LONG POND, Pa. (AP) The Latest on the NASCAR Cup Series race at Pocono Raceway (all times local):
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6:15 p.m.
Kyle Busch had no one to bump him out of the lead this week and stormed from the bottom half of the field Sunday at Pocono Raceway on the way to his sixth NASCAR Cup victory of the season.
Busch was set to start second but his No. 18 Toyota was one of 13 cars dumped to back of the pack for flunking post-qualifying inspection. That was nothing but a minor bump for the Joe Gibbs Racing driver who matched Kevin Harvick for most wins this season.
Harvick used a bump-and-run on the 18 with seven laps left last week at New Hampshire to knock Busch out of contention.
Harvick’s pole qualifying run also was tossed out but he ended up leading 30 laps and finished fourth.
The race was red flagged with six laps left in the wake of a violent wreck by Darrell Wallace Jr. Wallace appeared to lose the breaks in his No. 43 Chevrolet and the car shot across the grass and slammed into the wall. There were several tense seconds during a wait for Wallace to put down his window net. He sat on the track and slumped against the car before he taken to the track medical center.
Once the race resumed, Busch zipped away and he surged ahead again on the final restart in overtime to add to the win total for NASCAR’s Big Three: Busch, Harvick and Martin Truex Jr. have won 16 of the 21 Cup Series.
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4:35 p.m.
Kevin Harvick won the second stage of the NASCAR Cup Series race at Pocono Raceway.
Harvick was never won at Pocono. He’s winless in 35 career races on the triangle track.
He started 29th after his pole-winning run was tossed out because the No. 4 Ford failed inspection.
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3:40 p.m.
Chase Elliott has won the first stage of the NASCAR Cup Series race at Pocono Raceway.
Elliott has yet to win a Cup race in 97 career starts. He did win a stage last week at New Hampshire Motorspeedway.
Kevin Harvick stormed from the rear of the field, where he started because his car failed inspection, to end the stage in second place.
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2:30 p.m.
Daniel Suarez made NASCAR history when he became the first Mexican driver to start on the pole in the elite Cup series Sunday at Pocono Raceway.
Suarez earned the top spot after the qualifying times of front-row starters Kevin Harvick and Kyle Busch were tossed out because the cars failed post-qualifying inspection. Harvick and Busch were among 13 drivers whose cars failed inspection and were forced to start at the rear of the field.
”They know what the tolerances are and they were out of tolerance,” NASCAR COO Steve Phelps said. ”No one likes it. We don’t like it for sure.”
The lineup shuffling gave Joe Gibbs Racing the top three spots at Pocono: Suarez, Denny Hamlin and Erik Jones.
Harvick has 43 career wins, but has yet to win a Cup race at Pocono or Kentucky Speedway. Harvick is 0 for 8 at Kentucky and 0 for 35 at Pocono. He’s getting close on the 2 -mile triangle track – Harvick has two runner-up finishes and two fourths in his past four races.
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