WWW.RECORDPUB.COM Record-Courier Sunday, June 12, 2016 C7

AssOCiAtED PREssDaniel Suarez, in the No. 19 car, surged past Kyle Busch with two laps to go and just barely held on to become the first Mexican-born racer to win a NASCAR national race. At right, Suarez enjoys the opportunity to celebrate his historic victory over Busch, whom he described afterward as a “good friend.”

By LARRY LAGE | AssOCiAtED PREss

BROOKLYN, Mich. — Dan-iel Suarez became the first Mexican-born driver to win a NASCAR national race, pass-ing Kyle Busch and holding off one of the sport’s big stars at the Xfinity Series race at Michigan.

“To be able to be an example to bring more people is great,” said Suarez, who moved to the U.S. five years ago.

Busch led 88 of the 125 laps in the Menards 250 race Sat-urday, but couldn’t stay ahead of Suarez for the final two laps.

“I didn’t know Suarez was

coming like that,” Busch said. “He had some speed.”

The 24-year-old Suarez is the first non-American to lead any of NASCAR’s three national se-ries in points. He became the first Mexican to win the Xfinity Series rookie of the year award last year.

Winning, for the first time, adds quite a feat to his list of accomplishments.

“This is monumental,” said David Wilson, president of Toyota Racing Development

Busch, Paul Menard, Erik Jones and Elliott Sadler fin-ished in the top five.

“It couldn’t have been

scripted better because he had to beat some heavy hit-ters,” Wilson said. “He didn’t do it at a stand-alone event.”

Jones raced with “Dave,”

instead of his name painted above the driver side window. His father, Dave Jones, died this week at 53 after a short

bout with cancer.“Erik made a point

to be in that race car,” Wilson said. “He did it to honor his fa-ther.”

Gordie Howe was mentioned during the invocation be-fore the race about

70 miles west of Detroit, where he played much of his career for the Red Wings. Howe died Friday at 88.

Suarez won for the first time

in 48 starts in NASCAR’s na-tional series, getting rewarded for a climb through the sport’s development programs. He became a part of NASCAR in 2011 and was involved in its Drive for Diversity and Next programs.

“Without all the support, maybe I wouldn’t be here right now,” he acknowledged.

Suarez also credited Busch, whom he drives for in the Truck Series.

“Kyle has been super help-ful,” he said. “He has support-ed me a lot and given me ad-vice. He’s been a good friend.”

I didn’t know suarez was coming like that.”

Kyle Busch, Led 88 of 125 laps Saturday

Daniel Suarez becomes first Mexican to win NASCAR national race

Penguins ready for Game 6, hope to quicken waddle to finish lineBy JOSH DUBOW | AssOCiAtED PREss

SAN JOSE, Calif. — No one needs to remind the San Jose Sharks about the difficulties of closing out a playoff series, how each missed opportunity can give confidence to the opponent and plant seeds of doubt in the lead-ing team.

Two years after becoming the fourth NHL team ever to lose a best-of-seven series after win-ning the first three games, San Jose is trying to pull off a historic comeback of its own in the Stan-ley Cup Final.

The Sharks looks to stave off elimination for a second straight contest and force a decisive sev-enth game in the final when they host the Pittsburgh Penguins in Game 7 on Sunday night.

“The longer it goes, you just feel that pressure, ‘You got to get it done, you got to get it done,’” de-fenseman Justin Braun said. “And when it doesn’t happen, it creates a little frustration and you’re like, ‘We could have been done with this days ago and we’re still go-ing.’ I think that gets in your head a little bit.”

That’s what happened to San Jose in the first round in 2014 against Los Angeles and what the Sharks hope the Penguins are feel-ing after failing to win the Cup on home ice in Game 5.

Despite being outplayed for much of the series, including their Game 5 win when Pittsburgh out-shot San Jose 46-21, the Sharks know the pressure on the Pen-guins will only increase if they can win at home to force the winner-take-all seventh game in Pitts-

burgh on Wednesday night.“I’ve been a part of teams, es-

pecially over there, that have lost being up 3-1,” said Sharks defen-seman Paul Martin, who spent the previous five years with Pitts-burgh. “I think it’s more of a men-tal thing realizing your opportuni-ty to finish it off is getting smaller and each loss gives that other team that much more belief and momentum that they can get it done and pull it off.”

No team has lost the Stanley Cup final after going up 3-1 since Toronto rallied to beat Detroit in 1942 after losing the first three games of the series.

But the Penguins have had problems closing out their play-off series in recent years. Since winning their third Stanley Cup back in 2009, they have blown se-ries leads three times in the pre-vious six postseasons.

They lost to Montreal in 2010 af-ter going 3-2 in the series and then squandered 3-1 edges in losses to Tampa Bay in 2011 and the New York Rangers in 2014.

Now they lost in their first chance to close out the Sharks.

“I thought our guys did a really good job of handling it the right way,” coach Mike Sullivan said. “It was unfortunate that we didn’t get the result we were looking for. But we’re playing a very good oppo-nent and we know that. We know this is the most difficult win to get. Our players are well aware of the expectations and the heightened intensity that we need to have in order to get this next win.”

The Penguins have little they would want to change from their Game 5 loss, other than the start.

After allowing two goals in the first three minutes, Pittsburgh dominated much of the rest of the contest.

The Penguins scored twice in a 22-second span to tie the game just a few minutes after their ear-ly deficit and controlled play over the final 58 minutes.

Only a stellar performance by San Jose goalie Martin Jones and a somewhat soft goal that Matt Murray allowed to Melker Karlsson later in the first gave the Sharks the win.

“While we were pretty good, it wasn’t enough,” forward Matt Cul-len said. “You can look at good fortune or bad breaks or whatev-er. It doesn’t matter, ultimately. The bottom line is we get a sec-ond shot at this and we don’t want to miss it.”

Murray has done especially well this postseason after any subpar performances. The rookie net-minder has not lost back-to-back games all postseason. He followed up a shaky performance in Game 3 by stopping 23 of 24 shots on the road in a 3-1 win in Game 4.

Murray is 5-0 with a .935 save percentage in the starts following his first five playoff losses.

“Usually it takes players a few years to acquire that type of men-tal toughness where your confi-dence doesn’t get shaken or your performance doesn’t get influ-enced by some of the adversity that you go through throughout the course of a game or from game to game,” Sullivan said. “Matt has shown an ability to just stay focused and just stay in the mo-ment and be ready to compete and make that next save.”

UNRUffLED: MURRAY fOLLOWING A pLAYOff LOSS

5-0 record, .935 save percentage nafter a 4-3 loss to Washington in which he

gave up four goals, he garnered 23 saves on 24 shots, and a win against the Capitals.

n after a 3-1 loss to Washington in Game 5, he stopped 36 of 39 shots (.923) to send the Pen-guins to the Eastern Conference Finals.

n after yielding three goals on just 20 shots in Game 1 against Tampa Bay, he saved 19 of 21 (.905) in a 3-2 Game 2 overtime victory.

n after giving up four goals in Game 4 at Tam-pa Bay, Murray stopped 28 of 30 (.933) in Game 6 to knot the series at three.

nafter yielding three goals in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup finals at San Jose, he saved 23 of 24 (.958) in Game 4.

AssOCiAtED PREssMatt Murray in Game 5 of the Stanley Cup at pittsburgh.

By LARRY LAGE | AP

BROOKLYN, Mich. — Dale Earnhardt Jr. slipped through slid-ing doors of his hauler, and parted into a sea of memorabilia-toting fans.

“Make a hole please!” a man working for Hendrick Motorsports shouted as he walked with Earnhardt. “He has to get to his car for practice!”

Earnhardt si lent-ly signed some auto-graphs Saturday and didn’t have much time to stop and talk on a busy day.

Does he have a lot of memories at Michigan International Speedway?

“Yeah,” Earnhardt said in a voice just loud enough to be heard over the sounds of rev-ving engines and clam-oring fans.

After preparing for a practice, he changed into a suit to provide commentary during the Xfinity Series race, which included some drivers that compete for him and JR Motor-sports. During breaks, he was featured in a TV commercial.

Earnhardt will start 27th Sunday in the 40-car field at NASCAR’s FireKeepers Casino 400 on a two-mile oval he has become very familiar with over the years. Joey Logano has to pole and will be in the front row with Mar-tin Truex Jr. and just ahead of Tony Stew-art and Denny Hamlin.

Earnhardt, a 26-time winner, has two vic-tories at MIS. He will make his 34th start on the track, tying Rich-mond for the venue in which he has compet-

ed on the most since making his NASCAR debut in 1999.

He picked up a des-perately needed win at the wide, high-banking track on June 17, 2012, thus ending a four-year, 143-race slump without a victory.

Earnhardt is com-ing off his best two-year stretch — win-ning three times last year and four times in 2014 — since winning a combined eight races in 2003 and 2004.

This year, though, Earnhardt hasn’t won any of his 14 races and is among three driv-ers ranked in the top 12 without a win.

“Each and every week, there are 12 to 15 guys with a shot to win,” said Kyle Busch, who leads the top se-ries with three victo-ries. “And, there are

about five more guys who can surprise you by winning.”

Earnhardt was sec-ond at Pocono, his fourth runner-up fin-ish this year.

“Pocono was a good step in the right direc-tion,” Earnhardt said. “I felt like we could go there and run good. I think we learned a lot that we could use to understand how to get better. I’m looking for-ward to Michigan. Ob-viously, it’s going to be a different package, but I think it’ll make for good racing and we should run well on that track, too. I anticipate having a good week-end.”

NASCAR is tweak-ing its aerodynamic package this week, and next month at Ken-tucky, in the hopes of creating more compet-

itive racing.Among the changes

are reducing sideforce by setting the rear toe to zero and shortening the spoiler by an inch.

“We’re working on getting these cars to be less aero depen-dent,” Busch said. “We want them to be more drivable so we can out-race guys and make

moves with a better handling car instead of getting stuck in a line. I think that’ll help the product. I haven’t been comfortable by myself out here so far, so that doesn’t bode well for being in traffic. Maybe everybody will be un-comfortable and we’ll just have to outdrive them.”

Earnhardt’s 34th Michigan start will tie Richmond for his highest

Low interest home improvement loans for Portage County’s homeowners.

$1 MILLION IN FUNDS AVAILABLE

All institutions are Members FDIC, Equal Housing LendersProgram Administered by Brad Cromes, Portage County Treasurer

Does your home need improving? Introducing the

Interest rates 3%below bank’s normal offer

for the first 5 years!

For more information, contact a participating financial institution:Hometown Bank - 330-673-9827

Portage Community Bank - 330-296-8090 Middlefield Banking Company - 330-274-0881

HOME IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM

KO-104

7096

8