They didn’t contend for the win on Sunday afternoon in the MyAFIBSTORY.com 400 at Chicagoland Speedway, but it was a productive day nonetheless for Joe Gibbs Racing.
The Huntersville, North Carolina-based team racked in three top-10 finishes led by Denny Hamlin with a sixth place performance. Pole sitter Kyle Busch was right behind in seventh and despite a late race pit stop for tires, the gusty strategy failed to pay off for Matt Kenseth.
Still, Kenseth continuing trend of consistency paid off with his 17th top-10 of 2014.
“We just weren’t very good today,” said Kenseth. “We were okay in the middle of the race, early middle.
“We were just fighting being loose and could make some progress in the long runs. We just got too tight and were slow on short runs and long runs, kind of. Just a struggle, we showed a lot of speed most of the weekend but just could never get it today where I wanted it to be.
“I haven’t even thought about it (Chase),” Kenseth added. “I’m just one race at a time. I was really disappointed in the way we ran today, just more of that on my mind and trying to figure that out and how we can be better at the next race next week.”
Busch and Hamlin though had a slightly better outlook.
“This is what you need to do early on,” offered Hamlin. “You’re going to have to run top-five pretty consistently towards the end of the Chase, but right now we’re doing what we need to do.
“It was a pretty good run with our FedEx Office team. We just got off there in the middle part of the race and fell back. We just strategically worked our way to the front. Got a little bit better as the race went on and really — cautions really hurt us there at the end.
“We were in that kind of lead pack battle and it put us on the bottom line — which really hurt us those last couple starts. Either way, it’s still what we needed to do. It’s a very solid run. We needed to keep this car in one piece. So, we’ll move on and go to Loudon (N.H.) where we know we got a chance to win.”
Busch brought a brand-new No. 18 M&M’s Toyota Camry to Chicagoland and it paid off with his fifth top-10 at the 1.5-mile in 10 appearances
“The race started out really good,” offered Busch, who led 46 laps. “Our M&M’s Camry was fast early, especially on the green race track. The more the day went, the rubber got down and farther back we got in traffic and we kept getting hurt by each situation. We have to make better adjustments. I feel like we are kind of getting ourselves off base sometimes during the race, but we always seem to rally back, but the rally back is always too late. Good job by the guys and to end up seventh for a shoulda-coulda-woulda-been 16th is good.”
Leaving the Windy City, Hamlin is 18 points behind Keselowski, the same for Busch and Kenseth 25 behind and 10th overall.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01
