Kobyluck Turns Things Around At NHIS With Top-10 Finish

Two weeks ago, Matt Kobyluck hoped to play the role of spoiler to Joey Logano’s dominating championship season. But since reaching a shot at the series title, Kobyluck has had nothing but bad luck.

After racing up to second behind then-leader Joey Logano, Kobyluck got taken out of the Sunoco 150 at Dover International Speedway under caution. The team attempted to repair the damage to the #40 Mohegan Sun Casino Chevrolet, but had to retire from the event with only 116 laps complete. His 21st place finish moved him to fourth in the points as the series concluded its regular season.

The team made the right call, and as soon as the green dropped on the Sunoco 150, Kobyluck knew he was going to have a car to contend with. By lap 48, Kobyluck had come from a 13th starting position to fifth. He maintained that position before pitting during a lap 55 caution period.

Kobyluck  re-entered the race in ninth and worked his way up to second by lap 92, but trouble was just around the corner. A caution flew on lap 94 when the 99 of Bryon Chew blew a tire and hit the wall in turn four. The third place car of Jesus Hernandez didn’t realize the caution was out and never reduced his speed coming out of turn two. By the time he saw Kobyluck, who had dropped to a caution pace, it was too late. He had run right into the back of the Mohegan Sun Casino Chevrolet.

  “The car was really, really good,” said Kobyluck. “It’s disheartening for the guys and it’s disheartening for me because we put so much into it. The last two races have ended this way. When you’re running in the top-three or the top-five you’re supposed to feel as if you’re in pretty good company and that you are able to race and have fun out there. You don’t expect to get wrecked by a veteran and you don’t expect to get wrecked under caution. It’s discouraging, but the flipside of that is, we’ve had great performances. These are just circumstances out of our control.”

“The caution had been out for a good quarter of a lap and it appears his spotter didn’t tell him the caution was out or anything. We took the caution when we went underneath the start/finish line and he wrecked me in turn two. To get wrecked under caution is one of the stupidest things that could happen on the racetrack,” said Kobyluck.

Kobyluck brought his machine onto pit road and the crew frantically went to work on banging out the damaged sheet metal. They also changed right side tires and a left side tire that had been damaged in the wreck. They went several laps down in the pits, but were hoping to complete the race. By lap 116, it became apparent to the team that they weren’t going to get all the damage fixed by the race conclusion and pulled the car behind the wall.

“At a place like this where your speeds are so high you do rely heavily on your spotter. (Jesus) came over afterwards and told me his spotter never told him the caution was out, and that he never even saw me in turn two because the sun was real bad. He said as soon as he could see he drove right into me. It was unfortunate to end our day that way,” he concluded.