Kyle Busch celebrates his first NASCAR Sprint Cup Series victory at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. [Russ Lake Photo]
Speedway, IN., July 26—Can anything stop Kyle Busch?
That’s the question everyone involved with the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series is asking after Busch won the Crown Royal Presents the Jeff Kyle 400 at the Brickyard (Brickyard 400) on a steamy Sunday afternoon at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
The Brickyard victory was just the latest chapter in a remarkable comeback month for Busch in which he has now won three Sprint Cup races in a row and four out of the last five since returning to the driver’s seat after twelve weeks of recovery from a broken leg and foot suffered in February at Daytona.
“I think maybe I’ve found my happy place,” Busch stated from victory lane, “There is nothing bigger than victory lane at Indy and I just can’t believe what’s going on, this run we are on.”
“I knew I just had to get out front and I could drive away,” Busch continued after taking the lead for good from Kevin Harvick on a lap 153 restart with a shove from third place running Joey Logano. Busch then had to hold off Logano on a final overtime green-white-checkered restart set up when Trevor Bayne spun into the turn one wall on lap 158. Logano gave chase over the final two laps but in the end came up .332 seconds short at the finish as Busch proved to be too strong.
“Here at the Brickyard it’s all about the win and you throw caution to the wind, it’s ‘checkers or wreckers’”, Logano said after pacing the race three times for 28 laps, “I knew he was going to block the bottom lane and my only hope was he was going to miss the corner and I could drive under him. There are no trophies for second.”
Harvick, who led four times for a race-high total of 75 laps, fought his way back to third after losing the lead to Busch on the restart with seven laps to go.
“We had a great day and everybody did a great job but just in that restart where the 18 (Busch) and 22 (Logano) were able to get hooked up and kind of drive by is where I lost control of the race,” the defending Sprint Cup champion stated, “Once the 18 (Busch) got control, the speed was too high and I spun the tires on the next one and just didn’t get the restarts put together like I needed to.”
Martin Truex Jr. raced near the front of the field all day and took the checkered flag in fourth place while Denny Hamlin wrapped up a solid day by finishing fifth.
“I felt bad I didn’t give Kevin (Harvick) the push he needed when he lost the lead, “Truex said, “I did the same thing to Kyle (Busch) on the last one. My timing was off and I couldn’t get to him until we got further down the track and by then I wasn’t too much help to him but all in all it was a good day for us.”
Clint Bowyer rebounded from an early spin on lap 51 to finish in the sixth position ahead of Matt Kenseth in seventh.
“It’s just so hard to pass and at the end of the race everybody figured out how to keep the guys behind them from passing them and that was to make you drive through their wake,” Kenseth surmised, “Those last restarts, as soon as it got single-file that was pretty much where you were going to finish unless somebody screwed up.”
Kurt Busch and Kyle Larson finished eighth and ninth respectively while Brad Keselowski finished tenth after leading three times for 17 laps.
Pole-Sitter Carl Edwards led the opening 20 laps and was in contention for the victory before getting shuffled back on a late restart which relegated him to a 13th place finish while Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished 22nd after being involved in a turn one spin on lap 149. Crowd favorite Tony Stewart started fourth and raced with the leaders for most of the day before falling to 28th at the finish.
Five-time and defending Brickyard 400 winner Jeff Gordon suffered a disappointing day in his final Indianapolis start, finishing 42nd after spinning into the wall on lap 51 attempting to avoid the sideways car of Clint Bowyer.
“I was under Kasey Kahne racing for position and I saw (Clint) Bowyer get sideways,” Gordon told the television audience following the incident, “I don’t know if Kasey (Kahne) got loose or if we both got loose together but I just lost it and got into the wall.”
“I can’t say I’m too disappointed overall as I’ve had an amazing career here at Indy,” Gordon continued, “The fans have been spectacular and I know it makes it that much more difficult to handle when you have a poor finish like that, but I can’t thank the fans enough for the last 22 years.”
Kyle Busch’s Brickyard win gave Toyota its first manufacturer’s victory in the prestigious event and broke a twelve year winning streak by Chevrolet. With the victory, Busch moved into 32nd place in the Sprint Cup point standings now 23 markers outside the top 30 position necessary to qualify for the Chase for the Sprint Cup.
The Brickyard 400 featured sixteen lead changes among nine drivers and was slowed under the caution flag a total of nine times for 36 laps. The race was completed in a little over three hours at an average speed of 131.656 mph.