Kyle Busch

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kyle_busch_chicagoBy Seth Livingstone
NASCAR Wire Service

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. – There’s no telling where a younger, less mature Kyle Busch might have been this week.

For all his talent, he probably wouldn’t have been at Thursday’s Championship 4 Media Day session in preparation for Sunday’s Ford EcoBoost 400 (3 p.m. ET on NBC) and his shot at a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship.

Team owner Joe Gibbs sees the difference in his driver, who has overcome extreme adversity to put himself in position to battle defending champion Kevin Harvick, four-time champ Jeff Gordon, and Martin Truex Jr. for the title – about the only crown that’s eluded Busch during his career.

At 30, Busch owns 153 career victories in NASCAR’s three national series, including 33 in Sprint Cup competition. But he’s never finished higher than fourth (2013) in the final standings. Sometimes, equipment has let him down. Other times, he’s been his own worst enemy, letting emotions get the better of him.

“Kyle, for the last couple of years … reacts in the car differently,” Gibbs says. “He seems to have more of a patience and is willing to think things through. He’s still very aggressive, but the way he deals with things are much more even now. I think he’s definitely in a different place than he was 10 years ago.

“I think he’ got the talent (to win a title). … You see it in the NFL. I think everybody looks at championships as the way you’re judged. I think (a Cup title) would be a big deal and a big statement for him.”

In some ways, Busch has already delivered that statement. That he’s even positioned to race for a championship is a minor miracle and a tribute to his own and his team’s perseverance. Busch broke his right leg and left foot in a crash during the season-opening XFINITY Series race at Daytona in February and missed the first 11 Sprint Cup races of the season.

“I wouldn’t say that I could have (imagined being here),” Busch said. “(After the crash) we were trying to figure out whether or not I was going to be eligible, when I was able to return, and whether or not I could make up enough points to get myself in contention to be Chase-eligible come Richmond (the final race of NASCAR’s regular season).”

Busch remembers NASCAR Vice Chairman Mike Helton visiting him in his hospital room the day after his Daytona crash, still uncertain what waiver process, if any, the JGR driver might have at his disposal. For a time, even after he returned to the cockpit of the No. 18 Toyota Camry, it didn’t look like it would matter.

“After Michigan, when I crashed out there and finished dead last, we were like: ‘OK, we’ve got to reboot here and figure out what we’re going to do to make the Chase,’” Busch said. “But things went well. We won at Sonoma and won four out of five weeks and it just turned us around and put us where we needed to be.”

Needing to not only register a victory but earn enough points to crack the top 30 of the driver standings in order to qualify for the Chase, Busch reeled off four victories in a five-race stretch during the summer, including consecutive victories at Kentucky, New Hampshire and Indianapolis.

“He came back, roaring,” Gibbs says.

Now, Busch says he feels like he’s playing with “house money.” But did his comeback peak too early?

Although he’s posted five top-five finishes in the first nine Chase races, Busch hasn’t won a race since his July 26 victory in the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

“I feel like we’ve done some good things through this Chase,” he says. “We’ve run up front, we’ve run strong and we also had a couple mishaps. Fortunately they weren’t big enough that they eliminated us.”

Busch and JGR have already posted one significant victory this week, announcing that the team has finalized a multi-year deal with Mars, Inc.to keep Busch in a candy-coated Camry for the next several seasons.

But nothing would be sweeter than a victory on Sunday. Busch’s best run at Homestead came in 2012 when he led 191 laps but settled for fourth.

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Kyle Busch Days of thunderKyle Busch was on his way to his fourth consecutive victory when he ran out of fuel while he was leading on the final lap in Sunday’s Windows 10 400 at Pocono Raceway. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver finished 21st..

With his performance, Busch gained 10 points on 30th-place (the position he needs to ascend to in order to make the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup) and is now only 13 points behind David Gilliland who currently mans the 30th position. Busch has five races left until the Chase to get into the top 30.

Despite being unable to close the deal at Pocono, Busch has won four of the last six races dating back to Sonoma. He gets the chance to sweep the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series’ road courses in Sunday’s Cheez-It 355 at The Glen (2 p.m. ET at NBCSN). Busch has won at Watkins Glen twice (2008, 2013) and in 2008 was the last NSCS driver to sweep the road courses.

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Aug. 2, 2015

By Reid Spencer
NASCAR Wire Service

LONG POND, Pa. – Matt Kenseth, the unexpected winner of Sunday’s Windows 10 400 at Pocono Raceway, had to do a double take.

So did second and third-place finishers Brad Keselowski and Jeff Gordon.

Kenseth got a gift on the final lap of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race when Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Kyle Busch ran out of fuel halfway through the final lap at the 2.5-mile triangular track.

Seeking his fourth straight victory in the series, Busch didn’t save quite enough fuel on the last green-flag run to complete the 160-lap event, but he still gained 10 points toward his goal of reaching the top 30 in the series standings.

Busch, who finished 21st after getting a push toward the finish line from Reed Sorenson, is now 13 points behind 30th-place David Gilliland. Busch has five races to crack the top 30 to become eligible for the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.

Because Busch was pushed by another car, he did not get credit for completing the final lap, but that did not affect his finishing position.

Collectively, the top three finishers led seven laps. Joey Logano, who handed the lead to Busch when the No. 22 Team Penske Ford ran out of fuel with fewer than three laps left, led 97.

But Kenseth wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth, especially after the driver of the No. 20 JGR Toyota did what others failed to do—save enough gas to get to the finish. Kenseth’s second victory of the season locked him into the Chase.

“There’s nothing like wins,” said Kenseth, who collected his first victory at Pocono and the 33rd of his career. “We had a lot of wins in 2013 and were pretty spoiled and last year we had a big dry spell, and this year we were able to win Bristol.

“We’ve been up front a lot, so just really, really thankful to be with these guys and to get the win. I never thought I’d ever win at Pocono, and I never ever thought I’d win a fuel mileage race, so we did both today.”

Despite coming tantalizingly close to a fourth straight win, Busch was philosophical about the near miss.

“Man, that’s a bummer,” said Busch, who ran out of fuel on the Long Pond straightaway approaching the Tunnel Turn, less than a mile-and-a-half from the finish line. “I wish I would’ve saved a little more there that last run.

“I wish I would’ve known that the 22 (Logano) was that far away from making it. He was way far away from making it. Man, that was just a shame that we weren’t able to get it done there.”

Busch took a moment to reflect on what might have been. The empty fuel tank also cost him entry into the top 30.

“We would be celebrating a win and a Chase berth,” he said ruefully. “We got greedy. I don’t know how greedy, but that’s the position we’re in.

“If it came down to other things that we haven’t had the success that we’ve had here lately, we would’ve had to have pitted and just made the opportunity of it and made the best finish that we could. But, we went for broke today and come up a little bit short, so can’t fault the team.”

Keselowski, who ran out of fuel as he approached the finish line, recovered from an early penalty for sliding through his pit, knocking his jack man off his feet and knocking a tire out of his front carrier’s hands.

The No. 2 Ford lost a lap, regained it and came home second, 9.012 seconds behind Kenseth, as lack of fuel took its toll on the frontrunners. The outcome left Keselowski with mixed feelings.

“Unfortunately, just another race where I kind of feel like it didn’t all come together for us, and this one certainly on my end with having problems on pit road and kind of sliding through the box,” said the 2012 series champion. “That dug a hole, got us a lap down with the penalty and so forth.

“I think the last restart with, had to be somewhere around 60 or 70 to go (actually 63), we restarted 12th and we were able to drive up to sixth and looked like we were going to be able to get to fifth, and then the fuel play came in there at the end. We were able to take care of it to bring home second, which is a very respectable day. Certainly probably not where we were going to finish without the fuel, but I guess that’s sometimes how it works.”

Dale Earnhardt Jr. ran fourth and Greg Biffle fifth, as none of the top five finishers were threats to finish that high before the varying fuel strategies scrambled the final order.

“There at the end we were one of the last ones to pit which allowed us to run hard all the way to the finish not having to conserve or save fuel,” said Gordon, smiling at the stroke of good fortune. “I thought we were trying to get maybe 10th or 12th and all of a sudden they said you’re third, and I think I was probably the most shocked person out there on the race track when I found that out.

“I knew cars were peeling off, but I just didn’t realize that many were either running out or coming to pit road.”

Note: Both Martin Truex Jr. and Logano, who along with Busch had the strongest cars all afternoon, were cited for speeding on pit road after running out of fuel and were dropped to 19th and 20th, respectively, in the finishing order, the last two cars on the lead lap.