500 Sunday afternoon October 8th at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
By: Buck Stevens
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