Busch's Chances at Victory Fade Late at Homestead
M&M's Driver Challenges for Top Spot, but Scrape with Wall Ends Hope for
Win No. 5
One day after Kyle Busch captured his first career NASCAR Nationwide
Series championship in style by winning Saturday's Ford 300, the driver
of the No. 18 M&M's Toyota Camry for Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) looked as if
he might end the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season with another trip to
victory lane.
But after teammate Denny Hamlin passed Busch following a late-race
restart in Sunday's Ford 400 Sprint Cup event, Busch's car scraped the
outside retaining wall in turns three and four and all Busch could do
was hold on for a disappointing eighth-place result.
"I just got beat on the restart," said Busch, who brought home his
career best Sprint Cup finish in the season-ending race at Homestead.
"We had a chance to win the race and I feel like I let the guys down.
They deserved to win. I was trying to catch Denny after that and ended
up overdriving the car and scraped the fence. It's so hard to catch
someone when they get clean air like that. I was just holding on to it
there at the end and got all I could. Dave (Rogers, crew chief) and
the guys gave me a great car. We started off really loose, but we just
kept working on it. The guys were flawless on pit road all night long
and I really wanted to finish the season right with a win for M&M's and
Toyota. It's just disappointing because we had a shot to win and we
didn't get it done."
Despite starting 30th in the 43-car field, Busch showed early in the
267-lap race that he had a much better car than his qualifying result
showed, and he proved it by moving into the top-20 in just 10 laps.
As the South Florida sun began to set, the M&M's Toyota became even
stronger. With help from head wrench Rogers, who kept tuning the No. 18
Toyota to better handle the track's corners, Busch cracked the top-10 by
lap 107 and nudged his way into the top-five by lap 120.
The talented 24-year-old held steady within the top-five until a crucial
sequence unfolded 49 laps from the finish following what would be the
final caution period of the day.
With Busch in third, the M&M's team finished off their stellar day on
pit road as they got the No. 18 Toyota out in second behind Kyle's older
brother Kurt, who took only two tires to Kyle's four. But on the ensuing
restart on lap 221, Hamlin, who slotted in at third, was able to get
inside Busch and pass him for good two laps later. From there, Hamlin
pulled away from his teammate as Busch tried mightily to catch him, so
much so, that Busch slapped the outside retaining wall in between turns
three and four with 23 laps to go. After the scrape, Busch did all he
could to hold on for the best finish possible, salvaging a top-10 finish
-- his 13th of the 36-race Sprint Cup season.
Hamlin went on to win the Ford 400, beating Jeff Burton by 2.632 seconds
to score the eighth victory of his Sprint Cup career, his fourth of the
season and his first at Homestead.
His other JGR teammates -- rookie Joey Logano and David Gilliland --
finished 24h and 29th respectively.
Finishing third was Kevin Harvick, while Kurt Busch and Jimmie Johnson
rounded out the top-five. Jeff Gordon, Carl Edwards, Kyle Busch, Martin
Truex Jr., and A.J. Allmendinger comprised the remainder of the top-10.
There were seven caution periods for 31 laps, with four drivers failing
to finish the race.
Hamlin was JGR's lone representative in the 12-driver Chase for the
Championship and he finished fifth, 317 points behind recently crowned
champion Johnson, who won his record fourth consecutive Sprint Cup
title. Busch finished the season 13th in the standings, 68 points ahead
of 14th-place Matt Kenseth, while Logano's final place was 20th. Logano
won the Raybestos Rookie of the Year award to become the third JGR
driver to accomplish the feat. Former JGR driver Tony Stewart won the
award in 1999, while Hamlin accomplished the feat in 2006.
The 2010 Sprint Cup season kicks off Feb. 5-14 with the traditional
Speedweeks at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway.
-credit: jgr
