Catchfence

M&M’s Driver Earns No. 1 Seed in Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup

Date: Sept. 10, 2011
Event: Wonderful Pistachios 400 (Round 26 of 36)
Series: NASCAR Sprint Cup Series
Location: Richmond (Va.) International Raceway (.75-mile oval)
Start/Finish: 13^th/6^th (Running, completed 400 of 400 laps)
Winner: Kevin Harvick of Richard Childress Racing (Chevrolet)

Kyle Busch finished a solid sixth in Saturday night’s Wonderful Pistachios 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Richmond (Va.) International Raceway.

It was his 16^th top-10 finish of 2011 and his 12^th top-10 in 14 career Sprint Cup starts at Richmond. More importantly, it earned Busch the top seed in the 12-driver Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. Richmond marked the last race of the regular season, as the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup now begins. This marks Busch’s fifth appearance in the Chase. He finished a career-best fifth in 2007.

“It’s been a good 26 weeks and we’ve certainly built off some pretty good consistency,” Busch said, “but we’ve got to make sure that we can keep that going and be able to do it in the next 10 weeks.”

Busch, whose Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) car sported an American flag paint scheme sans sponsor logos to pay tribute to 9/11, started 13^th and was third on lap 69 when a loose right-front wheel caused him to make an unscheduled pit stop under green.

Having to pit under green dropped Busch to 33^rd in the 43-car field, one lap behind the leaders, but he didn’t stay there long. His Toyota Camry rocketed up the leaderboard and he nearly gained his lap back unassisted before a caution on lap 116 earned him lead-lap status via the lucky dog rule, which gives the first car one lap down the opportunity to get back on the lead lap.

He restarted 28^th and drove his way to the top-10 by lap 220. Unfortunately, while he was on pit road on lap 245, the caution came out, and when all the pit stops for the lead-lap cars cycled out, he was forced to restart 22^nd on lap 253.

Once again he drove his way to the front and cracked the top-10 on lap 295 and remained there the rest of the race. He would reach as high as third before settling for a hard-earned sixth-place result.

“It was just a hard-fought battle tonight and, certainly, we had to battle through more adversity than we would have liked to, but that’s what’s going to make us better, “Busch said. “That’s what’s going to make us stronger, so I can’t say enough about all these guys on the 9/11 tribute car tonight and to everyone at M&M’s for their support. It was fun to drive that thing and I wish we could’ve got a little bit better there.

“It seemed like the middle part of the race we were trying to free the car up and make it where it would roll the bottom (of the corner). And then we went back the other way and started tightening it up and got a little bit better, but there at the end those front two guys (eventual winner Kevin Harvick and second-place Carl Edwards) were just flawless. They were flying and we couldn’t keep up with them.”

Busch’s JGR teammates – Denny Hamlin, driver of the No. 11 Toyota Camry, and Joey Logano, driver of the No. 20 Toyota Camry – finished ninth and 35^th, respectively. Logano’s car suffered an engine problem and he was only able to complete 296 of the race’s 400 laps.

Hamlin’s 10^th top-10 result of 2011 and his eighth in 12 career Sprint Cup starts at the .75-mile oval was good enough to put him in the 12-driver Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup, as he leaves Richmond 12^th in the standings. The top-10 drivers in the standings after Richmond were admitted to the Chase, while Hamlin and Brad Keselowski were added via the two “wild card” slots which put the two drivers with the most wins between 11^th and 20^th in the standings in the 11^th and 12^th Chase spots.

Keselowski’s three wins gave him the 11^th spot, while Hamlin’s victory in June at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn coupled with him being the highest-placed driver with one win between 11^th and 20^th in the standings earned him the 12^th and final spot.

Busch, who is seeded first in the standings, clinched his Chase spot in August following his victory at Michigan. Logano did not make the Chase and is 22^nd in points.

Harvick’s win in the Wonderful Pistachios 400 was his 18^th career Sprint Cup victory, his fourth of the season and his second at Richmond.

Edwards finished .139 of a second behind Harvick in the runner-up spot, while Jeff Gordon, David Ragan and Kurt Busch rounded out the top-five. Kyle Busch, Tony Stewart, Ryan Newman, Hamlin and Mark Martin comprised the remainder of the top-10.

There were 15 caution periods for 85 laps, with nine drivers failing to finish the 400-lap race.

Richmond marked the last race of the regular season, as the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup now begins. This is Busch’s fifth appearance in the Chase and he finished a career-best fifth in 2007. Hamlin will be making his sixth Chase appearance and he finished a career-best second last season.

NASCAR recalibrated the points for the 12 drivers as soon as the Richmond race was over, with each driver getting 2,000 points. With the exception of the wild-card entrants of Keselowski and Hamlin, drivers also received three bonus points for each of their respective wins during the 26-race regular season. For drivers starting the Chase with identical point totals, their seed was determined by the traditional tiebreaker of best finishes beyond race victories.

Ranked in order of where their bonus points seeded them, the drivers competing for this year’s championship are:

1. Kyle Busch (2,012 points)

2. Kevin Harvick (2,012 points)

3. Jeff Gordon (2,009 points, -3)

4. Matt Kenseth (2,006 points -6)

5. Carl Edwards (2,003 points, -9)

6. Jimmie Johnson (2,003 points, -9)

7. Kurt Busch (2,003 points, -9)

8. Ryan Newman (2,003 points, -9)

9. Tony Stewart (2,000 points, -12)

10. Dale Earnhardt Jr. (2,000 points, -12)

11. Brad Keselowski (2,000 points, -12)

12. Denny Hamlin (2,000 points, -12)

The next event on the Sprint Cup schedule – the first race of the 10-race Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup – is the Sept. 18 Geico 400 at Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet, Ill. The race begins at 2 p.m. EDT with live coverage provided by ESPN beginning with a pre-race show at 1 p.m.

- True Speed Communications for Joe Gibbs Racing, Press Release