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Kyle Busch has won a record seven races in the Sprint Cup Series. (Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images Photo) ยป More Photos
NASCAR Sprint Cup points leader Kyle Busch said Friday that he’s ready for the pressures of the Chase for the Sprint Cup, which begins in five weeks in Loudon, New Hampshire.
After the end of NASCAR’s 26-race regular season, each of the 12 Chase drivers will have his point total reset to 5,000 plus 10 bonus points for each race victory. Busch, who has won a series-high seven Cup races this season, will begin NASCAR’s playoff round with at least 70 bonus points. No other driver has more than 30 bonus points right now, so Busch is a virtual certainty to lead the points when the Chase starts.
And while rivals Jimmie Johnson and Carl Edwards have been hot lately, Busch said Friday that he and his Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota team are prepared for the title run. “I’ve been in the Chase the last two years, so I know what it’s like to be involved in the Chase and all the media hoopla and everything else that’s brought around it,” said Busch, who finished fifth in points last season and 10th in 2006. “You have to deal with all of that. Once you get to the racetrack every week, you have to be able to deal with making your car the fastest and try to go out there and finish well and not have any problems.”
As for the competition, Busch acknowledged that Johnson and Edwards will be tough. “Carl has been there all year long,” said Busch. “I don’t know if he’s had bad luck in the past 10 weeks or what where he hasn’t won that much, but he’s been fast every single place we’ve been to. He’s always a threat for the win. The 48 (Johnson) has definitely stepped it up. They’ve come a long way, and they’re a lot better now. It’s just a product of trying to make your equipment better and they have.”
In the last eight Cup races, Busch has three victories, but in the races he hasn’t won, he posted finishes of 13th, 15th, 25th, 36th and 43rd. Part of that’s because of the point system — with Busch virtually locked into the Chase already, all that matters now is winning and trying to earn those 10 bonus points per victory. “Whether you win or run out of gas and
To that end, Busch’s team began experimenting with setups last weekend at Pocono and could do the same again at Watkins Glen. “We tried it last week, and it seemed as though it was working better than what we thought it would from practice,” said Busch. “We changed some stuff before the race. We were running from about 12th to fifth all day, and there at the end of the race we had a chance to run fourth and miscalculated (fuel mileage) or didn’t get it full on the last stop and finished 36th. We tried it there, and we’ll see what happens here this weekend on how fast we can run here.”
Regardless of what happens, though, Busch has been the story in NASCAR this season, winning a series-high seven Cup races and 15, including the Nationwide and Craftsman Truck Series. “We are excited about the way the year has been going,” said Busch. “It’s been a pretty phenomenal season for us. We’ve had seven wins and we’ve been able to run up front and capitalize on some good times. We’ve also had a couple bad runs. Hopefully we can just keep it going in the right direction and try to get everything we can possible for the Chase and start over there and have a good run over there.”
Tom Jensen is the Senior NASCAR Editor for SPEEDtv.com, the former Executive Editor of NASCAR Scene and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. He is the author of “Cheating: The Bad Things Good NASCAR Nextel Cup Racers Do In Pursuit of SPEED,” and has appeared on television and radio shows to discuss NASCAR racing. Jensen is the President of the National Motorsports Press Association. Jensen is the 1997 National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year and has won numerous national and state awards for news reporting, columns and feature writing. The Answer Man is back at SPEEDtv.com. Tom Jensen answers your questions during every race week and looks forward to hearing from you - please e-mail it to
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