The Monster Energy team came into Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International Saturday hopeful to earn veteran driver Kyle Busch his first trip to victory lane at the 2.45-mile road course in the NASCAR Nationwide Series. While they encountered hurdles through the race weekend, Busch drove strong and wheeled his black machine into a second-place finish, his 15th top-five placement in 16 races run this year.
The weekend started well with two practice sessions on Friday, and although Busch ran off course in the ‘bus stop’ and collected a lot of grass in his car’s front grill, he was ultimately comfortable with the Toyota’s setup. Early Saturday a row-two qualifying effort was made when Busch recorded a 71.285 second lap at 123.729 mph which placed the team in the third starting spot for the afternoon Zippo 200 event at The Glen.
Upon green-flag start, Busch was challenged right away and slipped from his third-place starting position to fourth place, where he remained for four beginning race laps. Lap five brought initial drama to Busch’s day when eventual race winner Marcos Ambrose in the No. 09 Ford, banged with Busch in the No. 54 Camry, sending them both spinning off the inner loop. The incident moved Ambrose to 12th and Busch to 15th, but the slip off track did not deter the Monster Energy athlete who was back up to 10th by lap 11, when the first caution waved.
When asked how his car was feeling Busch described, “I’m loose right, tight left,” as he explained the car would not ‘drive off’ the corners. He gave specific feedback that in turns one and seven, his exit was slow and in turns two and five the car was tight in the front. “Everything to the right, I have problems with,” Busch relayed to his team and crew chief Adam Stevens.
So under the event’s first caution period Stevens called Busch down pit road to replenish tires, fuel and make a chassis adjustment. With varying strategies, some teams elected not to pit at this time, so when the restart occurred, the No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) machine was placed back in the 16th spot.
Once again, this did not deter the winningest driver in the Nationwide Series. The green flag waved at lap 15 and in one lap Busch moved five positions to 11th, then to seventh place two laps later. Following the strategy they worked out ahead of time, Stevens called Busch to pit road, under green-flag conditions, on lap 20, to take gas only and pull tape off the front grill. The timing was excellent as Busch had battled hard on track and off, and needed his front grill cleaned off from a little ‘off-road’ racing. The pit road visit would place Busch in 22nd-place, one quarter of the way through the event.
When other teams began to make their pit road visits, however, it moved the No. 54 up the charts. Within two laps, under another caution period, the race scored Busch in the 10th position. As more cars cycled through for pit stops, Busch worked his way to third place for the green-flag restart at lap 30. Racing was rough across the multi-turn course and Busch found his strongest competitors remained as Ambrose, Joey Logano and Brad Keselowski.
Another event caution at lap 34 and Stevens was heard telling his driver, “save gas, save gas.” Busch reiterated to his team that the car felt the same, “I’m loose off one, loose exit seven, trying to put throttle down and I can’t.” He was in third place when a subsequent course caution waved at the event’s halfway point.
The next green-flag restart would be an exciting one for the team as they watched Busch and ongoing rival Keselowski rub fenders, before Busch ultimately maintained his position in third place. Then when Ambrose pitted from the lead position that placed Busch at the head of the field for one lap, at marker 50. Lap 51 offered the JGR team their opportunity to visit pit road one more time, which positioned them within their fuel window to make the rest of the scheduled race without another pit stop.
At lap 55 Busch was scored in fifth place. “Nice and smooth,” spotter Tony Hirschman told Busch as he moved his way into third place. The final event caution waved but the No. 54 team was not going to visit pit road again. One additional dramatic turn would occur at lap 63 when once more Busch battled hard with Keselowski that again placed dirt and grass in the front grill of the Monster Energy machine. Busch watched the engine temperature slowly climb, but it never became an issue. At lap 65 the race leaders were Ambrose, Logano, Busch and JGR teammate Matt Kenseth. It was at this point the team saw Busch’s strength in maneuvering his Camry towards the front. At lap 77, Busch overtook Logano and set his sights on the leader Ambrose.
With four laps to go, Busch and Ambrose were running similar lap times and Busch began to advance. Each lap that remained showed the Monster Energy athlete, that much closer to the No. 09 car. “Another lap and I would have been in real trouble,” Ambrose told media after the race, and from victory lane, the event’s race winner. Although he greatly reduced the time between them, Busch was unable to catch Ambrose to overtake the lead and brought his Camry home in second place.
A disappointed Busch remarked afterwards to the media, “It was another second place. The Monster Energy Camry was good, probably good enough to win–we just never had track position. We didn’t qualify as well as we needed. I was just driving for all it’s worth, trying to give it everything it’s got and we were faster and we had some speed in particular areas and not in other areas, but we made the most of our day, I guess considering how it couldn’t been, how last year went.”
The car owned by J.D. Gibbs maintains first place in the Owner’s Point standings, now leading the No. 22 Roger Penske Ford by 3 points.
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