Kyle Busch, driver of the #18 M&M’s Toyota, takes the checkered flag to win the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Cheez-It 355 at The Glen at Watkins Glen International on August 11, 2013
Photo – Jared C. Tilton/Getty Image
Kyle ‘Rowdy’ Busch found redemption this weekend by convincingly taking the checkered flag to win the Cheez-it 355 at The Glen.
Having surrendered the lead late in the last two NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races at Watkins Glen International, Busch reversed the trend Sunday by winning the at the 2.45-mile road course by .486 seconds over runner-up Brad Keselowski.
On the other side of the spectrum, is last year’s winner Marcos Ambrose, whose day wasn’t what he and his team had planned. Ambrose had the race in hand, having led 51 of the first 61 laps, until an untimely caution in the middle of a pit stop cycle dropped him back to 12th for a restart on lap 64 of 90. Busch grabbed the lead when Ambrose came to pit road under yellow on lap 62 and held it the rest of the way.
Already feeling denied, a wreck on lap 85 officially ended Ambrose’s bid for a third straight win at the Glen.
Martin Truex Jr. finished third, followed by Carl Edwards and Juan Pablo Montoya. Clint Bowyer, Joey Logano, Jimmie Johnson, Kurt Busch and AJ Allmendinger to complete the top-ten.
Kyle Busch, who was already on pit road when the fifth caution changed the race on lap 60, nevertheless had to survive a succession of restarts in the last 15 laps before edging Keselowski for the victory in a two-lap shootout. Busch collected his third win of the season, his second at The Glen and the 27th of his career–but nothing about it was easy.
And he’s thankful to Keselowski for resisting the temptation to move him out-of-the-way in the last two corners.
“It was just run as hard as you can, drive your car, try not to worry about what’s behind, whatever happens, happens–we’ll deal with it,” Busch said. “I commend Brad for doing a better job this year at bringing home a cleaner race.
“I felt we ran really hard there those last couple laps. I couldn’t get away from him. My car wouldn’t turn through the corners as well as I needed it to. I just couldn’t get the front tires to bite, and so he could catch me through the corners. But in the braking zones and exiting the corners, I felt like I was really strong and could get away from him.”
Last year, Keselowski spun Busch in turn three with fewer than two laps left, as the cars slid on a glaze of oil. This race was a completely different matter, Keselowski said.
“I could have dumped Kyle and won the race,” said the defending Cup champion, who climbed to eighth in the series standings on the strength of the runner-up finish. “That stuff goes back and forth, and I’m sure someone in the tabloid side of the media will make a big deal about that, but it won’t be me, because I know I did the right thing…
“It doesn’t mean there isn’t temptation, but there’s a level of respect and a code of honor that you have to have as a man.”
Misfortune arrived at the track when Aric Almirola’s Ford nosed into a tire barrier after a blowing a tire on lap 60 to cause a caution that interrupted a cycle of pit stops and knocked Ambrose out of the lead. Kyle Busch, Keselowski, Martin Truex Jr., Clint Bowyer and Kurt Busch had already made their last stops, and that quintet led the field to green on lap 64.
In fact, Dave Rogers, Kyle Busch’s crew chief, credited his race engineers with the call to bring the driver of the No. 18 Toyota to pit road on lap 59 before NASCAR threw the yellow for Almirola’s incident.
“We weren’t sure exactly where we were fuel-mileage-wise, so we were going to push to lap 60, and I’ve actually got to give credit to my two engineers,” Rogers said. “They got talking, and they saw some people sliding around. Steve Hoegler, one of the engineers, said ‘There’s fluid on the track; you’d better get him in.’
“So it was a last-minute call to get Kyle on pit road, and the next thing you know, there was a caution, so it worked out great.”
With Ambrose no longer a threat, Busch pulled away to a lead of more than two seconds before caution for debris slowed the field for the sixth time on lap 77. The race restarted on lap 81, with Busch, Keselowski, Truex and Bowyer in the top four spots.
Busch’s work, however, was far from over. After the restart, a wild wreck involving Matt Kenseth, Kasey Kahne and Dale Earnhardt Jr. brought out the seventh caution and required yet another restart on lap 85.
Contact between Max Papis’ Chevrolet and Ambrose’s Ford ignited an accident on the restart lap, with Brian Vickers’ No. 55 Toyota also collected in the mêlée. Forced to lead the field to green for the third time in 15 laps, Busch got away on the restart and held off Keselowski in a battle that intensified throughout their last circuit.
Amazingly, the fluctuating fortunes of Jeff Gordon hit another low point at The Glen. Gordon pulled up behind Denny Hamlin’s Toyota as the cars climbed through the esses on lap 14. Gordon’s Chevy twitched left into the turn four guard rail, slid across the track and nosed into the barrier on the opposite side.
The four-time Cup champion lost 23 laps in the garage as the team repaired his car. Though Gordon returned to the track on lap 37, he finished 36th, falling out of the top-ten in the series standings.
There was no suspense around Jimmie Johnson’s quest to make the Chase for his tenth consecutive season, but it is worthy to note, the series leader clinched at least a wild-card spot in the Chase with his eighth-place finish.
With Tony Stewart watching the race versus being in the race because of his injuries from a Sprint car accident, his replacement Max Papis finished 15th, keeping the No. 14 Chevrolet in the second provisional wild-card spot for the owners’ Chase.
Next up is Michigan International Speedway, marking only four more races before the Chase officially begins in September. Tune in to ESPN on Sunday, August 18 at 1pm ET to catch all the action.
