Kyle Busch, driver of the #54 Monster Energy Toyota, stands on the grid during qualifying for the NASCAR XFINITY Series Lilly Diabetes 250 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on July 25, 2015 Photo – Andy Lyons/Getty Images
Kyle Busch, continued his streak of excellence in the sport of NASCAR by winning the Lilly Diabetes 250 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Saturday afternoon. With a last lap pass on Team Penske driver Ryan Blaney, the win gave Busch his second win at Indianapolis in three years.
This victory came after overcoming multiple problems throughout the day. First issue was a communication problem resulting in not pitting at the beginning of the race. Busch was noticeably upset over the radio, forcing his team to use a different strategy which actually ended up playing in his favor.
“The caution flew about Lap 23, and pit road wasn’t open till about Lap 26,” noted crew chief Chris Gayle. “That then put us on a one stop strategy to where we could make it to the end even with the misunderstanding communication wise.”
Busch went on to lead 53 laps the rest of the day, collecting his second win and fourth top-ten of 2015.
Busch also battled the heat all day, noting that he…
‘melted inside the car, the whole race.’
Busch also mentioned that the car had no openings for air, which obviously did not help the heat situation. When asked, Busch talked about having NASCAR make a change that would make the air openings fair for everybody.
One of the ideas Busch suggested was for NASCAR to mandate an eight inch opening on the right side window that every team could use.
Battling through the obstacles, Busch was still able to overcome the odds of a pit road misunderstanding and excessive heat all day by ensuing a last lap pass for the lead.
“I just got close enough to make him (Blaney) mess up and he got tight off (turn) two and then I was able to capitalize underneath him losing his momentum off of two and being able to get under him,” said Busch. “Can’t say enough about Chris Gayle and all these guys on this Monster Energy Camry. It was the class of the field, we should have won this thing going away, but I guess we had to make it exciting.”
That pass came at the expense of 21-year-old Ryan Blaney.
“It’s my fault, obviously. You saw it. I screwed up,” Blaney said. “This team doesn’t deserve that. I dropped the ball for them today and I take full responsibility. It’s my fault.”
Blaney was able to beat Busch on the final restart of the race on lap 76 and maintain a lead through the next 24 laps with limited pressure from Busch.
“There was no pressure for 24 laps and the last one I just made a mistake,” said Blaney post race.
Being the competitor that he is, Blaney was tremendously hard on himself after race as he kept highlighting on his mistake time and time again. Many fans and drivers offered their support to Blaney after the race.
Although there were problems for Busch and his team, they overcame their issues to continue their amazing streak of excellence.