“What Slump?” Busch Wins at the Glen.
By: Drew Hierwarter
You can tell when a race driver is having a good year when he goes just two races without winning or running in the top ten and the media starts calling it a slump. After winning three out of four starts and seven races overall, Kyle Busch finished 15th at Indianapolis and 36th at Pocono and some were saying that his “dream season” was over. They were ready to just write him off. Then the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series came to the road course in Watkins Glen, NY this past weekend and, as he had done many times already this season, Kyle Busch dominated.
On Friday, qualifying was rained out and the starting field was set by points, giving point leader Busch the pole. Then on Sunday he led 52 of the race’s 90 laps and came home an easy winner over Tony Stewart (who had also led), and Nationwide Series regular Marcos Ambrose who was making only his third start in the Sprint Cup Series.
The race went relatively incident free, with only two full course caution periods for debris on the track and one for the stalled car of Ryan Newman. But then it was halted by a red flag with just nine laps to go due to a vicious multi-car crash that happened coming out of turn 11. David Gilliland must have thought he was driving an all white car and was mistaken for a cue ball as he took three separate and very hard hits that completely destroyed his race car. The cars of Bobby Labonte and Sam Hornish, Jr. also suffered severe damage in the wreck. A total of eight cars were damaged or destroyed but fortunately nobody was hurt and that’s a testament to the safety that has been built into NASCAR’s new car. Bobby Labonte was transported to a local hospital but, once there, he was examined and released with no injuries.
On the restart, Kyle Busch simply drove away from the field and won by a margin of 2.27 seconds over Stewart.
“I’m sorry, what slump?” Busch said on his radio after crossing the finish line. “They can keep trying to play these mind games. We’ll just keep winning.” Crew chief Steve Addington had a similar comment, telling reporters; “I can’t believe it, we don’t win a race in three or four weeks, and we’re in a bad slump?”
Kyle Busch has swept both Sprint Cup road races in 2008, he won the Nationwide series race on the road course in Mexico City, and he finished second to Marcos Ambrose in the Nationwide Series on Saturday. He now has eight wins on the year and is the first driver to win three NASCAR road races in a single season. That’s some slump!
And speaking of Saturday’s Nationwide Series race at Watkins Glen, the feel good story of the weekend had to be Marcos Ambrose. After two seasons, and 59 races in the Nationwide Series without a win, the popular Australian finally got to go to the winner’s circle. Several times this year Marcos has had the car to win and bad luck, and/or bad moves by others drivers have snatched victory from his grasp. But the always cheerful, always optimistic Ambrose would just smile and say his time was coming. And on Saturday, finally, it was his turn to take advantage of somebody else’s bad luck as Jimmy Johnson’s car ran out of gas on the last lap.
In Sunday’s Sprint Cup race, driving the Wood Brothers famous number 21, Ambrose raced to a brilliant third place from the 43rd staring position. Giving the Woods their best finish in nearly three years when Ricky Rudd finished fourth at Bristol.
As if that wasn’t enough to make his weekend bright, Ambrose announced that he will be driving full time in the Sprint Cup Series for JTG Racing next year. Not all the details have been worked out yet but it is great news for Ambrose and couldn’t happen to a more deserving guy.