To Busch, the personnel moves made a huge difference. And when Busch returned, Stevens was fully engaged with a driver of prodigious talent whose input and feedback are invaluable assets to the entire competitive effort.
“I think the biggest thing is all the crew chief swapping going on, and bringing Adam Stevens in and some new fresh faces and engineers and some different ideas that maybe we haven’t quite used in years past,” Busch said.
“I think all of that kind of goes together, and it’s made us a tougher group to be competitive at the race track.”
That there is even talk of an all-Gibbs championship battle at Homestead is simply a testament to the strength the organization has shown throughout the summer.
Is it realistic? Probably not. Hendrick Motorsports put all four of its drivers in the Chase last year. None made it to the season finale.
But it’s also unrealistic to believe that same fate will befall JGR this year. The team’s confidence, as reflected by Busch, is at an all-time high. Entering the Chase, Busch and Kenseth are tied for the series lead with Jimmie Johnson at four victories each.
Kenseth has won two of the last four Cup races. He and Busch finished 1-2 at Richmond. A week earlier, Edwards and Hamlin were first and third, respectively, at Darlington.
“Got to get to Homestead — that’s how we look at it,” Busch summed up his Chase objective. “And in all realism and honesty, I don’t feel like it should be that hard to make it to Homestead. Sometimes I feel like we make it harder on ourselves than we actually should, or than it actually is.
“We just need to do our part. We just need to do what got us here, continue to run well and make good decisions, both in the garage area and on the race track, and finish these races out the way we know how to.”
Between the Darlington and Richmond races, Hamlin tore the ACL in his right knee, but he led 14 laps and finished sixth at Richmond. Though the knee will require surgery in the off-season, Hamlin said the pain didn’t bother him in the car and shouldn’t faze him in the Chase races.
“I wasn’t limited in the car at all,” Hamlin said. “Just you really don’t notice anything until you stop, and that’s the biggest thing. As soon as I stopped, it’s just feeling the throbbing, feeling your heart beating in your knee. Just tightened up there towards the end, but we just didn’t have a fast enough car to win.”
The bottom line, though, is that all four Gibbs cars are capable of winning at any time, on any track.
And, yes, Joe Gibbs would be thrilled if all four of his cars were still in the running in the season finale, but perhaps not as elated as the manufacturer that supports his cars — Toyota. A strong presence in the Cup series since 2007, Toyota has yet to win a championship at NASCAR’s highest level.
Heading for Homestead with a title guaranteed would be a dream come true for the manufacturer as well as for Gibbs — even if it happened to complicate the lives of the four drivers, all of whom are chasing a goal only one of them can achieve.
Source: Reid Spencer/ NASCAR Wire Service
