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Johnson OK after cancer scare

LONG POND — Jimmie Johnson put the beer on ice and held a muted victory celebration. The morning after he hoisted another NASCAR trophy in victory lane, Johnson was in New York to have a form of skin cancer cut out of his right shoulder.

Johnson surprised the auto racing community Monday when he tweeted that he was on a table having a procedure to remove a basal-cell carcinoma, a common and slow-growing form of skin cancer. Growing up in Southern California, Johnson was always outdoors when he wasn’t out racing motorcycles.

“I could vividly remember a lot of sunburns,” Johnson said. “That sun exposure on a mole, there’s just consequences.”

In his first public comments about the cancer scare, Johnson told The Associated Press on Friday he was diagnosed in January. Johnson’s physician told the seven-time NASCAR champion during an annual checkup he had “a mole that was kind of changing shape.” A biopsy confirmed he had skin cancer, but it had not spread and it was not a more severe cancer such as melanoma.

“Carcinoma doesn’t spread. It doesn’t go to the glands,” Johnson said ahead of this weekend’s race at Pocono Raceway. “They just have to dig it out and you’re good to go. Once I understood that, my reaction to the ‘C’ word calmed down.”

Kyle Busch gets pole

LONG POND — Kyle Busch turned a lap of 179.151 mph to win the pole at Pocono Raceway.

Busch had the fastest lap Friday to win a NASCAR Cup pole for the second straight week. Busch won the pole at Dover International Speedway.

Busch’s run at Dover was derailed when a tire came off the No. 18 Toyota during a pit stop. Busch crew chief Adams Stevens, tire carrier Kenny Barber and tire changer Jake Seminara were suspended four races for the infraction and will not be at Pocono. He won races at every active Cup track except Pocono and Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Race engineer Ben Beshore is the interim crew chief.

Martin Truex Jr. starts second and Matt Kenseth third for a 1-2-3 start for Toyota. Ryan Blaney was fourth, followed by Kurt Busch and Brad Keselowski, all Ford drivers.

Bell wins at Texas

FORT WORTH, Texas — Christopher Bell won the NASCAR Truck Series race at Texas under caution, having taken the white flag side-by-side with Chase Briscoe before a wreck behind them that left a truck upside down on the front stretch.

After a restart with two laps left Friday night, Bell and Briscoe were side-by-side and stayed that way the entire way around the 1 1/2-mile track back to the line. Bell had his No. 4 Toyota only inches and two-thousandths (0.002) of a second ahead when they got to the white flag. The yellow flag came out right after that, and NASCAR determined on video review that Bell was still ahead at that time.

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