Kyle Busch: Riding the Wave

By:
On:
In: NASCAR Cup Series News

After his win at Saturday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, his second of the young season, Kyle Busch said he felt like he was “riding a wave right now that’s 30 feet tall and ready to keep riding.”

Even though the next race on the schedule occurs at land-locked Kansas Speedway in Kansas City, Busch will hope to continue riding that wave of momentum in Sunday’s STP 400.

Busch, driver of the No. 18 M&M’s Toyota Camry for Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR), is on quite a roll as of late, winning two of the seven Sprint Cup races contested so far and four of the six Nationwide Series races this season.

At Texas, Busch was victorious in his 300th career Sprint Cup start, and it was his first Sprint Cup win at Texas in 16 tries. On the heels of that long-awaited breakthrough, Busch will hope to make a similar turnaround at Kansas, a track where he’s struggled over the years. With an average finish of just 21.0 and just two top-10 finish in his previous 11 visits in a Sprint Cup car, Busch, crew chief Dave Rogers and the entire M&M’s team are focused on turning those numbers around.

Busch has won at 17 of the 23 tracks at which the Sprint Cup Series competes. The only six tracks Busch has failed to reach victory lane in the Sprint Cup Series are: Martinsville (Va.) Speedway, Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway, Pocono (Pa.) Raceway, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Homestead-Miami Speedway and Kansas – site of Sunday’s STP 400.

Despite the dry spell at Kansas in NASCAR’s top series, Busch has tasted success at Kansas in NASCAR’s second tier of competition – as is the case at most racetracks on the Nationwide Series schedule – with a victory in 2007, a runner-up finish in 2009, and a pair of third-place runs in 2006 and 2010. The best he has to show for his nine visits on the Sprint Cup side, however, is a seventh-place finish in 2006.

Busch and his M&M’S team will commemorate Earth Day during Sunday’s race, with Mars planting a tree in the Topeka area for every lap that Kyle leads during the STP 400. The initiative is part of NASCAR’s Race to Green program, which includes several fan-focused activities taking place in April to showcase sustainability efforts in the sport. The Topeka area will be home to a new Mars facility scheduled for completion in late 2013 and will manufacture M&M’S and SNICKERS Brand products.

So, as Busch heads to the Heartland of America this weekend, it’s going to be “surf’s up” at Kansas as he vies for that long-awaited first Sprint Cup win there.

TSC PR

Speedway Digest Staff
Follow Me
Latest posts by Speedway Digest Staff (see all)
Post Views: 53