USA TODAY International Edition
Busch rockets toward Chase
Enormous talent, fortuitous events fuel amazing surge
Kyle Busch is becoming unstoppable in ever- ridiculous ways.
Even he struggles to believe it sometimes.
It was remarkable enough that Busch returned from a broken leg and foot after missing the first 11 NASCAR Sprint Cup races of the season. Then he went out and won three of the last four races, including the last two, using a daring move and a timely caution Sunday to go from a lap down to victory lane at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
Now what? A championship run? Perhaps, but this part of the far- fetched tale has to play out first.
Busch returned from what was seen as a possibly season- ending injury suffered in the Xfinity Series opener needing certain pinholes to line up for him. The first aligned when NASCAR, contrite that the concrete wall his car hit at Daytona International Speedway wasn’t swathed in a SAFER barrier, waived the requirement that drivers attempt to qualify for every race to be eligible for the
Chase for the Sprint Cup. Still, he’d have to finish in the top 30 in points and mostly likely need multiple wins to dent the 16- driver field. He’s quickly checking boxes. That Busch has pressed hard for the postseason is no surprise, given the striking talent he has at time harnessed and other times seemed to squander in a fitful 11 full- time seasons at NASCAR’s highest level. But the blitz of the last month has been somewhat unbelievable.
“Everything is working in our favor right now,” he said after winning Sunday. “We’re doing the right things at the right times.”
Winning on the physically demanding Sonoma Raceway road course with a foot stabilized by a metal plate figured to be his wonder stroke until Sunday. That’s when providence seemed to begin drafting him to the Chase, too.
Busch raced himself back onto the lead lap at New Hampshire with 49 laps remaining when he diced his car between those of leader Kevin Harvick and Brad Keselowski just before a caution for fluid in Turns 3 and 4. Having pitted just a few laps earlier, he stayed out to lead. Neither Keselowski on two new tires nor eventual third- place finisher Harvick on four could catch him.
“I keep saying we’ve got to pick and choose our battles,” Busch said. “And that was a battle right there that, obviously, we were in a hurry and we needed to do the right things to be on the lead lap, if there were a caution to come out with all the oil that was on the racetrack.”
Harvick did not offer a tussle as the caution came. Keselowski’s crew chief, Paul Wolfe, didn’t realize Busch would assume the lead, he said.
“I realized he was one down when we were racing him and he was trying to get his car back. But when we were rolling down pit road, I missed that he was still going to be out there and be the leader,” he said. “With knowing that, I maybe would have done four tires and had a shot.”
Busch entered the race needing to close 87 points and five points positions on Cole Whitt, who was 30th in the standings. He left New Hampshire 33rd in points, 58 points behind new 30th- place David Gilliland.
That doesn’t seem like much with seven races left in the regular season.
“I said before when we won Sonoma with Kyle it was a great sports story,” team owner Joe Gibbs said. “I think this only adds to it.” But it doesn’t complete it. A midsummer of success once might have signaled a championship run in the Cup series, but the elimination- style format of the new Chase makes lightning, like the kind crackling around the speedway Sunday, hard to bottle. But first- year Cup crew chief Adams Stevens is making astute calls, and Busch is applying his considerable talent and wedging his speedy Joe Gibbs Racing car through every gap that presents itself after missteps early in his return at Dover and Michigan international speedways.
“I don’t have any fears of being able to close that gap,” Stevens said.
Not if weeks like these keep lining up.