Penske Racing's Kurt Busch continues recent surge in performances with strong Phoenix run

By SceneDaily Staff

Sunday, November 15, 2009

Penske Racing's Kurt Busch finished sixth in Sunday's NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Phoenix International Raceway.

David Griffin
NASCAR Scene

RSS Feed
Email to a Friend
Increase Text Size Decrease Text Size RESIZE
Share
- Facebook
- Del.icio.us
- DIGG This
- Reddit
- Newsvine
- Stumbeupon
3 Comments

Hendrick Motorsports' Jeff Gordon effectively eliminated from championship race

Mark Martin runs well at Phoenix, but loses ground in championship race

Joe Gibbs Racing's Denny Hamlin third in NASCAR Cup race at Phoenix … again

Jeff Burton rebounds from poor qualifying effort to finish second at Phoenix

Richard Childress Racing's Clint Bowyer showing familiar form in recent races

Earnhardt Ganassi's Martin Truex Jr. notches first top-five of 2009 at Phoenix

AVONDALE, Ariz. – Fresh off a win one week earlier at Texas Motor Speedway, Kurt Busch continued his recent string of strong performances with a sixth-place finish in Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Checker O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 at Phoenix International Raceway.

The outcome didn't match how well Busch ran earlier in the race, though.

Starting second, the Penske Racing driver took the lead from polesitter Martin Truex Jr. on the race’s opening lap and went on to pace the field three times for a total of 69 laps.

But as the race wore on and the sun began going down, the handling on Busch’s Dodge began to go away, and the Las Vegas native was no match for race-winner Jimmie Johnson and several other frontrunners.

“It was a good day, just not quite good enough,” crew chief Pat Tryson said. “We started out good, but as the track rubbered up, we weren’t quite as good as we needed to be. All in all, it was a good day.

“We would have liked it to have been a little better.”

Still, it was a solid outing for the 2004 series champion as he remained fourth in NASCAR’s Chase For The Sprint Cup and closed to within 42 points of third-place Jeff Gordon, who finished ninth.

“We had a great car in the beginning, a good feel, but lost the handle,” said Busch, who notched his sixth top-10 in nine Chase races. “A tough day for the [team]. We wanted to be right up there in the mix going for the win. Sixth place, we’ll take it. Last week was a win. We’re gaining points and we’re still doing a good job. Gordon is within distance going into Homestead for third place overall.”

Busch is already looking forward to next Sunday’s season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway, where his team will resurrect the car that just went to victory lane at Texas.

Busch would especially like to finish the season with a win since next weekend will mark his last race with Tryson, who is leaving to join Truex at Michael Waltrip Racing in 2010.

“We’re bringing back ‘Patriot,’ the car we won with at Texas,” Busch said. “It’s a great car. Our team has an upbeat feel.

“We’ve had a long year. We’ve had a successful year.”

RSS Feed
Email to a Friend
Increase Text Size Decrease Text Size RESIZE
Share
- Facebook
- Del.icio.us
- DIGG This
- Reddit
- Newsvine
- Stumbeupon
3 Comments

Comments

3 responses to "Penske Racing's Kurt Busch continues recent surge in performances with strong Phoenix run". Post a Comment.

1

jeff-waybright said:
Nov 16, 2009 at 12:35 PM
Kurt's the only driver on the circuit right now that seems like he can race with Jimmie.
2

galvan18244 said:
Nov 16, 2009 at 4:18 PM
Kurt has shown dodge dosnt suck, everyone has put down dodge and told penske to get out of dodge, seems to me that kurt can race with jimmie and everyone else with that dodge!!

:)
3

xbrownsx said:
Nov 17, 2009 at 8:57 AM
While a championship is out of the question in 2009, Kurt will be a contender in 2010. Go get 'em Kurt, at Daytona in February.
Petty should have aligned RPM with Penske, and continued with DODGE. RPM is clueless, so let them fail in a Ford, no Chase for Kasey in 2010. He'll be gone the second his contract is up, anyway.
GO #2, #12 #77 Penske DODGE in 2010!