Kyle Busch gets second win in seventh 2015 start at Kentucky
Kyle Busch made a big leap towards the top 30 in points Saturday night at Kentucky as NASCAR hopes it made a big leap in improving the competition at intermediate tracks.
While Busch led over 160 of the race's 267 laps en route to the win, the racing throughout the entirety of the evening could not be considered boring, even by the most pessimistic of NASCAR fans. In NASCAR's first race with a new rules set that took away downforce from the cars, there was ample passing in the pack as drivers were sliding around and searching for grip.
It's Busch's second win of 2015 in his seventh start of the season. He entered the race 128 points behind Cole Whitt, the driver in 30th place in the points standings. He's now 87 points back of Whitt with eight races to go for the Chase for the Sprint Cup.
With two wins, Busch is guaranteed a berth in the Chase ... if he's in the top 30. When Busch returned to Cup Series competition after suffering a broken leg and broken foot at Daytona in February, NASCAR waived the requirement that he start every race to be eligible for the Chase. But it didn't waive the rule that a driver must be in the top 30 to be Chase eligible.
At 87 points back, Busch now has to average a 17th-place finish over the next eight races to catch Whitt. It's a vast improvement over the 11th-place finish he needed with 11 races remaining before the Chase. Two wins in three races will do that.
To get the win, Busch needed to pass Joey Logano for the lead with less than 20 laps to go. Busch stalked Logano for a few laps and on his second try, passed the Daytona 500 champion for good. Following the pass, Logano had no answer for Busch, who drove away.
"I know I won, but so far so good, I like the new aero package obviously," Busch said. "It just seemed like you weren't stuck. Logano kind of moved up and blocked my lane and with the old package you kind of just get stalled out and you'd get stuck behind him. This one here I could kind of move around – I went back to the bottom and made a move on him to pass him low."
Logano was also the lone non-Joe Gibbs Racing car in the top five. Denny Hamlin finished third while Carl Edwards was fourth and Matt Kenseth was fifth.
The battle between Busch and Logano was one of the few fierce battles for the lead all evening. As has been usual in the Sprint Cup Series so far in 2015, especially at intermediate tracks like 1.5-mile Kentucky, the leader of the race was able to get far enough away from the rest of the field to keep any challengers at bay.
But while the leaders, mainly Busch and also Brad Keselowski in the early stages of the race, were largely unchallenged, drivers throughout the rest of the field kept each other company. As the groove widened out, drivers in the middle of the pack were able to size each other up for passing opportunities. And, most importantly, complete them.
The lack of downforce on the cars meant drivers were forced to manage the throttle more throughout the corners of the track. And while the pedal-wrestling drivers were likely doing may not have been apparent to many viewers at home, the ability of cars to run close to each others' bumpers was. Drivers were able to follow each other closely for more than just a split second to make a pass. With the larger spoilers and other previous rules, literal nose-to-tail racing was few and far between.
Since NASCAR's announcement of different rules for Saturday night's race, the race was a highly anticipated event. And while the results certainly looked encouraging, the anticipation also bears mention. Was the racing really that much better than it's been at similar type tracks so far in 2015? Or was it better because observers wanted it to be better after hearing how good racing with less downforce could be, namely from many of the Cup Series' top drivers?
It's a fair question. And one that may not have a clear-cut answer. Did the restarts after a track-record 11 caution flags help to increase passing opportunities? Those caution flags certainly helped keep cars on the lead lap. At one point past halfway, 36 cars were on the same lap as the leader thanks to the wave-around rule.
But if the answer is foggy, the magic 8 ball at least said "the outlook is good" rather than "reply hazy, try again." NASCAR undoubtedly would like more passing for the lead. But it can't be unhappy with what it saw otherwise. And heck, some of those 11 cautions were for actual crashes, a sometimes rare sight at intermediate tracks in recent memory.
The next time we'll see this rules set is at Darlington in September. And by then, NASCAR will have had the opportunity to try an even different set of tweaks at Indianapolis and Michigan. Are track-specific rules combinations the wave of the NASCAR future? If Saturday night is a harbinger of things to come, we're betting heavily they are.
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Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
