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Busch Dazzles Richmond Crowd With Birthday Victory

An Opinion



May 3, 2009

By Ron Felix


CIA Stock Photos
Busch Lights Up His Tires
Kyle Busch swept the weekend at Richmond International Raceway by winning the Lipton Tea 250 Nationwide Series race on Friday night and the Crown Royal 400 Sprint Cup Series race on Saturday night. Busch becomes only the second driver in NASCAR history to actually win a Cup race on his birthday. Busch turned 24 today. The only other driver to win on his birthday was Cale Yarborough.

Busch was especially good on his restarts. Busch made his final charge to the front moments after a restart on lap 349. He charged by Carl Edwards and into second-place on lap 351 and wrestled the lead away from Jeff Gordon one lap later.

“Tonight I had two good restarts,” Busch said. “I jumped to the outside early in the race and got by two guys before we even got to Turn 1. Then Jeff Gordon slowed us down, I jumped to Carl’s outside and got him on that restart. It’s just trying to work towards being ready for it. You got to plan ahead. You got to watch what the guys do on restarts. You got to know who is restarting and learn what they do over time.”

Busch has been impressive in his first 5 1\2 years, racking up 15 wins (in 160 career races) in the Sprint Cup Series, 24 victories in the Nationwide Series and 11 wins in the Camping World Truck Series. Busch becomes the youngest driver in NASCAR history to post 50 victories in all three major series.

“This is an awesome win for us,” Busch said. “It’s really exciting to come out here tonight and no only win on my birthday but to have the team guys enjoy it as much as I do. We struggled for four weeks. It’s been a struggle for us and we didn’t finish the way we wanted to but we made it happen here tonight.

Tony Stewart fought his way to the front, finishing second again.

"I'm not sure we had a second-place car but we got there at the end," said Stewart. "We had the luxury of coming in, we were toward the back of the lead-lap cars and we got to come in and put on four tires on it. The guys did a really good job all night in the pits. They really made us up a lot of spots so that got us some track position there. We just drove our way back to the front. We had about 20 or 30 laps left on our tires than everybody else did and that gave us an advantage."

A strong run by Jeff Burton vaulted him to the third spot.

"It was quite a night," said Burton. "We didn't take off very good and kind of struggled. Junior (Dale Earnhardt Jr.) and I got together there and hit the wall and then it took off. For now we're just going to hit the wall when we're not running well. There at the end Scott (Miller, crew chief) made a great call and we had on tires. We had a great race and Tony (Stewart) and I had a lot of fun. It was a hard-fought night. That's kind of us. We didn't have the best car tonight but we kept fighting. Sitting there spun out against the wall. I'm sure a lot of people thought that was it."

Stewart's teammate Ryan Newman was fourth and Mark Martin finished fifth.

"We had a winning racecar and I think the guy out front typically had a winning racecar but the bottom line was we didn't get out front when we needed to," Newman said. "We had the leader strategy but got caught up on that restart behind in the No. 5 car. I turned him around in the accident because we all got jumbled up and I lost four positions. Overall it was a good run for the U.S. Army Chevrolet and a good points day. I told the guys if we keep doing this we'll get what we want and obviously we want to be in Victory Lane. We showed that we could lead and we had a car that could race with Kyle (Busch) no doubt. We persevered and made it home with a strong finish. A great effort for Tony Stewart and everybody at Stewart Haas Racing. We got two cars in the top five which was a first for us, and hopefully it's a first of many. It's been a long time for me with two straight top fives."

Rounding out the top ten were Sam Hornish Jr., Jamie McMurray, Jeff Gordon, Casey Mears and Juan Pablo Montoya.

Jeff Gordon regained his points lead, but by only 10 over second place Kurt Busch and 39 ahead of Tony Stewart. Gordon was not happy with the way his car responded to the changes during the race.

"I'm more frustrated with the way we ran," said Gordon. "It's important to be up there in the points so that we don't get ourselves in jeopardy getting out of the Chase you know. That helps us stay solidly in the Chase, but we've got to be racing that No. 18 (Kyle Busch) for the wins. He's the guy to beat. I thought we were going to be better than that. We started so good and I really thought we were going to have something for them, but it wasn't the case."

Joey Logano scored a 19th-place finish and claimed Raybestos Rookie of the Race honors for the seventh time this season.

“We started off decent," said Logano. "I couldn’t turn, without every time I’d get the car to rotate in the center, I’d get loose off. I just couldn’t find a happy medium in it. We had one of the best runs going that we had since probably Vegas besides the Talladega thing and I felt like I had a shot at a top-10 there. Just that final lap pit stop thing always gets you, always. Everyone worked hard and did a great job. I’m happy about the way we ran and how we could run better but I think we’ll be better the next time we come here. Learned a lot of stuff, what we need to do to our car next time, what I need to do in practice and hopefully get better.”

Unofficially Logano leads Speed by nine points (109-100) in the Raybestos Rookie standings.

Denny Hamlin led five times for 148 laps to earn WIX Filters Lap Leader of the Race honors in tonight’s Crown Royal 400. Hamlin claimed the honor for the second time this season. Hamlin has led 479 total laps this season, 451 of which came in the three short track races.

Hamlin was credited with a 14th-place finish. He is fourth in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series championship standings, 81 points behind third-place Tony Stewart and 120 points behind leader Jeff Gordon.

Busch averaged 90.627 mph in a race that took 3 hours, 18 minutes and 37 seconds to complete. There were 21 lead changes among eight drivers and 15 cautions slowed the race for a total of 79 laps.

Jimmie Johnson's day went from bad to worse. A combination of brake problems, a wreck and a speeding ticket left Johnson in the 36th position, 32 laps down to the leaders.

"We were losing fluid in the left-front brake line, the front master cylinder, and once I started losing brake pressure and the pedal was going to the floor, it worked for a few laps until I pushed all the fluid out of it and then I went into Turn 1 and all I had was rear brakes and I spun," Johnson explained. "At that time, we had to pinch off the left front line and pour fluid back into it, which just gave me the right front tire. And we ran there and unfortunately got caught up in some other stuff and tore up our car."

The next race on the Sprint Cup schedule – the eleventh event of 36-races for the 2009 Sprint Cup Championship. The Southern 500 will be on Saturday May 9th, at Darlington Raceway in Darlington, South Carolina. The race begins at approximately 7:00 p.m. eastern time with live, high-definition coverage provided by FOX beginning with its pre-race show at 6:30 p.m. eastern time.

The race will also be broadcast live on SIRIUS Satellite Radio Channel 128 and PRN radio.


For full final race results...     (Insider Racing News)
For top-40 Sprint Cup drivers points...     (Insider Racing News)



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The thoughts and ideas expressed by this writer or any other writer on Insider Racing News, are not necessarily the views of the staff and/or management of IRN.

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