BRISTOL, Tenn.: It was a long 500 laps for Joe Gibbs Racing’s Kyle Busch Saturday night at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway, but when the checkered flag waved, the driver of the No. 18 M&Ms Chocolates Toyota Camry earned his 12th top-five of the season in the Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race.
Despite a poor 31st place qualifying performance on Friday afternoon, Busch with work from crew chief Adam Stevens methodically worked on the handling of their race car over 500 laps to allow Busch to earn his 20th top-10 of the season.
Throughout most of the race, Busch lacked grip on the race track that allowed him to march forward and despite a torrid pace by the leaders in Stage 1, Busch even found himself off the lead lap and gasping for the opportunity to recover.
Thankfully through strategy and the constant changing track conditions, Busch’s car got better and throughout Stage 3, Busch’s car was neutral enough for the Las Vegas, Nev. native to make moves and carve out his fourth top-five finish at the 0.533-mile short track in the last five races.
“I was just too loose at the end,” said Busch. “The car just wasn’t there really all weekend long. I just never really found what I was looking for. We were kind of all over the place. Early on, we were so loose that I was just barely hanging on and trying to make up time there.
“We finally got it tightened up enough there when I was racing with the 2 (Brad Keselowski) and got the lead from the 2 before that caution came out. Then we tried to make it a little bit better for exit after that because we were going to go a long ways on tires we figured and just made it too loose.
“I just had no rear traction getting into the corner. We salvaged a hard-fought day for fourth. That’s about it.”
Despite the finish, Busch said his No. 18 team still has work to do to get better as the 10-race Playoffs races approach, especially since he insinuated his team is “getting our ass kicked” by his other Joe Gibbs Racing teammates.
“It’s better than some other situations for sure,” Busch explained. “Obviously Adam (Stevens, crew chief) and the guys do a really good job of being able to work on the car and constantly
improve it and constantly make it better, but flat out getting our ass kicked right now by our teammates, so we’ve got to get better.”
With two races to go in the regular season, Busch maintains the championship lead by 39 points over Joey Logano. The Cup Series takes their final weekend off before returning to competition at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway for the Bojangles’ Southern 500 on Sun., Sept. 1.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
