Kyle Busch will run all three National Series events at Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet, Ill during opening weekend of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. Busch will kick off his trifecta try behind the wheel of the No. 51 Dollar General Tundra Friday night in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Lucas Oil 225. Kyle Busch Motorsports’ (KBM) owner-driver is the defending winner of the event and has three Truck Series wins in four starts at the 1.5-mile D-shaped oval.
The Las Vegas native, who in August of 2010 at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway became the only driver in history to win races in all three of NASCAR’s top three divisions in the same weekend, nearly accomplished a second weekend sweep in the “Windy City” last September. Busch opened off the weekend Friday night by putting his Dollar General Tundra in victory lane in the Truck Series event. He followed it up with a dominant win in Saturday’s Nationwide Series Dollar General 300, leading 195 of 200 laps en route to victory. In Sunday’s Sprint Cup Series race, he was out front late in the race, until teammate Matt Kenseth worked his way around him with 23 laps remaining. ‘Rowdy’ came home in the runner-up spot, 0.749 seconds behind Kenseth.
Busch will once again have Dollar General onboard his Tundra for Friday night’s Truck Series event at the 1.5-mile D-shaped oval, but what he won’t have this year is any practice time behind the wheel of his Toyota before qualifying on Friday afternoon. While he is off tending to Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Media Day on Thursday afternoon, 18-year-old Erik Jones will be in charge of fine tuning the setup for the No. 51 team during the two practice sessions. Jones has scored two Truck Series victories across his first 12 series starts, most recently finishing third in the road-course event at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in Bowmanville, Ont. The talented youngster made his Nationwide Series debut at Chicagoland in July, qualifying fourth, leading two laps and finishing seventh in his No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Camry.
Friday’s race will mark Dollar General’s third of four appearances onboard the No. 51 Toyota this this season. Busch scored his sixth career Truck Series win for the nation’s largest small-box discount retailer earlier this season at Kentucky Speedway in Sparta and led laps at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway, but was relegated to a 24th-place finish after cutting a tire late in the race. Overall in 30 races adorning KBM’s Tundras, the Tennessee-based company has been a part of seven wins – including the team’s historic first victory at Nashville (Tenn.) Superspeedway in April of 2010 – and 16 top-five finishes.
Busch, who is making his eighth Truck Series start of the season Friday night, will be looking to end a two-race victory draught Friday after winning each of his first five starts this season. A win in the Lucas Oil 225 would be the first step in his ‘chase’ for another trifecta.
KBM PR
