It started at Dover. Kyle Busch won the Nationwide race earlier this month. Then he won the Cup race the next day. Then he won the truck race at Charlotte. And then it was older brother Kurt winning the All-Star race last weekend. Then Kyle won the Nationwide race at Charlotte on Saturday and Kurt Busch won Sunday night’s Coca-Cola 600.
That’s 6 consecutive NASCAR races the Busch family has won. If anyone had any doubt about their success, Kyle and Kurt combined to lead 288 of the 400 laps run.
Kurt Busch won by leading the last 19 laps. He took the lead when he exited pit road first and then held off Jamie McMurray to win. What was interseting about that matchup is that Busch’s car is owned by Roger Penske and McMurray’s car is owned by Chip Ganassi. Penske and Ganassi have the two strongest organziations in the Indy Car series and Ganassi won the Indy 500 earlier in the day with Dario Franchitti. Still a win at Indy and 2nd-place at Charlotte for Ganssi car is quite a day.
What made Kurt Busch’s win impressive was how much he struggled earlier this year at the Charlotte test and then how he hit on the right setup at the All-Star race. Crew chief Steve Addington said that even if Kurt had finished 2nd Sunday, he would have felt good about that they found a direction for this track — which is in the Chase in the fall.
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Jeff Burton went up to Kyle Busch after the race and yelled at him for an incident they had with about 20 laps to go. They were 3-wide off a restart and Burton said that Kyle made contact with him, cutting his left rear. Burton was in the top 10 at the time but finished 25th after having to pit for the cut left rear. Burton yelled at Kyle as Kyle stood near his car on pit road after the race.
Afterward, this is what Jeff Burton said: “The last restart Kyle made it three wide … because the guys on the bottom didn’t have (new) tires and he was trying to make something happen, which I don’t have a problem with. When he runs into me and cuts my left rear tire, then I have a problem with it. He’s real aggressive. That’s cool, but when he starts affecting me whti his aggressiveness, I just will not put up with it. I just will not tolerate it.
“The least he can do is stay off of me. He cut the left rear tire. I like racing with Kyle, I really do, I enjoy it, but when he gets over aggressive and I pay the price for it, I won’t tolerate it. I’m just not going to put up with it. First he said he didn’t hit me. Then he said he got put there, then he said he had to go. He didn’t mean to do it, OK. He was trying to defend himself and what he was saying wasn’t making sense. That’s OK, he was upset because I was yelling at him. He didn’t mean to do it, but he’s real aggressive and I don’t mind that but like I said when it affects me, then I have a problem.”
Said Kyle Busch about the incident: “I have no idea what transpired there. I haven’t seen the replay. What I remember was on the restart there, the 33 car (Clint Bowyer) ducked low after the start/finish line and pulled to my inside. That forced me to the middle. I was three-wide with the 33, myself and the 31 (Jeff Burton). I don’t know how else was on the outside there,but we were kind of in between those two.
“I didn’t get a whole lot of room. I was pinching the 33 as tight as I could, trying not to wreck him. Was trying not to get squeezed in the middle with the 31 and get pinched, spin him out. I did the best I could. I don’t know if I touched him or got into him , cut his left rear tire. After the race he was just real mad at me. He said I didn’t race him with enouch respect, if I’m not going to give him respect, he’s not going to show me any. I said, “Look, man, last restart of the race. You have to go, make some bold moves. It wasn’t me that made it three-wide,it was your teammate. Have a chat with him.’ I would be more than happy to sit with Jeff Burton and talk with him about it and for him to point out on a replay to me.”
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You know how they say it can take time for new crew chief-driver combinations to have success? Well things are different this year. Just look at the points where three of the top six drivers have new crew chiefs this season: Kyle Busch, who is 2nd, is in his first year with Dave Rogers. Matt Kenseth is third in the points and has had Todd Parrott as his crew chief since California, the second race of the year. Kurt Busch is sixth in the points in his first season with Steve Addington as crew chief.
Said Kurt of working with Steve Addington: “I feel like he’s helped me pick up my game because I have to have a fresher outlook on different setups. Like he says, getting back to the baiscs, going with some old-school things, that’s what we’ve done these last couple of weeks.”
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Greg Biffle (32nd): “We just can’t get our car to drive right. I was over driving it. We just want to run up front so bad. We were very hit and miss tonight.”
Matt Kenseth (10th): We didn’t pass everybody. We did it by pit strategy and pit stops and the way cautions fell. It was good to run up front,but we don’t have anything that can run with those guys. We don’t have anything that can possibly win against those guys right now.
Jamie McMurray (2nd): “Every race that we’ve actually finished without an issue we’ve had a top-five car. It’s been incredible the speed that our cars have had all year long. We run second one week and 30th the next. It’s just about being a little bit more consistent.”
Jeff Gordon (6th): “The finish wasn’t bad. I feel like that was the best we’d been. It was definitiely a long, long 600 miles for us. We struggled at the beginning in the daytime and luckily stayed on the lead lap. We fought hard and and got some track position and did our best to maintain it, but we just never really had it tonight.”
Brad Keselowski (20th — on his pit road contact with Kyle Busch): “The pit road deal was just one of those racing deals. Nobody’s fault really. (Kyle Busch) and I came out at the same time, just racing. That’s what happens when you have 43 cars trying to pit sometimes.”
Joey Logano (13th): “We were good in the daytime … but as it got dark we just didn’t keep up good enough. We were just tight the whole night. We just didn’t do a good enough job fixing it.”
Denny Hamlin (18th on incident with Johnson): “It looked like he was struggling right there. He was running the high line and I saw him kind of get loose in the corner. Then on corner exit he was back steering, trying to catch up to it. When he hit the fence, I thought he was just going to stay up there but he didn’t. We were coming 30 miles per hour faster and he pulled down right in the middle of the race track. i was either going to clobber him in the left rear or have to go through the grass. It just ruined our day. It’s tough because I really felt like we had a car that could win. We never really got to show the speed.”
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# Robby Gordon fell out of the top 35 in car owner points. Michael Waltrip will have to qualify the car on speed next week at Pocono as Gordon will be competing in the Baja 500.
# For as bad as Dale Earnhardt Jr. has finished lately — 32nd at Richmond, 18th at Darlington, 30th at Dover and 22nd at Charlotte — he is only 54 points out of a Chase spot. He is 17th in the points. So you can take that anyway you want.
# Ryan Newman moved into the top 12 in points, knocking out Clint Bowyer.
# Jimmie Johnson has one top 10 in his last five races, however he did lead 225 of 400 laps at Dover before he was caught speeding late in that race. Johnson finished 37th after banging off the wall once and then spinning out and nailing the inside wall another time.
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SOMETHING TO MAKE YOU GO HMMMMMM
# Matt Kenseth is 3rd in points and has led only 33 laps (out of 4,553 laps runs this season).
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COCA-COLA 600 RESULTS
22. Dale Earnhardt Jr.
38. Juan Pablo Montoya
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1. Kevin Harvick ………. 1,898 points
2. Kyle Busch ………….. 29 points behind leader
3. Matt Kenseth ………. 117 points behind leader
4. Jeff Gordon …………. 138 points behind leader
5. Denny Hamlin …….. 166 points behidn leader
6. Kurt Busch ………….. 172 points behind leader
7. Jimmie Johnson …. 204 points behind leader
8. Jeff Burton …………… 241 points behind leader
9. Greg Biffle …………… 250 points behind leader
10. Mark Martin ……….. 263 points behind leader
11. Carl Edwards ……. 296 points behind leader
12. Ryan Newman ….. 351 points behind leader
13. Clint Bowyer ………. 4 points BEHIND 12TH PLACE
14. Martin Truex Jr. ….. 14 points BEHIND 12TH PLACE
15. Jamie McMurray …. 26 points BEHIND 12TH PLACE
16. Tony Stewart ………. 27 points BEHIND 12TH PLACE
17. Dale Earnhardt Jr. .. 54 points BEHIND 12TH PLACE
18. Joey Logano ……….. 86 points BEHIND 12TH PLACE
19. David Reutimann … 125 points BEHIND 12TH PLACE
20. Juan Pablo Montoya .. 176 points BEHIND 12TH PLACE
21. Kasey Kahne …………. 183 points BEHIND 12TH PLACE
22. Paul Menard ………….. 188 points BEHIND 12TH PLACE
23. AJ Allmedinger ………..224 points BEHIND 12TH PLACE
24. David Ragan ……………224 points BEHIND 12TH PLACE
25. Brad Keselowski ……. 229 points BEHIND 12TH PLACE
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