Gibbs Garage: Kyle Busch leads JGR drivers with second place finish at Auto Club Speedway
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| JGR duo started on the front row at ACS Credit: Boris at http://facebook.com/joegibbsracing |
Of all the tracks on the Sprint Cup
circuit, only Auto Club Speedway still has a zero in the “wins” column for the
Joe Gibbs Racing teams. The JGR trio of drivers had high hopes one of them
would crack this track and take home the trophy from the Auto Club 400 on
Sunday. But despite valiant efforts, the victory eluded them for another year.
Denny Hamlin
started the race first, earning his tenth career Sprint Cup pole, and was
fastest in Saturday practice, too. Hamlin raced outside polesitter Kyle Busch
to the start-finish line to lead the first lap, after which Busch took the
reins.
Hamlin spent the entire 129 laps of
the race running in the top three in his No. 11 FedEx Toyota. He struggled with
losing time on pit stops, but managed to make it up on the track. “Between
coming in and leaving, we’d lose three or four seconds and have to make the
whole run to try to get that back together,” he said. A little past the halfway
mark, Hamlin cut Smoke’s lead to less than one second. “We finally got to
Tony’s (Stewarts) bumper and the rain came out.”
After setting a record for the longest
green flag run without a caution at ACS, the yellow flag flew on lap 124 for
rain in turns three and four. While leading under the caution, Stewart sidled
down the track as if he was going to pit, then veered back on track. Hamlin,
who was running second, continued down pit road. Hamlin said he wasn’t tricked
by Stewart’s ploy and that his team had planned to pit in case the race went
green again. The unrelenting rain led to NASCAR calling the race complete at 129
of 200 laps, and Hamlin finished 11th.
Kyle Busch
started on the outside pole and took the lead from Hamlin on lap two. The No.
18 Interstate Batteries Toyota was strong from the get-go and he went on to
lead 80 laps. While racing hard with some lapped cars, Tony Stewart passed
Busch on lap 85 for the lead. As he tried to catch up, Busch grazed the outside
wall and the car tightened up as a result of the damage. Still, Busch managed a
respectable second place finish and gained two positions in the points
standings.
Busch tweeted: “The boys brought me a
great @interstatebatts
Camry. Wish we had 30 more laps in it so we could have been the ones spraying
champagne!”
Flashback:
Kyle Busch has quite a history at ACS, with emotional highs and lows. He
experienced disappointment in 2001 when NASCAR officials pulled him from his
first Camping World Truck Series start. Why? Because the open-wheel race that
weekend had tobacco sponsorship and Busch was only 16 years old.
On the other hand, 2005 was a banner
year for Busch at Auto Club Speedway. In his eighth career Sprint Cup start, he
became the youngest driver to win a Sprint Cup pole – at 19 years, 317 days
old. Busch also earned his first career NASCAR Sprint Cup victory at the
California track while driving the No. 5 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports.
Joey Logano started the
weekend at Fontana with a victory in the Royal Purple 300, giving JGR its
eighth straight NNS wins at ACS. Earlier in the week Logano attended American
Idol as an audience member, but made a brief cameo standing by the stage as
Idol contestant Skylar Laine sang.
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| Joey Logano wins NNS race at ACS Credit: Boris at http://facebook.com/joegibbsracing |
The
No. 20 Dollar General Toyota rolled off eighth for Sunday’s Sprint Cup race,
but fought handling conditions throughout the day, especially in the middle of
corners. “The car was so tight right at the start of the race I couldn’t hardly
drive it. Each green flag stop, we did a little more and more adjustments, but
never could get the car to handle right,” Logano said. He hovered around the 20th
position for much of the race, but finished 24th after serving a
pass-through penalty for speeding on pit road.
The points standings for the JGR
drivers after Fontana:
Denny Hamlin – 7th
Joey Logano – 13th
Kyle Busch – 14th
Gibbs Garage: Kyle Busch leads JGR drivers with second place finish at Auto Club Speedway
Reviewed by Beth Reinke
on
Monday, March 26, 2012
Rating:
Reviewed by Beth Reinke
on
Monday, March 26, 2012
Rating:
