Stage 1 Recap (Laps 1-50):
● Clint Bowyer started third, finished 34th.
● Bowyer pitted from fourth during the lap-20 competition caution. Several cars only took two new tires, and Bowyer fell to 11th.
● Bowyer had climbed back to 10th when the crew called him back to pit road with two laps left in the stage in order to gain better track position for Stage 2.
● Bowyer finished 34th but moved to sixth during the stage break when the rest of the field pitted.
Stage 2 Recap (Laps 51-100):
● Bowyer started sixth and finished 16th.
● The No. 14 stayed at the front of the field through several cautions brought out by back markers.
● Bowyer led laps 73 and 74.
● After attempting to save fuel to make it to the end of the stage, the crew told Bowyer to drive hard and keep his second-place position.
● Bowyer pitted on lap 93 for tires and fuel and ended the stage in 16th. He moved to fourth to start the final stage when cars pitted during the stage break.
Final Stage Recap (Laps 101-160):
● Bowyer started fourth and finished fifth.
● He climbed to fourth with 40 laps remaining.
● Bowyer pitted under green with 37 laps remaining, dropping him to 17th as he waited on others to stop.
● Bowyer returned to third with 20 laps remaining.
● It appeared he would finish third, but a caution forced the race to restart with nine laps remaining.
● Bowyer restarted third but was shuffled to sixth before he moved to fifth.
● He ran there the remainder of the race and finished in fifth.
Notes:
● Bowyer earned his fifth top-five and eighth top-10 of the season and his third top-five and 11th top-10 in 27 career Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series starts at Pocono.
● Bowyer led once for two laps to increase his laps-led total at Pocono to 98.
● Kyle Busch won the Pocono 400 to score his 55th career Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series victory, his series-leading fourth of the season and his third at Pocono. His margin of victory over second-place Brad Keselowski was 2.224 seconds.
● There were eight caution periods for a total of 28 laps.
● Twenty-one of the 37 drivers in the Pocono 400 finished on the lead lap.
● Busch leaves Pocono as the sole championship leader with a four-point advantage over second-place Joey Logano. The duo came into the Pocono 400 tied atop the championship standings.
Clint Bowyer, Driver of the No. 14 Haas Automation Mobil 1 Ford Mustang:
“We had a pretty good car. We had a third to fifth place car. That is about what we had and we did a good job finishing with what we had. We are just giving up way too many stage points. We have to figure out how to get some stage points. That is all we had today.”
Next Up:
The next event on the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series schedule is the FireKeepers Casino 400 on Sunday, June 9 at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn. The race starts at 2 p.m. EDT with live coverage provided by FS1 and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
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