Kyle Busch battles back from the flu, leaves Charlotte Nationwide field in his wake
Like any NASCAR driver worth his salt, Kyle Busch dreads the thought of having to get out of his race car because of sickness or injury.
So when the ailing Busch had to give way to a relief driver in the Nationwide and Sprint Cup races at Auto Club Speedway in California, he considered it “the worst thing ever.”
After several days of rest and antibiotics, the 24-year-old was feeling good enough to go the full distance in the Dollar General 300 Nationwide race at Lowe’s Motor Speedway. Unfortunately for his competition, Busch drove like a man making up for lost time.
Still battling lingering effects of the flu, which morphed into pneumonia, Busch spanked a field of overworked competitors that, barring an unusual turn of events, knew they were racing for second from the drop of the green flag.
Forget antibiotics. The best medicine for him was administering an all-out “Busch-whacking” to his Nationwide foes.
“I didn’t turn on my helmet cooler at all because it was just too cold out,” the Joe Gibbs Racing driver said. “I brought my cold weather stuff out – I was wearing a beanie earlier because I don’t want to shock my immune system now to the cold from where we were out in California with some of the heat. I think everything is OK now.”
Busch led 137 of 200 laps en route to his seventh Nationwide win of the season but first in 12 starts – an eternity by his standards.
Busch had finished second five times since his most recent win at Gateway International Raceway on July 18.
“I felt like we were in another zip code and it was going to take some big changes on some guys’ part to get up there and battle with us,” said Busch, whose 28th series triumph broke a tie with Jeff Burton for fourth on the all-time win list and moved Busch within three wins of third-place Jack Ingram.
Busch added 40 points to his series lead over fifth-place finisher Carl Edwards and stretched his cushion to 195 with four races left. Third-place Brad Keselowski is 272 points back.
Is the fat lady warming up her vocal cords where the 2009 title race is concerned?
“We know we need to keep up to our best game and do what we need to do in order to put this championship away. … We’ve got a couple more weeks that we can gain some good points and hopefully put it away [in the next-to-last race] at Phoenix,” Busch said.
Dave Blaney, who finished third after restarting alongside Busch with 21 laps to go, never challenged the leader down the stretch. Neither did runnerup Mike Bliss, who crossed the finish 1.712 seconds behind the No. 18 Toyota.
“He just dominated the race,” Bliss said. “He was really fast and we knew that in practice, how good he was. … We were close, but we knew he was the car to beat here.”
Said Blaney: “He looked like he was as fast as he wanted to be – just fast enough.”
Busch quickly asserted his strength, moving forward from his fifth-place starting position to take the lead on lap 22. He paced the field on three separate occasions, losing the lead only as various pit strategies unfolded.
Others could only wish for such smooth sailing. Three multicar accidents marred the action and ruined the night for several drivers in position for a strong finish.
The first casualty involved part-time Roush Fenway Racing driver Ricky Stenhouse Jr., who had to check up from contact with Reed Sorenson and was drilled by Jason Keller on lap 13.
Stenhouse slammed the outside wall just past the start/finish line, ending his night, while Sorenson and Keller continued on with minimal damage.
The next accident was no less dramatic. David Gilliland tried to make it four-wide in the trioval on lap 63 and shot up into Steve Wallace, sending Wallace hard into the wall in Turn 1.
Gilliland spun in tandem with Wallace while the two other drivers involved in the mix – John Wes Townley and Kevin Hamlin – escaped basically unscathed.
A fuming Wallace was later seen slamming his helmet on the ground.
“I believe I just got crashed,” he said.
He had plenty of company in that category.
The next accident involved six drivers, including early leader Matt Kenseth and Joey Logano, winner of the two previous Nationwide races. The crash started when Jason Leffler got loose in Turn 1 and collected Erik Darnell.
Logano and Kenseth were running behind Leffler and Darnell after getting the wave-around when the caution flag waved in the middle of a cycle of green-flag pit stops.
“You knew it was going to be exciting,” said Kenseth. “We just kind of got collected up in the mess.”
Most of the mess was well behind Busch and his lightning-fast ride.
“It was a freight train for sure,” he said.
