Kyle Busch didn’t get the trifecta at Texas Motor Speedway on Sunday afternoon, but the driver of the No. 18 M&M’s Toyota Camry put forth a resilient effort that earned him his 15th top-10 finish of the season in Sunday’s AAA Texas 500.
After winning the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race on Friday night and putting a Texas whoppin’ on the Nationwide field on Saturday afternoon, the Las Vegas, Nevada native rallied through a series of setbacks to earn a fourth place finish in the Lone Star state.
“Yeah, but what’s more impressive is our run to the front tonight there at the end,” said Busch. “We were a bag of everything today. Man we were so bad. I don’t know what happened to us from yesterday in final practice, because we were pretty good. We fought all day long with our M&M’s Camry. The guys did a phenomenal job getting the car fixed for me.”
From the drop of the green flag, Busch, who was eliminated from the Chase following an accident at Talladega Superspeedway two weeks ago struggled with the handling of his Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota.
The former champion hopeful quickly slipped out of the top-10 early and continued to fade as his handling woes deepened. He was lapped by eventual winner Jimmie Johnson on Lap 125.
But, when things seemed like they couldn’t get any worse, they did.
Busch had a tire problem after contact with the wall on Lap 205. The repercussions of the incident found him trapped a lap down, but through a series of subsequent debris cautions, the 29-year old earned the beneficiary free pass, which put him back on the lead lap following the seventh caution of the race.
That proved to be his saving grace moment of the race.
As the sun set out west, Busch’s car came to life and through another rash of cautions, and pit stop strategy put the 29-time Sprint Cup Series winner back in the top-10 by Lap 300.
By lap 320, Busch sat 10th, but over the final 21 laps of the race, he muscled his way to his ninth top-five finish of the 2014 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season.
“They got me a good car there at the end in order to battle back and come back for a fourth. I appreciate all the effort — all my guys. They did a good job. It’s good to continue to fight like that and bring home a top-five.”
Busch had looked to become the first driver to win three NASCAR national series events at the 1.5-mile oval since the facility opened in 1997.
Out of the Chase, Busch sits ninth in the championship standings, the highest of any driver not currently duking it out for a bid into the championship round at Homestead-Miami (Fla.) Speedway on November 16.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
