The 2015 Alabama 200 at Montgomery Motor Speedway was summed up best by NASCAR Hall of Fame member Bill Elliott when he was talking over the radio while spotting for his son Chase, “This is a hell of a race”. The day started of with Garrett Jones and Anderson Bowen on the front row after a redraw of the top eight positions.
The racing was hard and fast for the first part of the race with Garrett Jones taking an early lead with the top 5 cars less than one second apart. Kyle Grissom took the lead from Jones on lap 20. Grissom then continued to pace the field until a lap 44 caution when Kyle Bryant and Christopher Tullis made contact and spun in turn 2.
Grissom continued to lead until lap 94 when the 71 of Johnny Brazier spun in turn two which brought out the caution that served for the halfway break. Teams were given six minutes to change tires, add fuel, and make adjustments to their cars.
On the restart on lap 94 ,Bubba Pollard jumped out in front of Kyle Grissom then just 2 laps later Pollard came to a stop in turn 2. Pollard lost his breaks due to a bad master cylinder, “I think we had a good car we were just riding the first 100 (laps) think we made some good adjustments and took off good there on the restart, I was pretty happy there and would have liked to see what we had there to run with them at the end.”
Restarting on lap 96, Donnie Wilson took the lead from Grissom as the 98 of Ross Kenseth and Harrison Burton made contact and ended up with the 12 of Burton in the outside wall on the front stretch. “I thought I Gave him (Burton) enough room there on the restart” Kenseth went on to add, “and then all of the sudden I got hooked on the right rear and I about wrecked myself. Obviously its nothing intentional, Ive never really known how to wreck somebody when they’re at my right rear. I apologize to him (Burton) if anything happened there.”
“I was racing hard on the outside and we didn’t really have any contact there and then he just didn’t turn coming out of the corner and he pretty much just ran me into the wall” Burton added, “it happens when you’re racing so tight”. He was asked on the radio what happened, “The 98 just wrecked us for no reason”.
Back to green on lap 98, Donnie Wilson took the lead and stayed there through a caution and restart on lap 118. Heavy side by side racing with Kyle Grissom added excitement on the lap 119 restart. On lap 153, both Wilson and Elliot have flat tires bringing out the caution.
On lap 153 Kyle Grissom takes the lead as Garrett Jones and Logan Boyett make contact and Jones making hard contact with the outside wall.
The next 40 laps included some amazing racing as Chase Elliott made his way back to the front after losing a tire on lap 153. Elliott passed Grissom on lap 184 and never looked back. Elliott’s lead continued to grow in the final 15 laps as Elliott took his second Alabama 200 Win.
“It was hard fought for sure, in that first half I ran a little to hard and used up our stuff and when it go towards the end of that run it didn’t feel like I had gone about things right. I thought Ricky (Turner, crew chief) made some good adjustments there at he halfway break and we were able to get going a lilies better and the car drove really well. We were able to have a couple good starts on the high side and gain some ground and were able to work Kyle (Grissom) and get to the lead.”
