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Auto Racing
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Kyle Busch wins a NASCAR thriller: Talladega makes it seven already this season, on all three tours
Kyle Busch is becoming quite experienced at these smokey celebrations
(Photo credit: Toyota Motorsports)
By Mike Mulhern
TALLADEGA, Ala.
So the ‘best driver in NASCAR’ got another win. And Kyle Busch did it by outfoxing Jimmie Johnson, a cool trick in itself.
In one of the most amazing races ever seen in the 40 years of NASCAR racing at Talladega, good luck finally ran out for several stars in Sunday’s 500 field with only 14 laps to go when one-too-many bumps-and-bobbles in four-wide racing – by Tony Stewart and Dale Earnhardt Jr., the day’s two dominant drivers – took them both, and four more, out of contention.
And Kyle ‘wild child’ Busch displayed remarkable patience in rallying from a lap down and beating surprisingly rejuvenated Juan Pablo Montoya in a wild five-lap sprint finish to the Aaron’s 499, which ended under a checkered-and-caution, Talladega Speedway suddenly littered with a dozen crashing, careening cars.
“With about 10 laps to go things got crazy, and I’m a little fuzzy about it all right now,” Busch said after easily the best race of the year, played out in front of 156,000. “Juan Montoya was my savior today. He pushed me right to the front.”
Busch, who only turns 23 in a few days, now has seven NASCAR wins this season: two on the Cup tour, three on the Nationwide tour, and two in the Truck series….all in his new Toyotas. And the win puts him just 22 points behind leader Jeff Burton in the Sprint Cup standings.
“Jeff Gordon and Juan Pablo Montoya kept pushing us, and we just kept blocking them like we needed to,” Busch said after his sixth career Cup series victory. “I don’t think I’ve finished one here without wrecking or being torn up at the end. So when I got here I wasn’t very excited….who wants to tear up another race car.
“I’d like to say I’m smarter than I look…But that’s not the case,” he said with a laugh. “It’s just good times….”
Steve Addington, Busch’s crew chief, is finally able to show his talents this season, after several rough seasons playing in the shadows of teammates Stewart and Hamlin. “To see this team come back to life…..” car owner Joe Gibbs said of the team that had gone winless for several years until Busch got the wheel.
Joe and J.D. Gibbs’ Toyota trio may be the class of the NASCAR tour
(Photo Credit: Todd Warshaw/Getty Images for NASCAR)
Patience, ironically, has been one of Busch’s strongest attributes this season: “I’ll thank (NASCAR’s) Robin Pemberton for that….we had a little talk, about me trying to take a third-place car and run second with it.
“I became an idiot for a little bit, but I’ve figured it out now.”
“We’re getting closer,” Montoya said, giving a nod to new crew chief Jimmy Elledge after the run that put the ex-Formula One in the top-12, cutoff mark for the championship playoffs.
“That was just amazing,” Denny Hamlin, Busch’s teammate, said, almost breathlessly after finishing third. “The whole race was crazy. We just decided to give the fans a show.
“I cannot say enough for Mark Cronquist and the engine room. I’ve never had this much power here.”
Kyle Busch holding Juan Pablo Montoya at bay
(Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)
Indeed the race certainly didn’t go according to anyone’s pre-game plans of conservative racing, like last fall’s 500 here.
The winning pass was a muscle move: Toyota’s Michael Waltrip held the lead on the final restart with five to go, after getting a push to the front by Chevy’s Johnson, around Busch. But moments later when Johnson made a move to the low side to pass Waltrip, Busch popped Johnson lightly to try to move him up, and Johnson responded by trying to squeeze Busch low below the yellow out-of-bounds line. But Busch held his ground and completed the pass.
And Montoya and Hamlin followed him through the opening.
So it was up to Busch to fend off a double-team from Montoya and Hamlin on the last lap of the 188.
However before either man could made move on Busch, a 12-car wreck erupted just behind them, taking out Waltrip, Johnson, Kevin Harvick, David Stremme, Jeff Burton and others.
Juan Pablo Montoya nearly wins his first time out with new crew chief Jimmy Elledge
(Photo by Jeff Gross/Getty Images)
If that final yellow hadn’t come out?
“Ask Denny; he was the guy behind me,” Montoya said with a grin.
“I was going to dictate the finish,” Hamlin said. “I was going to try to push Juan up beside Kyle, and then if they bogged each other down, I might have been able to go on by. It depended on if Kyle was going to block him – If he stayed (and didn’t block), then I was going to stay on his (Busch’s bumper). If he moved to block, then I was going to make it three-wide.
“Now if I’d pushed Juan past Kyle, I’d have probably gotten some repercussions (from team owners Joe and J. D. Gibbs). But I was going to go for the win myself. I felt I had the best car.”
These guys all put on one heck of a show at Talladega. Denny Hamlin leading the pack
(Photo by Jeff Gross/Getty Images)
The racing was stunningly aggressive. “We all were getting popped and popped and popped, just like a crash out in a street car, and it was just amazing,” Montoya said after his best run in a long time, maybe since his Sonoma win last summer. “But I just love restrictor plate racing, and all the bumping.
“We’ve been running 15th about every week. Hopefully this is a sign we’re heading in the right direction.”
Jimmie Johnson’s cagey strategy nearly worked...but Kyle Busch was just too much
(Photo by John Harrelson/Getty Images for NASCAR)
Hamlin and Burton made amazing saves to get through the Earnhardt-Stewart mess. At the time Stewart, who had cut a tire and fallen behind, was mounting a charge back to the front, in very heavy and hectic traffic.
“I went to the second lane and I thought we were all right,” Stewart said of the frontstretch incident. “But the closer we got to turn one the smaller that hole came, and that hole finally closed up.
“If it was my fault, I’m sorry. But I just looked at the video and I don’t think I didn’t do anything wrong.
“We were fine until we that right-front went down (on lap 145). And then we had to try to play catch-up, and with 15 laps to go you’ve got to do everything you can.”
Tony Stewart was the headliner all weekend, and again Sunday....until the wreck with only 15 to go
(Photo by Jeff Gross/Getty Images)
The race was unusual in several respects.
One, for the asphalt grip and aerodynamic stability with the novel win that allowed drivers to escape in incidents which normally would have created huge crashes. “I thought I was going out of the park,” Busch said of one such particularly dramatic incident, involving him and Jamie McMurray.
Second, for the ability of two cars, when hooked up bumper-to-bumper, to essentially blow by the entire field on the high side.
Michael Waltrip showed his superspeedway saavy...until he got caught up in the last-lap melee
(Photo credit: Toyota Motorsports)
For Carl Edwards and teammate Matt Kenseth, however, the day was not good. They both had tire trouble.
“We can’t get anything to go our way,” Kenseth griped. “We just blew the right-front tire. It amazes me you can blow a tire at Talladega, but I guess you can. We did everything to Goodyear’s specs.”
Edwards said his tire problem was from using too much right-front wheel camber: “We saw we had a pretty big problem in practice…I guess we didn’t fix it. The wrong camber.”
Changing camber – leaning the tire in or out – helps a car turn better in the corners, but it also abuses the edge of the tire.
Jeff Gordon (left) and car owner Rick Hendrick. Gordon’s layback tactics didn’t work this time around; he finished 19th.
(Photo Credit: Todd Warshaw/Getty Images for NASCAR)
THE NASCAR NOTEBOOK
Kevin Lepage, who triggered a brutal crash during Saturday’s Nationwide race at Talladega Speedway when he pulled up on the track, coming off pit road, just ahead of the on-rushing field, issued an apology Sunday:
“As a child my dreams had always been to race on superspeedways. Racing in NASCAR has allowed this to happen, and I have a career that I love. However on Saturday afternoon every racer’s concern was realized, as I caused The Big One.
“After reviewing the tapes of the accident, I realize I need to apologize to NASCAR, the car owners, my fellow competitors and most importantly the fans. I made a huge driver error by blending onto the racetrack in the wrong area. This caused a multi-car accident and changed the outcome of the race for many teams.
“I’m so thankful that no one was hurt, considering the number of cars involved. In over 25 years of racing this was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made behind the wheel of a stock car, and I promise that it will not happen again.
“It is such a terrible feeling knowing that NASCAR, the car owners, fellow competitors and NASCAR fans think this was a bonehead move, and I certainly don’t want anyone thinking of me in these terms.
“Speaking Saturday, before reviewing the tapes of the accident, made me look like a ‘heel,” and there is not a single person to blame for this huge mistake except myself.
“I have worked very hard over the years to gain the respect of NASCAR, the owners, competitors and the fans, and it will take a long time to gain it back after what happened.
“Once again I want to apologize to everyone involved. If I could replay the race, I would have used better judgment and let the pack go by before blending onto the racetrack.”
Kevin Lepage appologizes for Saturday’s Talladega crash
(Photo by Robert Meggers/Getty Images for NASCAR)
