Matt Kenseth wins in Michigan

Matt Kenseth leads

Toyota's Matt Kenseth surged to victory Sunday in the Pure Michigan 400, posting his third NASCAR Sprint Cup Series win of the season with a convincing performance at Michigan International Speedway.

Kenseth's Joe Gibbs Racing No. 20 Toyota led 146 of 200 laps to post his second win in the last three races. His third victory on the 2-mile track was the 34th of his Sprint Cup career.

Kevin Harvick finished second, 1.723 seconds behind at the checkered flag despite his Stewart-Haas Racing No. 4 Chevrolet running out of fuel on the backstretch in a midrace exchange of pit stops.

Martin Truex Jr. held on for third place, with Austin Dillon and Denny Hamlin completing the top five.

Kenseth dominated early, leading 107 of the first 150 laps after starting from the Coors Light Pole. One of the few drivers to make inroads was Dillon, who led 19 laps — six more than he had all season — in the first three-quarters of the race.

[adinserter name="GOOGLE AD"]Dillon challenged Kenseth for the lead earlier but lost three spots in the exchange of final scheduled pit stops. The top-five finish was just his second in 72 career Sprint Cup races.

The race marked the second running of a high drag aerodynamic package, similar to the rules setup used last month at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The unintended consequences included drastic spikes in heat inside the cars' cockpits, but the racing mostly spread out after a series of highly intense restarts.

Six-time champion Jimmie Johnson had an adventurous day, first losing a lap to change a flat tire on the Hendrick Motorsports No. 48 Chevrolet, then by overshooting his pit stall during a Lap 116 stop. Johnson capped the perilous race with a spin off Turn 4 with 17 laps remaining.

Clint Bowyer's hopes to improve his footing in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup postseason picture took a hit with Lap 125 contact with Ryan Newman. Bowyer scraped the outside wall on the backstretch before sliding to the inside retaining wall. He returned to the track at a reduced pace more than 30 laps in arrears.

MATT KENSETH, No. 20 Dollar General Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 1st
How strong was the race car?
"These guys gave me a great car. It's easy to take things for granted. I really have to thank the Lord for putting me here, this is just an unbelievable opportunity and unbelievable people I get to work with every single day at Joe Gibbs Racing as well as all the guys standing here. Thanks to Dollar General and DeWalt, Sprint, Toyota, TRD (Toyota Racing Development) – they gave us a ton of power today. I have great partners and can't do it without them."

What was the final restart like with Denny Hamlin behind you?
"Denny (Hamlin) did a spectacular job pushing me. From the restart zone to about turn two was like a superspeedway race – whoever got locked up and those Chevys could really hook up. Denny did a heck of a job giving me a good push there to get by. Honestly, the toughest one was with the 3 (Austin Dillon). We went back and forth a few times and made some contact there and it was hard to get away from him. My car took about five laps to get going, but once it got going it was pretty stellar."

[adinserter name="GOOGLE AD"]With recent JGR performance, are you all favorites for the championship?
"It's early to talk favorites – there's so much racing to do and there are 16 teams that are capable of winning races on a weekly basis as well as a championship. Its one week at a time like always. It's been a great week and we've had a great couple months. We definitely have some momentum built. The guys gave us a rocket today and gave us rockets the last couple months. We're just going to work hard to try to keep it rolling."

What made the car so strong in the race?
"I don't know, but if I did I sure wouldn't tell you. We had really fast cars when we first got here. We made a lot of speed and we got it handling really good. They made great adjustments so the race was a lot like we thought it was going to look like, but we were just hoping we would have enough speed and be out front. We had perfect strategy and pit stops and the restarts were just good enough to hang on. Everything fell our way."

How challenging were the restarts?
"I got real fortunate, we never restarted farther than third back and when we did, that was the restart where the 19 (Carl Edwards) didn't get going and I'm not sure if he missed a gear – I don't know what happened. The 3 (Austin Dillon) got rolling real fast and I was actually able to come off turn two in the lead. I got fortunate, I didn't have to race with a ton of really good cars side-by-side very long, but it was tough. It was tough all day when you caught cars because when you got into lapped traffic and trying to figure out where to find the cleanest air."

Have you ever had a car this dominant?
"I have to be honest, I've had a few dominant cars that have been that good through the years and a lot of them I've figured out how to screw up. I haven't had a lot of them that dominant that I haven't messed up."

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