NASCAR – Kyle Busch’s epic run continues with Brickyard victory – ESPN.com – ESPN
INDIANAPOLIS — As Kyle Busch celebrated the biggest victory of his Sprint Cup career, the rest of the drivers probably left Indianapolis Motor Speedway thinking one thing: What a drag.
Busch couldn’t really take a whole lot of credit for his race-winning pass 11 laps before the finish, but that didn’t matter as he became the first driver since 2007 to win three consecutive Cup races. His wins in past years in the Southern 500 and Bristol night race most likely took more pure racing brawn, but Busch is a driver who thinks about prestige and history, and that’s what winning at Indy is all about.
“I’ve won my Southern 500, I’ve won my hometown race, which is a big race for me, the Las Vegas race, I’ve also won the Bristol night race, I’ve swept Bristol [in three national series],” Busch said. “So there’s a lot of great things that have happened for me in my career.
“But this one here today checks off probably the one that’s No. 2 on the races to win list. There’s still that elusive championship, as well, that we want to achieve.”
Busch knows how these races at Indianapolis are won. They’re won on restarts and having a solid car. That’s what Busch did and he got the job done, winning for the fourth time in the last five Cup races.
Those stats would be impressive this year after about 15 months of struggles for Joe Gibbs Racing. Throw in the fact that Busch missed 11 races with a broken right leg and broken left foot and Busch is on one of the most impressive runs in his career.
Tied with Jimmie Johnson for the most wins this year, he sits just 23 points outside the top 30, a barrier that he should easily crack in the next six races to qualify for the Chase for the Sprint Cup.
That elusive championship? What seemed unthinkable even when he returned to racing in mid-May with a rookie Sprint Cup crew chief in Adam Stevens at a Joe Gibbs Racing program that appeared to still be a tick behind the Cup elite now seems oh so possible.
“All the steps that we went through to get back into the race car was quite challenging,” Busch said. “But once we’ve been back, I felt like I just continued right on my stride that I left with, and that I knew that Adam Stevens and I could achieve.
“He’s obviously a great leader of this team. I love him to death, and he’s doing a really good job, and obviously we’re having fun doing what we’re doing.”
Busch left 42 others shaking their heads on a day that, frankly, would be hard to argue met expectations. Even Jeff Gordon‘s final Brickyard 400 couldn’t attract more people in the seats for a hot, muggy late-afternoon 160 laps.
Gordon crashed early — he finished 42nd — and passing was limited to the first lap of a restart or through pit cycles. Only three passes actually came amid a green-flag run, and none after Lap 62.
It was a product of a NASCAR experiment to breathe life into a string of unsatisfying races at Indianapolis in past years as well as several others on the Cup circuit in 2015. NASCAR introduced a high-drag package with a tall spoiler and a rear bumper extension that they hoped created a draft.
But few drivers could slingshot-pass anyone, and the consensus was after a couple of laps, a driver was pretty much stuck in his spot unless he had a significantly better piece.
There weren’t many daring passes Sunday. Busch’s teammate, Matt Kenseth, called the new package “terrible” and Martin Truex Jr. said he was happy at the times when he could be “passing cars on a track that is probably the hardest in the series to pass on with a package that’s probably the toughest we’ve ever had to pass with.”
Truex played a critical role in Busch’s victory. Behind Kevin Harvick on a restart on Lap 153 of the scheduled 160-lap affair, Truex didn’t give Harvick a good enough push for Harvick to retain the lead as Joey Logano gave Busch, in second, a heck of a boost.
With his regular spotter on the backstretch to spot the critical areas of Turn 2 and Turn 3 where drivers need to get single file, Truex’s secondary spotter didn’t count down his approach to the restart zone. Truex couldn’t see when Harvick restarted in part because of the bigger spoilers. It was a perfect storm for Busch to win.
“I apologize to Harvick,” Truex said. “It cost him the race for sure. … You hate to be the guy that didn’t get it done.”
NASCAR had hoped for more drafting and possibly pack racing with this package and just didn’t get it. Logano couldn’t make a pass on Busch in the final laps, and he wound up second with Harvick third, Truex fourth and Denny Hamlin fifth.
“Everybody put in a lot of effort to really try to make everything a lot better, spent a lot of money, but I don’t know that we accomplished everything that we were looking to accomplish,” said a diplomatic Harvick, who led a race-high 75 laps.
Hamlin said once drivers got single file coming off of Turn 2 on a restart, there was little passing. He said he wouldn’t run this package, but “I’m not in charge.”
“When you have something that makes that big a hole in the air, obviously the guy in the back is going to be at a disadvantage,” Hamlin said.
Busch took advantage of that. He handled those last two restarts with perfection. He didn’t make a mistake. Not that anyone would he expect him to, but it did come a day after he had to go to the infield medical center following his Xfinity victory because of dehydration.
The Cup team added an air duct in the car — an addition that could make the car handle worse — to keep Busch more comfortable in the car. He seemed more refreshed Sunday, although that possibly could have been just the adrenaline after the biggest accomplishment of his career.
The four victories for Busch have come with four different aerodynamic packages. And at least the first and the last wins at Kentucky and Indianapolis came on aerodynamic-dependent tracks where JGR teams had struggled since the start of 2014 through May 2015.
“You can be on the top in pro sports, and a few little things turn, you can go right to being mediocre or in the back of the pack,” JGR team owner Joe Gibbs said. “It takes a lot of hard work to get back, and that’s what I’m so proud of our team.
“It took us a full year and a half, but we bounced back. In pro sports you see that, and really what you have to say about pro sports, the hardest thing is what? To stay up there.”
Busch is a little concerned about staying on top, continuing this streak through the end of the season, and that will be his main concern in the coming weeks. He won’t care about how the racing went when he looks back on this win. All he’ll remember is kissing the bricks with his wife, Samantha, and newborn son, Brexton.
“[Brexton] is a huge inspiration to me and my wife, and nothing has brought us closer as a couple than him, and we just continue to enjoy every moment with him,” Busch said. “I don’t know, I think he likes Victory Lane probably more than anybody else.”
That can’t be true. No one likes Victory Lane more than Kyle himself.
“We just wanted to come back and get back into a rhythm of things and finish top 20, finish top 15, get to some top-10s, but right when I did come back, I felt right ready to go,” Busch said. “I didn’t want to come back and not be ready to contend for race wins or contend for top-5s, top-10s.
“When I did come back, I knew that that was what we were going to be here to do. But I wasn’t sure it was going to come this quick. … This is just a run that anybody would have ever imagined.”
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