NASCAR nation now takes two months off before returning on February 13, 2016 with the Sprint Unlimited at Daytona International Speedway.
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Team Penske teammates Logano and Keselowski were non-Chase for the Sprint Cup drivers who led laps. He easily did both. Right now, I am caught up in the moment, but it did show what we are made of and what got us here. I don’t think anyone could have dreamed of this year, to be able to go out there and perform the way we did is remarkable.
“In the past, he’d wear his emotions on his sleeve”, Gibbs said four days before Sunday’s race, while explaining his ace pilot’s old approach to problem solving. Defending series champion Kevin Harvick was second, with Busch fourth and Martin Truex Jr. seventh. Kyle Busch was soon looking for second and had the spot on lap 174; Harvick took third from Truex on lap 175.
Winning the race, however, only made Busch’s improbable accomplishment even more implausible.
“That’s a great comeback story from where he was after Daytona”. I said, ‘This is interesting. “I’d have loved to have won it, loved to have seen him go out with a championship, but we went out in the top four and not many guys do better than that”. “We fought hard and we fought back, and we finished sixth”. I have to thank everyone at Joe Gibbs Racing for the work they have put in, and Toyota, too. All the turmoil, all the things that I went through, that my wife went through, that my family went through. But as I spoke to him as he walked to a waiting golf cart, he wasn’t into reflecting on the past, his focus was still on the future and putting him and his team into position for another title, which of course, he did. “No way. So that I feel really good about, that I’m not going to miss”.
But here’s how his day started, with his mother, Carol, walking alongside his motor home parked at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
“It was just ideal, ” Gordon said.
“I was boo-hooing as loud as a person could boo-hoo”, he finally admitted.
Gordon’s competitors paid tribute to him in many ways through-out the day.
Jerry has been a Jeff Gordon fan since Gordon started racing midget car’s in IN in 1990’s. He smiled the entire way, often fist-pumping everyone within reach. The system has been tweaked several times and is in the second year of an elimination format that sends four drivers to Homestead to race for the title. The sport responded with a standing ovation in the drivers’ meeting and again during driver introductions.
Hendrick Motorsports team owner Rick Hendrick also paid his respects to Gordon – as did the crowd at Miami Homestead, who stood on their feet when he moved into the lead early on in the race and held up placards reading “Thank You Jeff”. Yeah he Salt Lake back through that and got us on the right track it and thankfully we have a lot of help from us. Harvick was fourth and restarted right behind Busch in the outside line. Busch got the jump in the first turn and easily cleared Keselowski.
Busch clinched the championship by winning the Ford 400, a race that from the start looked like Harvick’s to lose.
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“I don’t know if I quite understand life yet”, an emotional Busch said on the team radio, “but there’s something to be said about this year”. I mean, he wanted to know everything about the cars, the competition, the tires, the track, everything, my steering wheel.
