2016 Coca-Cola 600
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The 2016 Coca-Cola 600, the 57th running of the
event Event may refer to: Gatherings of people * Ceremony, an event of ritual significance, performed on a special occasion * Convention (meeting), a gathering of individuals engaged in some common interest * Event management, the organization of eve ...
, was a
NASCAR The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, LLC (NASCAR) is an American auto racing sanctioning and operating company that is best known for stock car racing. The privately owned company was founded by Bill France Sr. in 1948, and hi ...
Sprint Cup Series The NASCAR Cup Series is the top racing series of the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR). The series began in 1949 as the Strictly Stock Division, and from 1950 to 1970 it was known as the Grand National Division. In 1971 ...
race held on May 29, 2016 at
Charlotte Motor Speedway Charlotte Motor Speedway (previously known as Lowe's Motor Speedway from 1999 to 2009) is a motorsport complex located in Concord, North Carolina, outside Charlotte. The complex features a quad oval track that hosts NASCAR racing including th ...
in
Concord, North Carolina Concord is the county seat and largest city in Cabarrus County, in the U.S. state of North Carolina. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 105,186, with an estimated population in 2021 of 107,697. In terms of population, the cit ...
. Contested over 400 laps on the 1.5 mile (2.42 km) asphalt speedway, it was the thirteenth race of the 2016 NASCAR Sprint Cup season. The race had nine lead changes among four different drivers and four cautions for 19 laps.


Report


Background

The race was held at
Charlotte Motor Speedway Charlotte Motor Speedway (previously known as Lowe's Motor Speedway from 1999 to 2009) is a motorsport complex located in Concord, North Carolina, outside Charlotte. The complex features a quad oval track that hosts NASCAR racing including th ...
, which is located in
Concord, North Carolina Concord is the county seat and largest city in Cabarrus County, in the U.S. state of North Carolina. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 105,186, with an estimated population in 2021 of 107,697. In terms of population, the cit ...
. The speedway complex includes a quad-oval track that will be utilized for the race, as well as a
dragstrip A dragstrip is a facility for conducting automobile and motorcycle acceleration events such as drag racing. Although a quarter mile (1320 feet, 402 m) is the best known measure for a drag track, many tracks are eighth mile (201&n ...
and a dirt track. The speedway was built in 1959 by
Bruton Smith Ollen Bruton Smith (March 3, 1927 – June 22, 2022) was a promoter and owner/CEO of NASCAR track owner Speedway Motorsports, Inc. He was inducted into NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2016 and the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 2007. He was bill ...
and is considered the home track for NASCAR with many race teams based in the
Charlotte metropolitan area The Charlotte metropolitan area, sometimes referred to as Metrolina, is a metropolitan area of the U.S. states of North and South Carolina, within and surrounding the city of Charlotte. The metropolitan area also includes the cities of Gastonia, ...
. The track is owned and operated by
Speedway Motorsports Speedway Motorsports, LLC is an American company that owns and manages auto racing facilities that host races sanctioned by NASCAR, IndyCar Series, NHRA, World of Outlaws and other racing series. The company was founded by Bruton Smith and has i ...
Inc. (SMI) with
Marcus G. Smith Marcus G. Smith (born 1973) is president and chief executive officer and director of NASCAR track owner Speedway Motorports, Inc.(SMI) and general manager of SMI owned Charlotte Motor Speedway. He is the son of SMI CEO Bruton Smith. Background ...
serving as track president.


Entry list

The initial entry list for the race was released on May 23, 2016 at 8:54 am ET with forty cars.


First practice

Kurt Busch Kurt Thomas Busch (born August 4, 1978) is an American professional auto racing driver. He last competed full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series, driving the No. 45 Toyota Camry TRD for 23XI Racing. He is the 2004 NASCAR Cup Series champion and the ...
was the fastest in the first practice session with a time of 28.002 and a speed of .


Qualifying

Martin Truex Jr. Martin Lee Truex Jr. (born June 29, 1980) is an American professional stock car racing driver. He competes full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series, driving the No. 19 Toyota Camry for Joe Gibbs Racing. He is the 2017 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Serie ...
scored the pole for the race with a time of 28.077 and a speed of . He said after qualifying that he "liked what I felt last year and I’ve been thinking about this race a lot since then. We had a really good car that day and thought we were going to go to victory lane and got beat on fuel mileage. Just excited for all my guys and for Bass Pro Shops, Tracker Boats, Furniture Row, Denver Mattress and everybody that works so hard on this deal – Toyota Racing, TRD – just awesome race cars. We had to work hard today, we were not that good in practice and made a lot of changes throughout this qualifying session. Hats off to my guys for some really good work and lucky to be with this group for sure.”
Joey Logano Joseph Thomas Logano (born May 24, 1990), is an American professional stock car racing driver. He competes full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series, driving the No. 22 Ford Mustang for Team Penske, and part-time in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Seri ...
, who qualified second, said he "got a little bit tight landing in (Turn) 1 and then a little bit free off (the corner). It wasn't much. And then (Turns) 3 and 4, I actually thought was a pretty good corner. So I would say most of it was down in 1 and 2 – probably at landing and through the center is where I lost most of my momentum. It's not much. Half-a-tenth of a second doesn't take long." “Being in the top four in every session there was really big for us,”
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. Richard Lynn Stenhouse Jr. (born October 2, 1987) is an American professional stock car racing driver. He competes full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series, driving the No. 47 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 for JTG Daugherty Racing. Stenhouse was the 2010 Nationw ...
said after qualifying third. “We’ve been fast at times in qualifying, but never put every round together and stayed that consistent, so I’m really proud of the team for the adjustments that they made throughout the qualifying session there. We just missed it a little bit, but we know where to go work on it to get it better. Now our job is to get it better on Saturday for a long 600 miles and make sure that we’ve got some adjustability in it.”


Qualifying results


Practice (post-qualifying)


Second practice

Kurt Busch continued to be quickest into the second practice session with a time of 28.272 and a speed of .


Final practice

Martin Truex Jr. was the fastest in the final practice session with a time of 28.972 and a speed of .


Race


First half


Start

Under cloudy
North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...
skies,
Martin Truex Jr. Martin Lee Truex Jr. (born June 29, 1980) is an American professional stock car racing driver. He competes full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series, driving the No. 19 Toyota Camry for Joe Gibbs Racing. He is the 2017 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Serie ...
led the field to the green flag at 6:12 p.m. The first caution of the race flew on lap 26. This was a scheduled competition caution due to overnight rain.
Ryan Blaney Ryan Michael Blaney (born December 31, 1993) is an American professional stock car racing driver. He competes full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series, driving the No. 12 Ford Mustang for Team Penske. He is the son of former NASCAR driver Dave Blaney ...
and
Chase Elliott William Clyde "Chase" Elliott II (born November 28, 1995) is an American professional stock car racing driver. He competes full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series, driving the No. 9 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 for Hendrick Motorsports. He won the 2014 NAS ...
were tagged for speeding on pit road and restarted the race from the tail-end of the field. The race restarted at lap 31. Truex hit pit road on lap 78 and handed the lead to
Jimmie Johnson Jimmie Kenneth Johnson (born September 17, 1975) is an American professional auto racing driver. A seven-time NASCAR Cup Series champion, he competes part-time in the series driving for Petty GMS Motorsports. Johnson's seven Cup championships, ...
. He pitted the next lap and the lead cycled back to Truex.


Second quarter

The second caution of the race flew on lap 114 for a single-car spin in turn 2. Rounding the turn,
Brian Scott Brian Joseph Scott (born January 12, 1988) is an American former professional stock car racing driver. Racing career Beginnings Scott has been racing competitively since the age of 12. One of his early career highlights came at the 360 Nationals ...
got loose and spun down the track. The race restarted on lap 121.
David Ragan David Lee Ragan (born December 24, 1985) is an American professional stock car racing driver. He last competed part-time in the NASCAR Cup Series, driving the No. 15 Ford Mustang for Rick Ware Racing, and is also an analyst for NASCAR on Fox ...
was tagged for a restart violation and was forced to serve a pass-through penalty. Truex pitted from the lead on lap 165 and handed the lead to Johnson. He pitted the next lap and handed the lead to
Joey Logano Joseph Thomas Logano (born May 24, 1990), is an American professional stock car racing driver. He competes full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series, driving the No. 22 Ford Mustang for Team Penske, and part-time in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Seri ...
, who pitted the following lap as well, with the lead cycling back to Truex. Ragan was tagged for an uncontrolled tire and was forced to serve a pass-through penalty.


Second half


Halfway

Reed Sorenson Bradley Reed Sorenson (born February 5, 1986) is an American professional stock car racing driver and spotter. He last competed part-time in the NASCAR Cup Series, driving the No. 27 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE for Premium Motorsports, the Nos. 74/ ...
retired from the race due to clutch issues and finished 40th. The third caution of the race flew on lap 204 for a single-car wreck in turn 4. Rounding the turn,
Jeffrey Earnhardt Jeffrey Lynn Earnhardt (born June 22, 1989) is an American professional stock car racing driver who competes full-time in the NASCAR Xfinity Series, driving the No. 44 Chevrolet Camaro for Alpha Prime Racing. He is the son of Kerry Earnhardt, gran ...
got loose and slammed the wall. The race restarted on lap 210. During the green flag cycle of stops on lap 266, Logano was tagged for his crew being over the wall too soon and was forced to serve a pass-through penalty. Logano said after the race that his team, and others, are "trying to make pit stops so fast and you’re gonna push everything to the edge. I guess we jumped off the wall a little bit too soon. I haven’t seen it, but unfortunately, that kind of made us make a green flag pit stop, which is really hard to overcome. Overall, we were able to get our lap back by racing up there, which was kind of cool. We didn’t have to take a lucky dog or any of that. We actually raced back to the lead lap, but we lost the balance a little bit on the last run and I couldn’t make much time once we got going." Truex pitted on lap 299 and handed the lead to
Paul Menard John Paul Christian Menard (born August 21, 1980) is an American semi-retired professional stock car racing driver who last competed part-time in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, driving the No. 66 Toyota Tundra for ThorSport Racing. Men ...
. He pitted on lap 302 and the lead cycled back to Truex.
Carl Edwards Carl Michael Edwards II (born August 15, 1979) is an American former professional stock car racing driver. He last competed in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, driving the No. 19 Toyota Camry for Joe Gibbs Racing. Prior to that, he drove the No. 9 ...
was tagged for speeding and was forced to serve a pass-through penalty. He was tagged for speeding again while serving the penalty and was forced to serve a stop and go penalty.


Fourth quarter

With 85 laps to go, Truex began running into lapped traffic. This allowed Johnson to pull up to within three-tenths of a second of him. He was unable to get past Truex and lost second to
Kevin Harvick Kevin Michael Harvick (born December 8, 1975) is an American professional stock car racing driver. He competes full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series, driving the No. 4 Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing. Harvick is the 2014 Cup Series champio ...
. Debris on the backstretch brought out the fourth caution of the race with 61 laps to go, within the fuel window allowing the entire field to reach the scheduled distance on one more full tank of fuel. In the ensuing caution,
Aric Almirola Aric Michael Almirola (born March 14, 1984) is an American professional stock car racing driver. He competes full-time in the NASCAR Cup Series, driving the No. 10 Ford Mustang for Stewart-Haas Racing. A graduate of Hillsborough High School in T ...
was tagged for speeding on pit road and restarted the race from the tail-end of the field. The race restarted with 56 laps to go. Johnson briefly took the lead from Truex after the restart, but Truex quickly reclaimed the lead and then led the remainder of the race, ultimately leading a race-record 392 of the 400 laps en route to the victory. Truex's average speed (160.655 miles per hour) was also an all-time record for the race and the race was also the shortest Coca-Cola/World 600 in the history of the event at just 3 hours, 44 minutes, and 8 seconds.


Post-race


Driver comments

Truex said afterwards that he was "proud of my team, everybody that made this possible, that believed in me, gave me this opportunity.
Cole Pearn Cole R. Pearn (born October 13, 1982) is a Canadian former NASCAR crew chief and stock car racing driver. He competed in CASCAR (now Pinty's Series) for three seasons from 2001 to 2003. He also was a 3 time Canadian Go-Kart Champion, Delaware Spee ...
(crew chief), Jazzy (team engineer Jeff Curtis), my guys are something special. I want to thank all of them. This is a big day. Got the troops on the cars, this is a special weekend. It’s really neat to bring that name home to Victory Lane. Just a lot of emotion right now. Not really sure it’s sunk in yet. Just an amazing day, an amazing weekend for all of us. It’s a weekend you dream about." After a runner-up finish, Harvick said he "ran 10th all day. So I’m just really, really happy. When you’re able to take a 10th-place car – at best – and drive it 450 miles and then make huge gains (the rest of the way). At the end of the race we obviously didn’t have the best car. Those guys (Truex’s Furniture Row Racing team) have had some fast cars this year and tonight definitely had the dominant car. Early on we were just really bad. Tight coming into corners and loose coming out. Nothing seemed to be working and then were just stepped back and swung for the fences. We were able to pass with our car once we got our handling together. The cars were already sliding around a fair amount all day.” Johnson said after finishing third that he was "so proud of the effort we put in tonight. This is the best car I’ve had in Charlotte for a long time. It just shows you how good that No. 78 was and the No. 4 got a little bit better than us at the end. I thought we had a chance at them a few times, a couple of times on the long run we would get close. A couple times on the restarts we would get close, but all-in-all a very strong performance for this Lowe’s Chevrolet. Very proud of the team work and the support that we have from all the employees at Lowe’s. Just came up a little short today.” He also said that Truex "was very impressive. I’m happy for Martin and the team, those guys have worked awful hard to get where they’re at.”


Race results


Race summary

* Lead changes: 9 among 4 different drivers * Cautions/laps: 4 for 19 * Red flags: 0 * Time of race: 3 hours, 44 minutes and 5 seconds * Average speed:


Media


Television

Fox Sports Fox Sports is the brand name for a number of sports channels, broadcast divisions, programming, and other media around the world. The ''Fox Sports'' name has since been used for other sports media assets. These assets are held mainly by the Fo ...
televised the race in the United States for the sixteenth consecutive year.
Mike Joy Michael Joy (born November 25, 1949) is an American TV sports announcer and who currently serves as the lap-by-lap voice of Fox Sports' coverage of NASCAR. His color analyst is Clint Bowyer. Counting 2022, Joy has been part of the live broadcast ...
was the lap-by-lap announcer, while three-time Coca-Cola 600 winner,
Jeff Gordon Jeffery Michael Gordon (born August 4, 1971) is an American former professional stock car racing driver, who is the Vice Chairman for Hendrick Motorsports. He raced full-time from 1993 to 2015, driving the No. 24 Chevrolet for Hendrick M ...
and five-time race winner
Darrell Waltrip Darrell Lee Waltrip (born February 5, 1947) is an American motorsports analyst, author, former national television broadcaster, and stock car driver. He raced from 1972 to 2000 in the NASCAR Cup Series (known as the NASCAR Winston Cup Series dur ...
were the color commentators.
Jamie Little Jamie Little (born April 9, 1978) is an American pit reporter for NASCAR coverage on Fox. Little is a former pit reporter for ESPN/ABC coverage of the Indy Racing League, although she returned to her pit reporting duty for the 2007 and 2008 In ...
,
Chris Neville Chris Neville is a NASCAR pit road reporter who most recently worked for Fox Sports, not to be confused with Garwood Lanes Thursday night league president, Chris Neville. He is best known for his work with Fox, as well as formerly calling the Ro ...
,
Vince Welch Vincent Welch (born August 4, 1964) is an American radio and television personality most recently for Fox Sports. Until 2022, Welch was the play-by-play commentator for NASCAR Camping World Truck Series, and occasionally, a pit reporter for FOX ...
and
Matt Yocum Matthew Yocum (born April 8, 1968) is a long-standing reporter in motorsports, best known for being a NASCAR pit reporter. He works for CBS as a pit reporter to cover the Superstar Racing Experience (SRX) as of 2021. He most recently worked in tha ...
reported from pit lane during the race.


Radio

Radio coverage of the race was broadcast by the
Performance Racing Network The Performance Racing Network (PRN) is a radio syndication network controlled by Speedway Motorsports (SMI) founded in 1981. PRN airs NASCAR Cup Series and Xfinity Series events held at Speedway Motorsports and Penske Corporation-owned and manag ...
(PRN), and was simulcasted on
Sirius XM Sirius XM Holdings Inc. is an American broadcasting company headquartered in Midtown Manhattan, New York City that provides satellite radio and online radio services operating in the United States. It was formed by the 2008 merger of Sirius Sat ...
NASCAR Radio. Doug Rice, Mark Garrow and
Wendy Venturini Wendy Venturini (born January 30, 1979 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American reporter for the Performance Racing Network (PRN). She works as broadcaster for NASCAR Cup Series races and sometimes as a pit reporter for races on PRN. She had been a ...
called the race in the booth when the field raced through the quad-oval. Rob Albright reported the race from a billboard in turn 2 when the field was racing through turns 1 and 2 and halfway down the backstretch. Pat Patterson called the race from a billboard outside of turn 3 when the field raced through the other half of the backstretch and through turns 3 and 4. Brad Gillie, Brett McMillan, Jim Noble and Steve Richards were the pit reporters during the broadcast.


Standings after the race

*Note: Only the first 16 positions are included for the driver standings.
. – Driver has clinched a Chase position.


References

{{Coca-Cola 600
Coca-Cola 600 The Coca-Cola 600, originally the World 600, is an annual NASCAR Cup Series points race held at the Charlotte Motor Speedway in Concord, North Carolina, on a Sunday during Memorial Day weekend. The first race, held in 1960, was also the first on ...
Coca-Cola 600 The Coca-Cola 600, originally the World 600, is an annual NASCAR Cup Series points race held at the Charlotte Motor Speedway in Concord, North Carolina, on a Sunday during Memorial Day weekend. The first race, held in 1960, was also the first on ...
NASCAR races at Charlotte Motor Speedway
Coca-Cola 600 The Coca-Cola 600, originally the World 600, is an annual NASCAR Cup Series points race held at the Charlotte Motor Speedway in Concord, North Carolina, on a Sunday during Memorial Day weekend. The first race, held in 1960, was also the first on ...