Kyle Busch rallies to finish fourth; J.D. Gibbs addresses potential 2010 changes
Joe Gibbs Racing's Kyle Busch finished fourth in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Tums Fast Relief 500 at Martinsville Speedway. // David Griffin, NASCAR Scene
MARTINSVILLE, Va. – Kyle Busch has been flying under the radar since missing NASCAR’s Chase For The Sprint Cup, but he certainly made his presence felt on Sunday at Martinsville Speedway.
Busch used a late call for two tires to rally to fourth and match his best career outcome at the .526-mile track.
“I’m real proud of the effort,” said the Joe Gibbs Racing driver, who netted his second consecutive top-10. “The guys had awesome pit stops all day. The guys worked hard. We made a lot of changes today. … Tires were the name of the game. We just seemed to be on the right strategy when we could come get tires and drive back through some guys. We had a good enough car to do that with.”
The handling of Busch’s car suffered during a lengthy green-flag run between the race’s 11th and 12th cautions and he eventually fell a lap down. But the team opted to pit under green before leader and teammate Denny Hamlin, hoping to gain back some of the time that it had lost. The strategy worked as Busch netted just his second top-10 finish in the last five races.
Busch got back on the lead lap and then later pitted for right-side tires with a host of others when a caution flag waved with 16 laps to go.
“That helped out a lot and just put us in the position to come get tires and make a run at those guys,” crew chief Steve Addington said.
Busch lined up eighth on the subsequent restart with 12 laps left and managed to pick off four positions despite the race being slowed once more for the wrecked car of Red Bull Racing's Scott Speed, which set up a green-white-checkered finish.
Busch said the decision by Addington to take tires “probably gained us about eight spots.”
The crew chief was equally pleased with his driver, who qualified 41st and methodically worked his way toward the front.
“Kyle was real patient at the beginning of the race – he picked his way through traffic – so just a real good job from everybody,” Addington said. “I appreciate everybody’s hard work this weekend on that car.”
Busch has four wins this season, but hasn't performed as well as the team did in 2008. That has led team owner J.D. Gibbs to consider changes for next season, though he didn't provide a definite answer after the race when asked to address the possibility of Addington being replaced.
“I think as a whole, I think, for Kyle just right now, a lot of it is just the confidence,” Gibbs said. “The reality is he's really gifted, and as far as the Addington crew piece, from our standpoint, we just want to make sure we have the right tools, the right people in the right place at JGR. We think we do; we think we have a great group of crew chiefs to engineers to guys on the shop floor across the whole board.
“So I think for us, our goal is to make sure we have those right pieces in the right parts, in the right places. That's kind of what we're looking at as far as in the future, but we do that every year with every team. So I think for us it was encouraging, and we're looking forward to hopefully keep the momentum going in the future.”
