LAS VEGAS – There was plenty to take away from Sunday’s Kobalt 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Here’s what we learned.
WILD WEATHER
It began when the green flag was delayed due to rain, continued when 50 mph wind gusts arrived and culminated with a sandstorm.
Needless to say, weather played a major role throughout Sunday’s race at Las Vegas.
“I think that affected all the cars and made the cars much harder to drive,” Dale Earnhardt Jr. said. “We had a huge wind blowing across the race track up into the wall off of (Turn) 2 and that made it difficult getting down into the bottom of Turn 3. It was a challenge. And you could definitely tell when the gusts were picking up.”
The driver of the No. 88 Nationwide Chevrolet SS noted that he didn’t feel the conditions were dangerous, but visibility was slightly affected when the sandstorm blew through.
Through all of those elements,
“It was far better driving than I expected it to be,” Jimmie Johnson noted. “It was gusty and problematic, but I expected it to be a lot worse. I guess when you are going 200 mph, a 30 or 40 mph wind doesn’t bother it too much. It was exciting.”
Ultimately the biggest variable the weather threw at the drivers was easy to pinpoint.
“The trash was probably the biggest problem, trying to keep the trash off the grille,” Johnson said.
NEARLY BACK-TO-BACK
Johnson had a second consecutive trip to Victory Lane in his sights Sunday in Las Vegas.
The driver of the No. 48 Lowe’s/Kobalt Tools Chevrolet SS led a race-high 76 laps, but his last lap in first place came on Lap 216 out of 247.
He spent the final portion of the race chasing three competitors -- including Brad Keselowski, who ultimately won the race.
“Track position was pretty important -- the series of events leading up to that last restart kind of had us deeper in track position than we needed to be for the win,” Johnson explained.
“My Kobalt race team gave me a fantastic race car, a fast race car and just a series of events there at the end, we lost a little track position and the top three or four cars were pretty equal on speed and I just couldn’t get there.”
Just before the checkered flag waved, however, he was able to pass one more driver to clinch a third-place finish. The result vaulted him to second in the point standings.
“We still got a third, which is good,” he said. “Decent day for us all-in-all.”
THREE TOP-10S
Johnson’s third-place result led the way for Hendrick Motorsports, but he was joined in the top 10 by two of his teammates – Earnhardt in eighth and Kasey Kahne in 10th.
Rookie Chase Elliott looked to be in line for a potential top-10 finish himself – which would’ve been his second of the season – but a late-race incident with just 44 laps remaining ended his day.
“Just disappointed,” said Elliott, noting that he locked up his brakes and couldn’t avoid the incident in front of him. “What a fast race car, I appreciate everybody working hard. I feel like we made a lot of gains this weekend.”
Meanwhile for Kahne, who was the highest-qualifying Hendrick Motorsports driver for the second consecutive week, it marked his first top-10 of the season.
Earnhardt said the new racing package has suited him.
“The one thing that I really like is I can drive up to guys with that little spoiler on the back -- I’m not really stuck behind people like we used to be,” he said. “A lot of the drivers are wanting to keep going in this direction even further. I wasn’t really so sure about that, but now I feel like that might be a good move to go even less downforce.”