NASCAR Sprint-Cup Series
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CUP: Kyle Busch Sees Dover As Opportunity
Kyle Busch won the spring NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Dover International Speedway...
Mike Hembree  |  Posted September 21, 2010   Charlotte, NC
Kyle Busch hoists a celebration drink in victory lane at Dover International Speedway. (Photo: LAT Photographic)
The fact that last Sunday’s Chase for the Sprint Cup opener at New Hampshire Motor Speedway featured a fair amount of bumping and banging, particularly on crowded restarts, surprised some observers.

Not Kyle Busch, who was involved in some of it.

“What you were seeing was desperation,” Busch said Tuesday. “Everybody knew they had to make up ground in the first four or five laps [after a restart]. With this ‘awesome’ Sprint Cup car that we have, it’s so hard to make up ground in front of you when so many cars are the same. It’s so tough and difficult to make passes that you have to get all you can right away.

“Guys were running on the inside and dive-bombing people. It’s desperation. You have to get the most you can get when you can get it.”

Busch didn’t get all he wanted. The Loudon race wasn’t a game-changer for Busch, who was basically a non-entity all afternoon. He ran from 10th to 15th most of the day, was involved on the back end of a five-car crash in the final hundred laps but ran well late to finish ninth – a positive result considering the mayhem of the day.

The run kept Busch in fourth place in Chase points entering Sunday’s race in Dover, Del. He’s 62 points behind leader and Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Denny Hamlin.

“I’m pleased with where we are,” Busch said. “For how the circumstances played out Sunday, it was all right.

“Anything can happen in the sport. That’s why it’s called racing. But I feel pretty good about where we are. It [Sunday] wasn’t the effort of a top 10, but it was a top-10 finish.”

Sunday’s race, the second in the Chase, could match Busch and four-time champion Jimmie Johnson, as did the first Dover race of the year in May. Johnson and Busch were the clear-cut stars of that event, Johnson leading 225 laps and Busch 131 as they swapped places at the front numerous times.

Busch emerged victorious, however, after a rare mistake by Johnson, who was nabbed for speeding on pit road by NASCAR. He lost his link to Busch when he dropped onto pit road to serve the penalty, and Busch was long gone.

“Our game plan is to try to repeat what we did in the spring,” Busch said. “We had a really good race car and qualified well. We need a good, strong finish to keep our momentum rolling and to try to go through the final races strong.”

Mike Hembree is NASCAR Editor for SPEED.com and has been covering motorsports for 28 years. He has written several books on NASCAR, including "NASCAR: The Definitive History of America's Sport" and "Then Tony Said To Junior: The Best NASCAR Stories Ever Told". He is a six-time winner of the National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year Award.

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