Coming into the final 10-race Chase for the Sprint Cup, Kyle Busch and crew chief Dave Rogers had New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon circled on their calendar as a place where they simply needed to survive.
Busch, Rogers and the M&M’s team did just that, as they gutted out a workmanlike 11th-place finish in Sunday’s Sylvania 300 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race. The effort was Busch’s ninth top-15 finish in 14 career Sprint Cup starts at the 1.058-mile oval.
“We just fought hard all day long with our M&M’s Camry,” said Busch, who is now sixth in points, 26 markers behind new Chase leader Tony Stewart. “We got the car to where we were fast in the early part of the run, but we fell off a little too much as the run went along. Our car was good entry and center (of the corner), but it was just so tight in the center all day long that it made it really hard. Track position was important today and I just have to thank the guys for hanging in there with me and fighting hard all day long. We survived and we’ll go on to Dover, which is usually a much better place for me.”
The driver of the No. 18 M&M’s Toyota Camry for Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) started a solid eighth but fought handling issues from the drop of the green flag, as his car started off tight in the center of the corner before being loose off.
Busch settled into the 12th spot prior to the first pit stop of the day on lap 63, and during that stop and the three subsequent stops, Rogers and the M&M’s team worked to fix the condition with a combination of wedge, track bar and air pressure adjustments. As a result, Busch was able to work his way up to as high as ninth and ran between ninth and 11th for much of the 300-lap race. While the adjustments helped his exit off the corner, they could never find a remedy for the very tight handling condition he was experiencing in the center of the corner.
With Busch sitting on the cusp of the top-10, he came to pit road for what would be the final pit stop of the day on lap 231. But as he entered his pit stall, his M&M’s Camry barely slid through the front of the pit box, forcing the team to push him back into his stall and then perform the pit stop. After that, Busch tried to make up as much time as he could, but fell several spots as the handling on his M&M’s Toyota became worse as the run went on. He fell back to as far as 15th, but he experienced some good fortune as several cars in front of him ran out of gas during the final laps and he was able to hold on for a gutty 11th-place finish.
“I think our M&M’s Toyota Camry was fairly decent, but it’s a track-position race,” Rogers said. “We started the race on the outside groove and ran up there two or three laps. Usually at a kind of place like this or Martinsville when you do that, it really beats up your tires. We fought that the first run and fought loose the first half of the run and then the car went tight. We were pretty much tight the rest of the day and couldn’t get it out. Kyle was trying to get everything he could get on the final run coming to the pit stall and can’t fault the guy for giving you 100 percent, but he slid through the pits and kept us from getting our final adjustment to free the car up. Then Kyle drove the wheels off it early in the run. We were making up some ground and it was looking really good. We used our stuff up a little bit and fell off there at the end. Still not a bad day for New Hampshire. This is probably the track that we feared the most coming to. It just doesn’t fit our style. Haven’t quite had the right setup here. We’ll take it and move on to Dover where we’ve had more success and see what we can do there.”
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