RICHMOND, Va. — Audio and recap by Race Chaser Online Managing Editor Jacob Seelman — The TEAM photo —
While the official record book won’t show that Kenny Humpe led all 200 laps of Tuesday night’s NASCAR PEAK Antifreeze Series event at Richmond International Raceway — don’t bother telling him that.
Humpe parlayed a pole starting spot into a massacre of the rest of the field, leading every green-flag lap of the night and 194 overall en route to his third NPAS checkered flag of 2015 and the fifth series win of his career.
“Coming into the night I honestly thought we were a little bit off, but we pulled it together and it was beyond anything I expected tonight,” said Humpe, who took the win when the caution flag came out with three laps to go for a massive pile-up on the frontstretch. “Patrick [Crabtree] ran a great race tonight, and his car was definitely better than ours on the long run, but he just never had the track position that we did to be able to fight up at the front — track position and that caution at the end is really what saved us tonight.”
“To get PEAK [series sponsor] the win in their first race onboard is really special too. To win even one of these races is so tough, that for us to have won three out of five now — it’s incredible.”
The race was far from the short track carnage that was expected — at least in the first two-thirds of the event. Humpe bolted away from the pole and built a lead of four seconds over Alfalla when the first caution of the night flew at lap 56 for a spinning Alex Warren, allowing the field to restack and take another shot at Humpe.
The shots would fall far short, as Humpe would run away on the ensuing restarts (after a quick caution at lap 64 when Trey Eidson came to a stop in turn two), gapping the field over a 50-lap green-flag stint from lap before the third yellow of the event flew at lap 120 for Danny Hansen’s spinning No. 32 SegPay machine on the frontstretch.
The six laps Humpe did not lead came during that caution period — due to a scoring glitch that led to an extension of the yellow to sort out the official sequence. That same stretch saw five drivers, including defending series champion Michael Conti, fall out of the server, ending their chances at visiting victory lane.
Following the resumption of the race at lap 135, the complexion of the race changed drastically as six yellows flew in the final 66 laps — pushing the total to nine cautions for 50 (one-quarter) of the race’s 200 laps.
Through all of the late-race yellow fever, Humpe simply was untouchable, scoring the fourth straight win for The TEAM in 2015 and extending his series points lead to 30 markers over new runner-up in the standings, Ray Alfalla. Alfalla finished third in Tuesday night’s race, behind Humpe and runner-up Patrick Crabtree at the end of 200 laps.
Alfalla’s rise in the standings came at the expense of Texas winner Chad Laughton, who was involved in the race-ending caution that handed his teammate the victory — Laughton was tagged racing for fourth with P.J. Stergios and spun in the middle of the fronstretch, collecting multiple front-runners in the process and ultimately finishing 29th.
In an additional storyline, Ryan Lowe and Taylor Hurst rounded out the top five in the results — both notching their first-career NPAS top five results. Outside polesitter Cody Byus faded to sixth at the checkered flag.
The NASCAR PEAK Antifreeze Series returns to action for round six on May 5 at Pocono Raceway. Michael Conti is the defending winner of the event.
Audio with race winner Kenny Humpe:
RESULTS: NASCAR PEAK Antifreeze Series; Commonwealth Clash; Richmond International Raceway; April 21, 2015
- Kenny Humpe
- Patrick Crabtree
- Ray Alfalla
- Ryan Lowe
- Taylor Hurst
- Cody Byus
- Justin Bolton
- Benjamin Burmeister
- Matt Bussa
- Kevin King
- Jake Stergios
- Brad Mahar
- Nathan Wise
- Brandon Buie
- Byron Daley
- Corey Vincent
- Casey Tucker
- Brad Davies
- Bryan Blackford
- Andrew Fayash III
- Tyler Laughlin
- Brian Schoenburg
- Danny Hansen
- David Rattler
- Nick Ottinger
- P.J. Stergios
- Tyler Hudson
- Chris Overland
- Chad Laughton
- Tyler Hill
- Rob Ackley
- Teemu Iivonen
- Thomas Davis
- Alex Warren
- Michael Conti
- Adam Gilliland
- Trey Eidson
- Brandon Schmidt
- Allen Boes
- Michael Johnson
- Brian Day
- Landon Harrison
- Steven Gilbert
