Kyle Busch overcomes issues to salvage decent day at Charlotte
CONCORD, N.C. — Kyle Busch knows the Chase for the Sprint Cup is volatile.
He had the point driven home in 2014, when he entered Talladega Superspeedway second in the standings, attempted to hide from trouble deep in the pack, was wrecked and was eliminated.
So the defending series champion didn’t need reminding that running a lap down during the Bank of America 500 Sunday — the first race of the second round — was a precarious situation. Fortunately for Busch, his Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota was good enough to overcome his portion of problems, and his woes were not nearly as costly as what befell several members of the Chase field.
A sixth-place finish therefore, was just fine in what he deemed “an OK day, I guess.”
“Fortunately today there was just enough stuff that kind of happened that got us back on the lead lap,” Busch said. “You know, it just depends on where you're at, man. Lightning will strike at any point, so you've just got to be ready for it.”
Busch was beset by numerous problems Sunday, falling a lap down early because of a concern over a tire, two pit road penalties, then running into Chase Elliott from behind on an restart with 76 laps remaining, part of an accident that impacted numerous other Chase-contenders including Austin Dillon, Martin Truex Jr. and Kurt Busch. After the contact, Busch said, assessing what type of No. 18 Toyota he had left was crucial.
“My mentality at first was to just kind of feel it out, see what I had,” Busch said. “You don't just want to go barreling off in there and not know exactly what it's going to feel like and crash it. So I took about five, 10, 15 laps, whatever it was, to feel it out, see what everything was feeling like, making sure it was kind of normal, and then just go back at it and work hard to try to pass those guys that were in front of me.”
Busch was in 19th position with 64 laps left in a race where track position was paramount but was in the top 10 40 laps later. Now he heads to Kansas a remarkable third in points, nine off the lead of race-winner Jimmie Johnson, who has clinched a spot in the third round. An in an unpredictable playoff format, he said, he will do what he knows.
“We're going to do the same things we've always done, same preparation, nothing different,” he said. “(Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Matt) Kenseth has always been super fast at Kansas, and so I went and we looked at a lot of his stuff, a lot of how his car was set up and whatnot and being able to learn some of those things from those guys that I felt like helped us and got us better in the ballpark for Kansas in the springtime, and we won there.
“There was a lot of work done for that, and on my behalf, as well, that I think helped out. We'll just do the same things this time around. It's no different than what we typically do each and every week, though.”
And then hope it all works out.
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