NASCAR – Kyle Busch Get His First Win at MIS and First to Lock in For The Chase

On a day where the weather threatened surprises, Kyle Busch was building a surprise of his own.  With a car that was nowhere to be seen for the first half of the race, Busch more than made up for it in the second half.  When Johnson took the lead on lap 168 ,after fortune smiled on him during a routine pit stop, allowing him to come out ahead of the pace car and stay out while everyone else came in to pit, Kyle Busch did what he does best, out drove everyone near him to the finish line.

“It’s awesome,” Busch said. “That’s what we wanted. We wanted to make sure that we could come out here and win races and have the opportunity to go for broke.”

“Yesterday we practiced, we struggled a bit, and I kind of got down on things, and Dave was right there to help me out and pick it up,” Busch said. “We went over things last night and talked a lot about what we could do to the car to make it better, thought smartly about our changes for today, and we came out here strong.”

Johnson fought building an almost 1 full second lead before Busch began to over take him.  It did not take long for Busch to take the lead and hold it until the final caution flew at Lap 193 setting the stage for a Green White Checkered finish.  Johnson, who also has not yet won at MIS tried everything he could but not hold off the hard charging Busch.

“[The car] was just really loose at the start of the race, and I drove up through the field, and Chad [Knaus] made a great call to get me to pit road before that caution came out,” Johnson said. “It gave us the shot at the win, but once I was up front in the clean air the balance of the car was a bit too loose.”

“I got away from Kyle but I was loose, and I knew he was going to come at some point and he showed up. Disappointed that I didn’t win, but a very good effort for the Lowe’s team especially when you look at where we started the race [19th] and where we finished.”

The win also clinched Kyle Busch’s spot in the chase by manor of wins.  With 4 wins under his belt this season, he could in theory, not show up for the next 3 races and still make the chase via the wins and a wild card spot.  He is currently in first place in points however and shows no sign of wanted to lay back and let someone else go for the win.

Carl Edwards day went about as bad as his worst nightmares.  Finishing ahead of only the start and park teams in 36th position and 29 laps down, Edwards lost 2 spots in the standings moving from a tie for first back to fourth.  After losing a cylinder and losing valuable time in the garage trying to diagnose the problem, Edwards finally returned to the track 23 laps down and off the pace, losing ground right until the checkered flag.

Greg Biffle dominated the first half of the race, taking off like a rocket when the green flag flew and leading the most laps all day, when the caution came out on lap 107.  Biffle’s team opted for a 4 tire change while other teams only took 2.  Biffle then had to fight something he hadn’t seen all day.  Traffic and dirty air.  He did his best and fought his way back up to 10th but faded after that and fell back to a final finishing position of 20th place.

“I don’t know what happened,” Biffle said. “I am not sure. I have a feeling we kind of got a bum set of tires and then we got off on our adjustments.

“It was really, really tight and we adjusted on it. And then I think I was too loose the rest of the day. But I really don’t know what happened to be honest with you. I really don’t know right now.”

Dale Jr and Tony Stewart managed to hold on to their positions for chase contention.  Dale Jr ran well in the beginning and was looking like a shoe in for a top 10 finish, but with Jr complaining about the tires from the pit stop before it was decided he would come in for a new set of 4 and fuel after Kurt Busch slammed the wall on lap 197, which dropped him back to 15th on the track.  He managed to race back one position in the Green, White Checkered finish and ended up in 14th.  He also remains in 9th place in Chase contention as well as padding his position over the 11th spot, held by Clint Bowyer now, up to 30 points.

Tony Stewart held on to a top 10 finish, landing himself in 9th, which was good enough to hold on to 10th a to gain 5 points on Dale Jr ending up 105 out of first in Chase contention.