page_title: 2010 Carfax 400
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: 2010 Carfax 400 / Race report / Background
caption_attribution_description: The view from turn 3 grandstand.
context_page_description: The 2010 Carfax 400 was a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series stock car race that was held on August 15, 2010 at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn, Michigan. Contested over 200 laps, it was the twenty-third race of the 2010 Sprint Cup Series season. The race was won by Kevin Harvick for the Richard Childress Racing team. Denny Hamlin finished second, and Carl Edwards, who started twenty-fourth, clinched third.
  Pole position driver Kasey Kahne maintained his lead into the first corner to begin the race, but Jimmie Johnson, who started in the second position on the grid, took the lead before the first lap was over. Afterward, Greg Biffle became the leader, and would eventually lead to the race high of 66 laps. Tony Stewart led after the final pit stops, ahead of Hamlin and Harvick. Harvick helped Hamlin to become the leader, but with twelve laps left, Harvick gained on Hamlin and claimed the first position with eleven laps remaining. Harvick maintained his position to claim his first Sprint Cup victory at Michigan International Speedway.
context_section_description: Michigan International Speedway is one of six superspeedways to hold NASCAR races; the others are Daytona International Speedway, Auto Club Speedway, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Pocono Raceway and Talladega Superspeedway. The standard track at Michigan International Speedway is a four-turn superspeedway that is 2 miles (3.2 km) long. The track's turns are banked at eighteen degrees, while the front stretch, the location of the finish line, is banked at twelve degrees. The back stretch, has a five degree banking. Michigan International Speedway had a seating capacity of 119,500 people for the race.
  One team chose to replace their regular driver with a substitute. Prior to the first practice session, Extenze decided to cancel their sponsorship with Front Row Motorsports, prompting the team to replace Kevin Conway with Tony Raines. During the week leading up to the race, Gordon's wife gave birth to their son, Leo Benjamin Gordon. Gordon said that he was not planning to retire until his son could see him in victory lane.
  Before the race, Kevin Harvick led the Drivers' Championship with 3,210 points, and Jeff Gordon stood in second with 3,025 points. Jeff Burton was third in the Drivers' Championship with 2,895 points, Kurt Busch was fourth with 2,892 points, and Jimmie Johnson was in fifth with 2,882 points. In the Manufacturers' Championship, Chevrolet was leading with 158 points, twenty-seven points ahead of their rival Toyota. Ford, with 102 points, was nine points ahead of Dodge in the battle for third. Brian Vickers was the race's defending champion.
caption: Michigan International Speedway, the race track where the race was held.
exif: {"Image Make": "PENTAX Corporation", "Image Model": "PENTAX *ist DS", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "*ist DS     Ver 1.00", "Image DateTime": "2008:06:15 13:52:59", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "602", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 51, 48, 48, 0, 0, 0, 33, 0, 1, 0, 22, ... ]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "56464", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6982", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/3000", "EXIF FNumber": "67/10", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Action", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "400", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2008:06:15 13:52:59", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2008:06:15 13:52:59", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "70", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3008", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2000", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "56338", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "105", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "3"}