Kyle Busch comes up short of fourth win in a row
LONG POND, Pa. – The Streak came to an end with a whimper, but the whimper was loud.
Kyle Busch, winner of three straight Sprint Cup races entering Sunday’s Windows 10 400 at Pocono Raceway, appeared to have everyone else covered for a fourth win in a row. Then came the final lap, the one Busch had called his own for three weeks and four of the past five.
Suddenly, instead of blitzing toward the checkered flag with the lead, Busch was wiggling his Toyota, trying to squeeze the final bits of gas from its fuel cell. He eventually sputtered to a stop short of the finish line and ignominiously needed a boost to get home.
Instead of first, he was 21st.
A mad mix of fuel strategies made the race finish uncertain at best and crazy at worst, and Busch and Joey Logano were the key victims, each running out of gas within a few miles of victory.
King of the hill for so long, Busch accepted the sour finish without angst.
“We got greedy,” Busch said. “I don’t know how greedy, but that was the position we were in. We went for broke today and came up a little short, but I can’t fault the team.”
Busch inherited the lead with three laps to go when Logano, who had led 97 laps, watched helplessly as his fuel pressure collapsed. Then, at the start of the last lap around the 2.5-mile track, Busch had a similar fate. He perhaps could have coasted to the finish at a shorter track, but Pocono’s long course made that impossible. Matt Kenseth took the lead and won.
Busch said after the race he knew his fuel load was approaching empty but that he wasn’t aware the level was critical.
“I didn’t know we were that close,” he said. “Normally, when we get that close I get harped on a lot to save. They were just telling me to save and not put too much pressure on the car. I wish I would have saved a little more that last run. And I wish I had known the 22 (Logano) was that far away from making it.
“We’re in the position we’re in for a reason, and it’s because of fast race cars. Today we could have made a few different choices there that last run and made it and won this thing again, but it just wasn’t to be.
“It’s a bummer, you know? You come that close, and all you needed was less than a Monster Energy can of gas and you would have made it to the end. … To get that name in the record books as a fourth in a row – it just wasn’t played [out].”
Said Logano: "You can only save so much, and the 18 (Busch) was doing the same thing. He had to push me, and I had to start saving a certain amount. He would catch me, and then I would pull away a little bit. We were playing cat-and-mouse out there."
Busch was trying to join Jimmie Johnson as the only driver to win four races in a row in the past 20 years. Johnson last did it in 2007.
A win would have completed Busch’s near-miraculous revival from serious injuries suffered at Daytona International Speedway in February to the sealing of a Chase for the Sprint Cup bid. Finishing first Sunday would have pushed him into the points top 30, the level he needs to reach to qualify for the Chase.
“We would be celebrating not just the win but getting into the top 30,” he said.
The good news for Busch, however, is that he gained in his top-30 quest and, with five races remaining in the regular season, is 32nd, only 13 points out of 30th, a relatively easy climb.
“Oh, we’re fine. We’ve got 13 spots and five races to do it,” he said.
Busch was credited with “running” at the finish of the race because he was still on the track at the finish, NASCAR said. He was scored as the first driver one lap down.
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