Posts tagged JoeGibbsRacing at FanHouse - AOL Sports Blog

The Busch that everyone expects to win took the checkered flag in the Sprint Cup Series for the sixth time Saturday night at Daytona.

Kyle Busch, instead of his brother Kurt who won last week thanks to rain at New Hampshire, won a crazy finish in the Coke Zero 400 by holding off Carl Edwards in turn one on the white flag lap of a green-white-checkered finish. The race ended in turn one thanks to a big wreck behind the leaders involving Michael Waltrip and a host of others, with Busch edging Edwards by a nose on video replays.

After watching the interviews and reading them online following Sunday's Lenox 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, I'm confused about what Kyle Busch was saying.

And because I'm confused, I'm not going to make false assumptions. Speculation, though, is definitely going to happen.

Kyle was undoubtedly in horrible spirits after finishing 25th in the rain-shortened event. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver has won five times in 2008 and leads the point standings, so he's just not used to running poorly.

Add to that getting knocked around under caution by Juan Pablo Montoya, and you can bet Busch wasn't going to be too happy in his post-race interview. Luckily, though, he obliged to the media's request and talked about his race. That's, though, where his comments got a little quirky:

"We missed something all weekend. I knew it was going to be a dismal day and I was trying to make the most of it," Busch said.

"If we had stayed out, we could have won the race, but I just didn't feel that was the right way to win a race. I didn't feel like we had a shot to hold off the guys that were going to be behind us."

So is it safe to assume that Kyle simply didn't want to win the race? Was he the one who made the decision to come to pit road when his brother didn't?

Joey Logano won Saturday night's Nationwide Series race at Kentucky Speedway in his third-career NASCAR start driving for Joe Gibbs Racing.

Logano, who is 18 years and 21 days old, beat the previous record for the youngest driver to ever win in the Nationwide Series by almost nine months.

But the real question for me is: Did Joey Logano win the race, or did the equipment he's in win it?

Don't take me wrong -- winning in NASCAR is a tough thing to do. Logano should be more than commended for bringing the car home in one piece and for his dominating effort late in the event. His burnout was incredible, too.

But when you're stepping into a race team that has won eight of the last ten races in Nationwide Series, its tough to not see the trend. Simply, the Joe Gibbs Racing cars are incredibly fast, regardless who is driving them.

There hasn't been a race all season that a JGR machine hasn't contended for the win with a revolving door of drivers. The team simply has the best Nationwide program right now, hands down.

Want more proof? Kyle Busch drove his JGR car from the back of the pack Saturday night to the lead, and was chasing down Logano when he spun and smashed the turn 2 wall with 37 laps to go. Without the crash, I think we'd be penciling Kyle Busch in as the winner.

Logano's good, but I can't wait to see him struggle. That's when we'll see his true talent and mettle.

Welcome to NASCAR, dude.

Kasey Kahne truly had the best car Sunday afternoon at Pocono Raceway, and despite the interesting race strategies applied by Top-5 finishers Brian Vickers and Dale Earnhardt Jr., he managed to muscle his No. 9 Dodge to his second win of 2008.

Vickers, Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Gordon, and a host of others got off the pit sequence in the race's final 70 laps. The move especially played out well in terms of track position for Vickers and Earnhardt Jr., while Gordon deviated from the strategy on the final caution flag by choosing to head to pit road.

NASCAR's top dog isn't so invincible after all.

Kyle Busch got into the wall on lap 46 Sunday afternoon at Pocono Raceway on the frontstretch, heavily damaging his right front and sending the No. 18 to the garage. Busch smacked the wall after cutting up the track in front of Jamie McMurray, clipping the left front of the No. 26.

After hitting the wall, Busch screamed into the radio that his spotter should have told him that he wasn't clear and then directed the team to the garage.

His impact comes on the heels of a Sprint Cup win last weekend at Dover and his a triple-header weekend that saw Busch racing in the Craftsman Truck Series race at Texas on Friday, the Nationwide Series race at Nashville on Saturday and finally the Sprint Cup event Sunday at Pocono.

During a practice that Busch came back for on Saturday morning at Pocono, he spun the car out while coming on to pit road.

While its very, very likely that Busch just simply made a mistake, you've got to wonder if racing so much with so much jet travel had an impact on his driving skills during Sunday's event. Frankly, Busch had to be plenty tired after his weekend and making a mistake like not seeing a driver to your outside could have come from that.

Regardless, you can bet Busch will be glad to head home Sunday night.

Kyle Busch was furious Saturday morning at Pocono Raceway -- at himself.

It's tough to see in the video, but Busch got loose off of turn 3, saved the car, then attempted to get to pit lane. As he hit the brakes, the car slid sideways and Busch banged the inside pit wall, sending the team to a back-up car. Watch at 1:19:



If I was Busch, I'd be ticked off as well. The SPEED broadcast crew talked about how the team was trying a new suspension this weekend for the Pocono 500, and Busch ruined that test by making a mistake coming to pit road a little too fast.

After watching Busch during practice a few weeks at Lowe's Motor Speedway, its not surprising that something like this could happen. He always seemed to push it to the limit either leaving or coming on to pit road.

I wouldn't expect that this will dramatically affect Busch's race Sunday at Pocono. He will lose starting 10th due to the forced move to the backup car, but 500 miles at Pocono is a long, long way.

Winning at all costs does, in fact, have expenses.

Those expenses -- aside from blown tires and engines from burnouts -- have come in the form of frayed driver relationships and a increasing amount of fans hating the driver that is Kyle Busch.

Sure, he claims that he doesn't want to be the villain, but he plays it pretty darn well. It's hard not to be hated, too, when you're winning nearly every race you enter. All together, Busch has scored 10 wins in 2008 in NASCAR's top-three divisions.

Along the way, he's angered a few people or has been angry at them. The list:

• Martin Truex Jr.: He and Truex swapped jabs after the Nationwide race at Daytona, with Truex telling Busch he drives like a girl and Busch responding that he needs to grow up.
• Jeff Gordon: The former teammate was the on the receiving end of Busch's ire after Busch thought Gordon raced him "too hard" in the closing laps of the Coca-Cola 600.
• Kevin Harvick: Driver No. 29 must just be tired of Busch, as he had some comments last week talking about how Busch may win now, but the relationships he's losing now will hurt him in the long run.

Kyle Busch should be sponsored by a lawn mowing company, because he is simply mowing down the NASCAR world.

Crappy one-liners aside, Busch took his fourth Sprint Cup series win of 2008 after flat dominating the field during the last half of the race in Sunday's Best Buy 400 at Dover International Speedway.

It also tallied as his 10th overall among NASCAR's top three divisions this season.

If you were able to make it through Saturday's rain-delayed coverage of the Nationwide Series Heluva Good! 200 at Dover International Raceway, I commend you.

More importantly, if you made it you were treated to another episode of "Reasons Why Fans Hate Kyle Busch".

Busch, as is usual these days in any of NASCAR's divisions, found himself out front for 68 laps of the event, and with 31 laps to go, was battling back through the pack to get back to the lead. With 30 laps to go, he was no longer battling.

Heading in to turns 1 & 2 on a restart, Busch got spun and slammed into the wall by fellow Braun Racing driver Jason Leffler, who got loose underneath Busch. Busch's day was done, but his quote-giving abilities were not.

"I just have a teammate that can't stand to be No. 2," Busch said. "I don't know what Leffler was thinking there."

ESPN's Dave Burns then asked if Leffler "shouldn't have been racing as close" to Busch.

"Duhhh," said Busch. "You get air pulled off the side of you and you wreck. It's just not responsible driving."

There seems to be an oxymoron in there somewhere for Kyle Busch to be talking about "responsible driving." For the full effect of Busch's "Duh", check the video over on Youtube.

Leffler did apologize for the accident later, but I find it tough to really place blame on a guy who was on the inside of a someone passing him on the outside. Leffler got loose and lost it, plain and simple.

Denny Hamlin won the event that had a grand total of 5 lead changes, marking the 9th-straight victory in the Nationwide Series by somebody employed by Joe Gibbs Racing. One lap wasn't led by Hamlin or Busch in the race.

Yawn.

Geoffrey Miller is in Concord, N.C. for Sunday's Sprint Cup Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe's Motor Speedway. He'll aim to eat as many elephant ears as possible while blogging away "Live from Lowe's" throughout Memorial Day weekend.

What a night it was here Saturday in Concord, N.C.

Kyle Busch scored the victory in one of the most entertaining Nationwide Series races at Lowe's Motor Speedway I've seen. Busch's ninth total NASCAR win in 2008, though, wasn't exactly the top memory.

Instead, it was Denny Hamlin taking on two-thirds of the JR Motorsports contingent present for the event.

You can read more into at the Associated Press piece, but the gist of the happenings was that Brad Keselowski gave Hamlin a little tap under the yellow from behind to let Hamlin know he was there, Hamlin slowed and swerved into Keselowski's left front fender bending it in, and then Dale Earnhardt Jr. then stood up for the car he owns (Keselowski) and bumped Hamlin in the door.

Busch ran first with those three behind him and appeared to be in danger of getting beat in the final two-lap green flag finish until a caution came out on the final lap before the teams could enter turn three. Instead, he held on.

When the cars came to a stop after the race on pit road, there was plenty of pushing and shoving and NASCAR officials trying to maintain order. It was as close to an all-out brawl as you can get, but tempers evantually settled, allowing for some tremendous quotes.

Said Hamlin, referring to Keselowski's actions: