KYLE BUSCH Sweet 16
 HUNTERSVILLE, North Carolina (Oct. 29, 2020) – With Wednesday’s NASCAR Cup Series win at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, Kyle Busch celebrated a Sweet 16 of sorts following his first victory of 2020.
Sixteen of course is the number of consecutive seasons Busch has scored at least one or more victories, as the two-time Cup Series champion has now scored a win each season since entering NASCAR’s top series as a full-time competitor in 2005.
The Texas win also enabled Busch to join seven-time Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson, Ricky Rudd, and Rusty Wallace for the third-longest streak of consecutive years with at least one victory. With his streak still alive, Busch will look to extend it in 2021 in hopes of catching David Pearson, who is second on the list by scoring wins in 17 consecutive years from 1964 to 1980. Richard Petty holds the all-time record with 18 consecutive seasons with at least one victory from 1960 through 1977.
As the Cup Series heads to Martinsville (Va.) Speedway this weekend for the penultimate race on the 36-race schedule, Busch is hoping to keep the momentum from Texas going and also add a third Grandfather clock to his trophy case for winning a race at the paperclip-shaped half-mile oval in NASCAR’s top series.
Busch, driver of the No. 18 M&M’S Toyota Camry for Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR), heads to Martinsville for Sunday’s Xfinity 500 with a win in hand and to a track where he’s run as well as anywhere over his last 10 starts. Since the fall of 2015, Busch has racked up an impressive eight Martinsville top-10 finishes, including victories in April 2016 and October 2018.
Early in his 13-year tenure with JGR, however, this wasn’t always the case at Martinsville. In fact, Busch finished outside the top-10 in three of his first four Martinsville races with JGR in 2008 and 2009. While he scored four combined top-fives from 2010 to 2014, it wasn’t until 2015 that he found his stride at Martinsville.
The beginning of the recent success at Martinsville for Busch and the M&M’s team came with the Las Vegas native’s first career win there in April 2016. Not only did he bring home his first Martinsville clock, he did it in dominating fashion, leading five times for a race-high 352 laps en route to victory lane.
So as the season heads into the homestretch, Busch and the M&M’S team hope to take advantage of the confidence built from their win at Texas Wednesday night, as well as his strong runs at Martinsville since 2015. Since he’s already conquered the .526-mile short track in Southern Virginia twice in recent years, Busch hopes he can turn his Sweet 16 win into yet another traditional Grandfather clock at the end of Sunday’s 500-lap marathon.
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KYLE BUSCH, Driver of the No. 18 M&M'S Toyota Camry for Joe Gibbs Racing: |
What does the Texas win do mentally for you in these final weeks to wrap up the season?
“I told Coy (Gibbs) when I was on my way into victory lane, I said, ‘I’m done, I’m good for the year.’ I was joking, of course, but that’s how much relief it felt like it was. We got knocked out of the playoffs and, going through this Round of 8, typically there’s pressure. You know, you have the pressure, the pressure builds through every round, and the Round of 12 for me was like the Round of 8. I knew that we had to do everything right in order to make the Round of 8 being like our Final Four. But we obviously weren’t good enough. We weren’t able to capitalize and do what we needed to do. Now that you’re out, you pretty much have no pressure, you just go out there and you race and whatever happens is what happens. But when you’re able to run up front and run with those guys, you’ve still got to push hard, you’ve still got to do things right. M&M’s, Skittles, Interstate Batteries, Toyota, all those guys, they want to see us successful, they want to see us win, and it means a lot to be able to continue that winning tradition with the 18 and with Adam and all of our guys, everybody at Joe Gibbs Racing. They give full effort, man. There’s no quit. But it just hasn’t quite lined up for us this year.”
You have a little bit of momentum going into Martinsville. How do you focus now on such a quick turnaround?
“It’s a quick turnaround but, man, it’s way more stressful for the team guys than it is for the driver. I’m looking forward to it. I felt like, through the middle part of the race, once we got everything sorted out from the start of the race there in the first Martinsville, we were pretty good. We ran lap times comparable. We actually ran with the 19 (teammate Martin Truex Jr.) for much of a couple runs, and I was just trying to stay out of his way because he was on the lead lap. So I felt like we were as good as he was. He obviously won the race, so I feel like there’s a chance that, given, if we can make it through the first set of tires without going a lap down, then we’ll be OK, and I think we could have a shot to win there, too, with our M&M’S Camry.”
Now that you’ve got the monkey off your back, what is your outlook for the next two weeks and possibly getting another win before the year is out?
“Yeah, absolutely. That’s what we’re going to push for. We want to go to Martinsville and run up front, try to win that one, and same thing, go to Phoenix, let’s spoil the championship party and not see the champion have to be the winner.”
What’s unique about Martinsville that makes for good racing there?
“Typically you are off the throttle more than you are on the throttle at Martinsville, so your time is lost or made when you are off the gas. That lends itself to guys dive-bombing and making moves and being light on the brake and running into the back of guys or rooting them out of the bottom and getting them shuffled back. The more that track becomes a bottom feeder type racetrack and you can go and get a guy shuffled out, there’s no worry to you because he can’t get back in line. If he goes back five spots, then you have that cushion again. There are all kinds of different ways Martinsville has always put on really good and exciting racing.”
What is the key to you getting a win at Martinsville?
“It’s a tough racetrack and, any time you come in the pits and make an adjustment on your car, you certainly hope it goes the right way, or you make enough of it, or you don’t make too much of an adjustment. The last run can be tricky, too, because you can be coming off a 50-lap run on right-side tires and take four and you’ve only got 30 (laps) to go, or you could have 80 to go and you know you have to manage that run all the way to the end.” |
Almirola has earned three consecutive top-10 finishes at Texas and has led laps in each of those appearances. The 36-year-old has only finished outside of the top-10 once at Texas since joining SHR. Last November, Almirola led 62 laps and battled teammate Kevin Harvick for the win before earning a runner-up finish. It was his best finish at Texas and brought his average finish in the last three races there to 6.3.
KANNAPOLIS, North Carolina (Oct. 19, 2020) – Clint Bowyer might be one of the happiest men in NASCAR these days, but he does have a regret he wants to remedy Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth.
