Chase Elliott declared the winner at Pocono, after Denny Hamlin & Kyle Busch are disqualified (7-24-22)
By: Becca Cottingham Quimby
Headline Photo Credit: NASCAR Twitter Page
We head to Pocono for the Tricky Triangle of a track. Denny Hamlin will bring us to the green flag. Austin Cindric will bring out the caution early and bends a tow link that will need to be repaired. We will get back to green and Kyle Busch will keep the lead for a short period. He will lose that lead and Kyle Larson will take over. Just before the close of the pit road, multiple drivers hit the pit road as Aric Amarillo has a tire issue. He will get it restarted and enter the pit road backward to not cause damage to his car. While others stay out this will bring out a caution the drivers on pit road will be safe. Kyle Larson will win stage one under caution.
Harrison Burton will us to the green to start stage two. Drivers will go four wide to try to make moves at the start of this stage. Something in the right rear of Josh Bilick seems to have broken and he hits the wall hard. Christopher Bell will bring us back to green and Denny Hamlin appears to get too low and will spin out bring another caution. It seems like we get back to racing and Corey LaJoie has an issue. We have multiple battles for the lead. Kyle Busch will win stage two.
Kyle Busch will lead us to green for the third stage. Everything was going smoothly until we started green flag pit stops. Kyle Busch had a good lead over everyone but stayed in longer to ensure his fuel tank was full. Which would have been fine, but Ross Chastain with an extremely fast stop. That stop allowed Ross to leap over Kyle Busch. Denny Hamlin’s team has radioed to him that he is short of fuel. The team has encouraged him to not use the brake pedal to save the needed fuel. Ryan Blaney will lose his car off of turn three and hit hard. We get back to green and Denny Hamlin and Ross Chastain line up together. This will more than likely lead to entertainment in how this plays out. Denny Hamlin and Ross Chastain make contact once again so that drama continues. This will bring out another caution for the triangle. This will line up Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch together to restart the race for what will hopefully be the final restart as rain is approaching the race track. Kyle Busch and Denny Hamlin will go to battle for the lead position and Denny Hamlin will hold that lead for remaining last. Denny Hamlin will become the unofficial winner.
***Updated***
After post race inspections, Denny Hamlin and Kyle Busch have been disqualified making Chase Elliott the winner at Pocono.
