Kevin Harvick got bailed out Sunday by a caution during the final round of green-flag pit stops.  That elevated him into a chance at victory.  Martin Truex Jr. got past at the white flag and a big hit from Ryan Blaney resulted in a tire rub.  Despite this, Harvick still finished fourth and expanded his points lead.  His advantage is now 88 points over Brad Keselowski, who got bailed out in stage two by a late caution and won the stage.  Blaney is up one place to third after leading 18 laps and finishing sixth.  Chase Elliott dropped two places to fourth after finishing 23rd.

Joey Logano is up one place to fifth despite fading in the second half of the race to a 15th-place finish.  Denny Hamlin struggled all day in Kentucky, especially when he fell out of the top 25 early.  Hamlin recovered to 12th, but still fell to sixth.  Truex is still in seventh after leading 57 laps and finishing second.  Aric Almirola led a career-high 128 laps and won stage one before pit strategy and tire coding issues dropped him back.  He still moved up one place to eighth.

Alex Bowman struggled for much of Sunday and dropped to ninth after finishing 19th.  Kurt Busch jumped his brother Kyle to move up to 10th after finishing fifth.  Kyle struggled with shock issues and ended up 21st after starting on pole.  Matt DiBenedetto maintains 12th in points after finishing a strong third.

Clint Bowyer had a very quiet day Sunday, finishing in 14th.  That keeps him in 13th.  William Byron finished 11th and held onto 14th.  Jimmie Johnson was in contention for victory late before getting spun out on a restart.  He would finish 18th and hold onto 15th.  He is now the last man in points.  He has a 24-point advantage over Austin Dillon, who spun out trying to avoid debris and finished 13th.

Tyler Reddick moved up one spot to 17th after finishing 10th on Sunday.  He was able to pass Erik Jones, who finished 22nd.  Bubba Wallace struggled to a 27th-place finish, two laps down and stays in 19th.  Cole Custer's victory moved him from 25th to a tie for 20th with Chris Buescher.

Point Standings (1-16): 1) Kevin Harvick 637, 2) Brad Keselowski -88, 3) Ryan Blaney -95, 4) Chase Elliott -100, 5) Joey Logano -111, 6) Denny Hamlin -122, 7) Martin Truex Jr. -132, 8) Aric Almirola -171, 9) Alex Bowman -177, 10) Kurt Busch -183, 11) Kyle Busch -198, 12) Matt DiBenedetto -219, 13) Clint Bowyer -240, 14) William Byron -257, 15) Jimmie Johnson -263, 16) Austin Dillon -287.

Outside the Top 16, but Still In The Playoffs: t-20) Cole Custer -354.

Note No. 1: Drivers in Bold have locked into the playoffs.

Playoff Points: 1) Denny Hamlin 23, 2) Kevin Harvick -1, t-3) Joey Logano -9, t-3) Brad Keselowski -9, 5) Chase Elliott -13, 6) Alex Bowman -14, 7) Martin Truex Jr. -16, 8) Ryan Blaney -17, 9) Cole Custer -18, t-10) Aric Almirola -21, t-10) Clint Bowyer -21, t-11) William Byron -21, t-13) Kurt Busch -22, t-13) Jimmie Johnson -22, t-13) Tyler Reddick -22, t-13) Ricky Stenhouse Jr. -22.

Stage Points: t-1) Ryan Blaney 167, t-1) Chase Elliott 167, 3) Joey Logano -11, 4) Martin Truex Jr. -22, 5) Alex Bowman -23, 6) Kevin Harvick -32, 7) Brad Keselowski -58, 8) Kyle Busch -63, 9) Aric Almirola -73, 10) Denny Hamlin -74, 11) William Byron -95, 12) Matt DiBenedetto -96, 13) Jimmie Johnson -111, 14) Clint Bowyer -113, 15) Kurt Busch -116, t-15) Tyler Reddick -119.

Old Point Standings (1-16): 1) Kevin Harvick 611, 2) Brad Keselowski -55, 3) Denny Hamlin -75, 4) Kurt Busch -105, 5) Aric Almirola -126, 6) Ryan Blaney -133, 7) Chase Elliott -135, 8) Joey Logano -141, 9) Martin Truex Jr. -144, 10) Matt DiBenedetto -155, 11) Kyle Busch -166, 12) Clint Bowyer -170, 13) Alex Bowman -190, 14) William Byron -202 15) Austin Dillon -205, 16) Jimmie Johnson -210.

Outside of the Top 16, But Still In Playoffs: 21) Cole Custer -242.

Race Winners: Denny Hamlin (Daytona, Darlington-2, Homestead, Pocono-2), Joey Logano (Las Vegas, Phoenix), Alex Bowman (Fontana), Kevin Harvick (Darlington-1, Atlanta, Pocono-1, Indianapolis), Brad Keselowski (Charlotte-1, Bristol), Chase Elliott (Charlotte-2), Ryan Blaney (Talladega), Cole Custer (Kentucky)

 
Note: Race wins in Italics do not count towards playoff eligibility.

Phil Allaway is the Frontstretch newsletter manager. He can be reached at phil.allaway@frontstretch.com.  Photo is courtesy of Nigel Kinrade Photography.

Chase Briscoe had another great night Friday night, leading two laps and finishing second.  That allowed him to make a slight gain on Noah Gragson.  His advantage is now 19 points over the JR Motorsports contender, who got very angry at Harrison Burton after the race, resulting in punches being thrown.  Austin Cindric's second win in a row keeps him in third, but now puts him only 14 points behind Gragson.  Ross Chastain drops to fourth despite finishing fourth in the race.

Justin Haley is still in fifth after a quiet run to third Friday night.  Burton moves up to sixth despite finishing 12th.  Justin Allgaier is down one place to seventh after spending 90% of the race off the lead lap after running over debris in the first couple of laps.  He recovered to finish fifth.  Michael Annett is still in eighth after finishing eighth.

Brandon Jones had a terrible time in Kentucky.  Friday night saw him crash out while racing for second.  The 30th-place finish saw him drop to 42 points out of eighth.  Riley Herbst moved up to 10th after finishing 10th, but he was disappointed due to a costly pit road penalty.  Ryan Sieg crashed on Lap 3 Friday night and ended up finishing 35th, which dropped him to 11th.  Brandon Brown moved back up to 12th after finishing 13th.

Brown is the last driver in the playoffs.  He jumped back over Myatt Snider, who dropped out late with a mechanical failure.  He is 14 points behind Brown.  Jeremy Clements moved up to 14th after scoring points in both stages and finishing 11th.  Daniel Hemric moved up to 15th after finishing ninth, while the part-time Anthony Alfredo moved up two places to 16th after finishing sixth for the second night in a row.

Point Standings (1-16): 1) Chase Briscoe 643, 2) Noah Gragson -19, 3) Austin Cindric -33, 4) Ross Chastain -60, 5) Justin Haley -122, 6) Harrison Burton -151, 7) Justin Allgaier -152, 8) Michael Annett -200, 9) Brandon Jones -242, 10) Riley Herbst -267, 11) Ryan Sieg -279, 12) Brandon Brown -322, 13) Myatt Snider -336, 14) Jeremy Clements -352, 15) Daniel Hemric -353, 16) Anthony Alfredo -356.

Note No. 1: Drivers in Bold have locked into the playoffs.
Note No. 2: Drivers in italics in the point standing sections are currently outside of the playoffs.

Playoff Points: 1) Chase Briscoe 28, 2) Noah Gragson -10, 3) Austin Cindric -13, 4) Harrison Burton -18, 5) Brandon Jones -21, 6) Justin Haley -22, t-7) Justin Allgaier -23, t-7) AJ Allmendinger -23, 9) Ryan Sieg -26, 10) Jeb Burton -27.

Stage Points: 1) Austin Cindric 197, 2) Noah Gragson -18, 3) Chase Briscoe -32, 4) Ross Chastain -44, 5) Justin Allgaier -46, 6) Brandon Jones -92, 7) Justin Haley -97, 8) Harrison Burton -104, 9) Michael Annett -116, 10) Daniel Hemric -119, 11) Ryan Sieg -125, 12) Riley Herbst -144, 13) Anthony Alfredo -160, 14) Jeb Burton -175, 15) Myatt Snider -176, 16) Brandon Brown -183.

Note: If he were eligible for points, Kyle Busch would be 13th in stage points.

Old Point Standings (1-16): 1) Chase Briscoe 546, 2) Noah Gragson -26, 3) Ross Chastain -46, 4) Austin Cindric -61, 5) Justin Haley -65, 6) Harrison Burton -84, 7) Michael Annett -122, 8) Justin Allgaier -135, 9) Riley Herbst -167, 10) Brandon Brown -178, 11) Brandon Jones -187, 12) Ryan Sieg -189, 13) Myatt Snider -195, 14) Jeremy Clements -200, 15) Jesse Little -212, 16) Alex Labbe -216.

Race Winners: Noah Gragson (Daytona, Bristol), Chase Briscoe (Las Vegas, Darlington, Homestead-2, Pocono, Indianapolis), Harrison Burton (Fontana, Homestead-1), Brandon Jones (Phoenix), Kyle Busch (Charlotte), AJ Allmendinger (Atlanta), Justin Haley (Talladega), Austin Cindric (Kentucky-1, Kentucky-2)

Note: Race wins in Italics do not count towards playoff eligibility.

Phil Allaway is the Frontstretch newsletter manager. He can be reached at phil.allaway@frontstretch.com.  Photo is courtesy of Nigel Kinrade Photography.

Austin Hill was strong on Saturday night and likely would have had a chance to contend for victory.  However, the race ended after stage two due to rain.  That resulted in a fifth-place finish.  He still has the points lead, but his advantage has shrunk a little.  He leads by 46 points over new second-place man Sheldon Creed, fresh off his first career victory.  Ben Rhodes is down one place to third despite finishing second.  Christian Eckes is up two places to fourth after finishing sixth and earning 12 stage points.

Grant Enfinger finished 12th Saturday night and fell from third to a tie for fifth with Zane Smith (Enfinger gets the tiebreaker by virtue of his victories).  Smith won stage one and finished seventh.  Todd Gilliland is down two places to seventh despite finishing 10th.  Brett Moffitt is up one place to eighth after leading a race-high 26 laps and finishing 11th.

Tyler Ankrum drops to ninth after finishing 16th, while Johnny Sauter maintains 10th, the final spot in the playoffs.  Sauter's advantage is 14 points over Derek Kraus, who finished eighth.  Matt Crafton is up two places to 12th after finishing third.

Tanner Gray remains in 13th after finishing ninth.  Stewart Friesen is down to 14th after a 15th-place finish, while Raphael Lessard might be getting a little nervous for his seat in 15th.  Ty Majeski is still in 16th.

Point Standings (1-16): 1) Austin Hill 293, 2) Sheldon Creed -46, 3) Ben Rhodes -57, 4) Christian Eckes -71, t-5) Grant Enfinger -72, t-5) Zane Smith -72, 7) Todd Gilliland -73, 8) Brett Moffitt -88, 9) Tyler Ankrum -92, 10) Johnny Sauter -95, 11) Derek Kraus -109, 12) Matt Crafton -114, 13) Tanner Gray -121, 14) Stewart Friesen -123, 15) Raphael Lessard -150, 16) Ty Majeski -161. 

Note No. 1: Drivers in bold have locked into the Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series playoffs.

Note No. 2: Drivers in italics in the point standing sections are not in the playoffs.

Playoff Points: 1) Grant Enfinger 11, 2) Sheldon Creed -9.

Stage Points: 1) Austin Hill 60, 2) Christian Eckes -1, 3) Ben Rhodes -8, 4) Grant Enfinger -15, 5) Tyler Ankrum -21, 6) Todd Gilliland -26, 7) Matt Crafton -31, t-8) Sheldon Creed -32, t-8) Brett Moffitt -32, 10) Zane Smith -34, 11) Raphael Lessard -37, 12) Johnny Sauter -38, 13) Stewart Friesen -42, 14) Derek Kraus -49, 15) Tanner Gray -53, 16) Ty Majeski -54.

Note: If everyone were eligible for stage points, Kyle Busch would be third while Ross Chastain would be fourth. Chase Elliott would be in a tie for 10th.

Old Point Standings (1-16): 1) Austin Hill 201, 2) Sheldon Creed -24, 3) Ben Rhodes -41, 4) Zane Smith -44, 5) Johnny Sauter -45, 6) Todd Gilliland -49, 7) Derek Kraus -52, 8) Grant Enfinger -56, 9) Brett Moffitt -58, 10) Tanner Gray -66, 11) Tyler Ankrum -72, 12) Christian Eckes -75, 13) Stewart Friesen -76, 14) Matt Crafton -86, 15) Ty Majeski -103, 16) Raphael Lessard -108.

Note: If they were eligible for points, Ross Chastain would be second in Old School points, while Kyle Busch would be tied for third.

Race Winners: Grant Enfinger (Daytona, Atlanta), Kyle Busch (Las Vegas, Homestead), Chase Elliott (Charlotte), Brandon Jones (Pocono), Sheldon Creed (Kentucky)

Note: Race wins in Italics do not count towards playoff eligibility.

Phil Allaway is the Frontstretch newsletter manager. He can be reached at phil.allaway@frontstretch.com.  Photo is courtesy of Nigel Kinrade Photography.

"We were so good all day. Our car was so good. I mean, obviously, it wasn’t the easiest track to pass on, so we were kind of stuck back there, but that was the best car I’ve ever driven in my life. Everybody at SHR brought an unbelievable car. Mike and Davin on the box, that was unbelievable. Gene, I can’t stress enough how thankful I am for him taking a shot on me. It definitely was [ot the start to the year that we wanted. We were definitely way off at some places, but this was by far an unbelievable car. We put it all together and I just can’t thank everybody enough." - Cole Custer, race winner

"It was fun. I can’t say enough about the guys on this Auto Owners Camry. Everybody back at [Joe Gibbs Racing] really went to work this week to try to get back to what we used to do here. Just hats off to the guys – James [Small] and everybody. Just an unbelievable race car. In the end there, just a bit unlucky losing the lead to [Ryan] Blaney on that first restart by a couple thousandths and then again to the 4 [Kevin Harvick] when the caution came out. We were side-by-side. That’s kind of the way these things go sometimes. I’m really proud of the effort. Super-fast race car and feel like we’re back in the game now." - Martin Truex Jr., finished second

"Man, it was crazy. We had a really good car. I mean, we could have contended for the win. It was really fast, but lost track position when things shuffled around and we had to do the wave around. Me and my spotter, I’ve got to give him a lot of credit, Doug Campbell, I told him we should win some sort of restart award. We were 18th because of track position how it cycled out with like seven to go. We had two monstrous restarts and then pushed Cole to the win there, which kind of felt cool. Good for him. Congrats, but this is a big race for us having the Menards/Quaker State Ford Mustang in the Quaker State 400, so I wish we could have won it, but circumstances didn’t work out. We’ll take a strong finish and a really fast car." - Matt DiBenedetto, finished third

"Our Ford Mustang was not very good today, but we got a good break with the caution. I had a couple good restarts there and got the car better, but still just not where we needed to be — but the restarts worked out in our favor and we were able to get the lead and Martin just misjudged there on the backstretch and got me sideways. I got out of the gas and that just brought everybody into the picture and then we were four-wide on the front straightaway here and the 12 hit the drain and came up and hit the side of the car and then i couldn’t see, so, yeah, it got wild and that’s what you’re supposed to do. I’m just really happy for Cole Custer and everybody on the No. 41 Haas Automation Ford Mustang. That’s pretty cool to get your first win. As much as I would have loved to win, I’m glad that we kept it in the company." - Kevin Harvick, finished fourth

"We ran strong, we raced tough. We weren’t quite able to rekindle last year’s success, but a top-five is solid. Thanks to Monster, Chevrolet and the everyone on this No. 1 team. Looking forward to seeing everyone Wednesday night in Bristol go the All- Star Race!" - Kurt Busch, finished fifth

"It was a very confusing day. I have moments where I felt like my Camry was really fast and I could run really good lap times, and then I had moments where – I wasn’t very good in traffic today for whatever reason. Normally, that is our strong suit is being able to pass guys, and today I really struggled with that. Obviously, I’m happy with getting out of there with a seventh, but disappointed. I wish we could have been a little bit better when we had that track position." - Christopher Bell, finished seventh

"It’s hard to be mad about another top-10, but we had such a great car and led the most laps. We had a really, really fast car and got caught with a caution that came out right in the middle of a green flag pit stop sequence, so we lost a lot of track position because of that. We had to battle our way back most of the day. I;m proud of all the guys on our team. We’re bringing incredible race cars. Congrats to Cole getting his first win and congrats to everyone at Stewart-Haas Racing. You guys are doing an amazing job bringing some really fast Ford Mustangs to the racetrack right now. Thanks to Smithfield, Ford, Go Bowling, Mobil 1, Shady Rays, everybody that continues to support this deal. That’s six top-10s in a row. I wish it was another top five. I wish it was a win, but it wasn’t. We scored a lot of points and led a lot of laps and they certainly knew we were here today. We’ll go on to Bristol and try to race our way in and go win a million bucks on Wednesday night." - Aric Almirola, finished eighth

"Yeah, an interesting race with the PJ1 being what it is, trying to manage that. We started off not to my liking. We worked on it and go the car really good in the middle of the race, and that allowed us — the fact that we were so fast allowed us to run really fast while everybody was pitting, so we stayed out and as soon as we pitted the yellow came out, which cycled us to the lead, which was great, and then we just kind of fell off again. That was kind of a bummer and we were about a fourth or fifth-place car there towards the end and on that restart it’s just mayhem. The cars have so little horsepower that you just have to push and take and take and take. Each restart was a takefest, which is part of the deal. I got used up on one or two of them probably, and had one where I got into Jimmie and probably took more than — took like the other guys had on me the others — but it’s just part of the chaos and it’s interesting because the restarts were the great passing opportunities, but they mix up the races so much that the finish is nowhere near indicative of who ran where, but that’s part of the deal." - Brad Keselowski, finished ninth

"Well, I feel really stupid after spinning out trying to avoid the orange box. I did make it – it gave us some big, important track position, but it killed the splitter in the process. It kind of separated hitting the wrong way, so we were just super tight there at the end. We were able to make some of probably the best restarts of my career. Eleventh to fifth on that one and just holding on hoping it would go green to the end running ninth. Had that last restart – had another good one, but it kind of got choked up on the bottom that time. Everybody kind of bogged down and couldn’t continue the momentum. And then us being tight, we were just kind of sitting ducks." - Austin Dillon, finished 13th

"A tough day again for us after a couple of good weeks. The Clover Chevy was pretty fast, and we were able to work our way up into the teens after starting in the back. The conditions today were really tough; probably the toughest I’ve raced under, and passing was pretty difficult with the track conditions and rules package. But, we were making our way towards the top-10 when a miscue in the pits resulted in a broken valve stem that caused the left rear to go down and put us a lap down. We finally got the lap back towards the end of the race and I took a ride through the infield off of turn 4 trying to get all I could get. So, a disappointing day, but I’m really encouraged by the speed we had in our Camaro, which was probably the best mile and half car I’ve raced. Just need to have mistake free days to be able to take advantage of fast cars." - Matt Kenseth, finished 25th

Phil Allaway is the Frontstretch newsletter manager. He can be reached at phil.allaway@frontstretch.com.  The photo is courtesy of Nigel Kinrade Photography.