Thursday, April 6, 2017

Kurt Busch using 30th-place Las Vegas chassis at Texas

Kurt Busch is 40/1 to win at Texas.
Chassis No. 993: Kurt Busch will pilot Chassis No. 993 in Sunday’s O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth. Built new for 2016, Chassis No. 993 debuted in May at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway, where Busch earned his seventh top-five finish in the annual nonpoints NASCAR All-Star Race. Chassis No. 993 saw its first points-paying laps of the 2016 season in the Ford 400 at Homestead-Miami Speedway in November, when Busch struggled with an ill-handling racecar and finished 13th. Since then, Chassis No. 993 was outfitted with a new front clip and body in preparation for the 2017 season. It made its first start at Las Vegas Motor Speedway last month, when Busch finished 30th after experiencing electrical issues that caused him to lose several laps under green-flag conditions.

Texas Motor Speedway Notes of Interest:

 Kurt Busch has career totals of 29 wins, 21 poles, 126 top-five finishes and 245 top-10s in 582 career Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series starts heading into Sunday’s O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth. His most recent NASCAR Cup Series win came in February at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway in the season-opening Daytona 500.

 Sunday’s O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 will mark Busch’s 29th career NASCAR Cup Series start at Texas. Busch has one pole, one win, three top-five finishes and 15 top-10s at the 1.5-mile oval. Additionally, the 38-year-old driver has led 295 laps, has an average starting position of 14.8, an average finish of 15.5, and has completed 98.3 percent (9,177 of 9,335) of the laps he’s contested there.

 Previous Win – Busch has one career NASCAR Cup Series win at Texas, which came in November 2009. It was his second victory that season and the 20th of his career and came by a nearly 26-second margin. Busch led six times for 89 laps.

 Busch has led laps in 12 of his 28 career Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series starts at Texas for a combined total of 295 laps led. Busch has led 50 or more laps in a race twice at Texas. In addition to his 89 laps led in the November 2009 win, he led 50 laps in April 2011 en route to a 10th-place finish.

 A Win in Other Series at Texas – In April 2006, Busch scored the victory in his first-ever NASCAR Xfinity Series start. He became the fifth driver to win the race in their first start in NASCAR’s second-tier series. He also earned the distinction of becoming the 16th driver to record a victory in all three of NASCAR’s top-tier series – NASCAR Cup Series, Xfinity and Camping World Truck.

 The Las Vegas native has one pole to his credit (April 2015) at Texas. Busch has 21 career NASCAR Cup Series poles.

 Thus Far in 2017 – Busch has accumulated one win, one top-five finish and two top-10s in six starts.

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