Kyle Busch and the No. 54 Monster Energy team had a strong Toyota Camry for Saturday’s Sta-Green 200 NASCAR Nationwide Series race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway (NHMS), where they led 34 circuits of the 200-lap event, but without grabbing the ‘checkers’ they hoped for. With the Saturday effort, the Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) No. 54 team recorded their 15th top-five in 17 events run so far this year.
Initial practice sessions Friday exhibited early signs the No. 54 Camry would be a contender for the win. Busch paced the board fastest among the No. 22 of Brad Keselowski and the No. 42 of Kyle Larson, properly noted to be the likely competition for Saturday afternoon’s event. Busch told his team the car felt “comfortable” and he turned attention towards Saturday’s early qualifying session. All signs pointed towards a repeat of last year’s pole-qualifying run, as Busch stood atop the board again, only to be knocked out of the first-place spot, in the last eight seconds of final qualifying by Keselowski, who ran .083 seconds faster than Busch.
The shared front-row starting spot did not deter Busch, however, upon taking the green flag, he immediately worked ahead of the No. 22 Penske Racing Ford and maintained that position through two event caution periods, without a visit to pit road. Although still in first place at lap 37, the Monster Energy athlete began to experience a car balance he wasn’t completely comfortable with. “It’s chattering rear tires and sliding front tires – I do not feel INTO the track at all,” Busch explained to his crew chief. The condition became worse for Busch to maneuver, “I’m wrecking loose,” he was heard telling his team at lap 59. Soon after, Busch would relinquish the lead to the No. 22 car.
A first pit road visit at lap 83, from the second-place spot, and the Joe Gibbs Racing outfit serviced the No. 54 machine for Goodyear tires, Sunoco fuel and a car adjustment. Busch reported soon after that the tires felt better from that pit stop. Another event caution waved and the team chose to remain on the racetrack. After the pending restart, though, Busch began to slip track positions. He fell to fourth at lap 99 and to fifth place at the event’s halfway mark.
A slight brush with the No. 33 of Paul Menard at the ensuing restart brought out another caution flag and the No. 54 Toyota visited pit road to replace tires once again and make further car adjustments. The pit road visit forced Busch to restart in seventh place.
Due to the rough track surface and challenging configuration of New England’s “Magic Mile” it took Busch another 30 laps until he worked his position back into second place when another pit road visit occurred. Further car adjustments were made to continue fighting a loose condition and only two tires were replenished, which allowed Busch to maintain a strong restart position from third place.
With 50 laps to run, Busch maneuvered past one car to second place and set his sights back towards the front of the field. Although Busch could see Keselowski struggle with lapped traffic and his own car balance issues, Busch ran his strongest event laps towards the No. 22, within 20 laps to go. The effort would be too little, too late, unfortunately, and the No. 54 team would settle for being a ‘bridesmaid’ while they watched the No. 22 Ford head to victory lane.
Post-race Busch described his day to the media, “We got what we could out of our Monster Energy Camry today. We felt good that it would be a solid top-five car and it should be a second-place car here this weekend — and that’s where we ended up. It’s good to come out of here with the points that we deserve. It would have been nice to win and steal a checkered flag, but it just wasn’t meant to be here today. We fought hard there at the end. Had the best run there at the end with our race car — the adjustments Adam Stevens (crew chief) made were good all throughout the day, but just not quite enough. If we had track position, maybe things would have been a little bit differently, but with what we had given to us there at the end of the race — we had to fight hard to get by a few guys, got to second and chased him (Brad Keselowski) down and couldn’t find enough to get by him.”
NHMS PR
