Somehow, he managed to find a way.
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After claiming two poles Saturday afternoon, Busch returned to the track and led all but one lap to win his second straight NASCAR Xfinity Series victory at the track by 0.415 seconds over hard-charging Kevin Harvick.
Yet, this was his weekend, and it probably will remain that way until someone can unseat him from his throne.
“I enjoyed moments”, he said. As far as the race, the 44-year-old Gordon had some typical Gordon moments on the track – he was never great on the double-file restarts.
Busch won after leading 149 of 170 laps, with an alternate strategy run by Brad Keselowski the only thing keeping him from leading the race outright all day long. He’ll start third, right behind pole victor Kyle Busch, after going 184.328 in qualifying. In the past, he had not performed well but now things have sort of clicked. “When we were up in 12 and Greg (Ives, crew chief) made an excellent call to come in a little early”.
The highlight for both came after the race. There’s gamesmanship that’s going to be played.
Those were the ingredients again in this year’s Brickyard recipe. The only action came late in the race with the seemingly never-ending cautions that led to disastrous restarts.
“The tire debacle back in 2008 soured a lot of people”, according to Lee, who referred to the issues that NASCAR had with Goodyear tires and the surface of the track that forced cars to pit during that race every 10 laps. That gave Busch’s competitors six chances to get by him, six chances for him to miss his mark and make a mistake.
“I didn’t want one (restart) let alone five of them, or however many there were”, he joked. Now I know more about who Tony Stewart really is.
Carl Edwards climbed into the second place about a third of the way into the race, and stood just a few seconds behind Busch for much of the middle portion of the race.
Stewart started third, had a couple of terrific restarts and was poised to make noise in the final laps until the speed police nabbed him.
“It really worked to our benefit”, he said.
“I can imagine if I would have. beaten one of those guys with the super fast cars [in the past] how they would have felt because I know how I would have felt here today”. There has been a litany of rules changes, aero packages and body configurations to NASCAR stock cars since the very first Brickyard 400. His brother Kurt, drove for Andretti in 2014 and while some have expressed interest that he come try his hand, he’s not sure if he’s ready to pull the trigger.
It is the fourth Sprint Cup victory this season for Busch, and his 38th career win.
Ryan Newman, a South Bend native, started sixth but finished 31st.
Stewart annonuced his retirement from NASCAR in September 2015 after the 2016 season ran its course. He looked great during restarts and even worked his way to as high as second early on in the race. Fought, got our lap back and we got something respectable out of it. Stewart faulted himself with the error but was able to get back onto the lead lap with 10 laps to go.
Gordon, a four-time Cup champion and five-time Brickyard 400 victor who retired after the 2015 season but was back at Indy subbing for injured Dale Earnhardt Jr., was not about to turn down Stewart’s invitation.
Though he is a member of the old guard and used to temperatures in the vehicle hotter than what he got on Sunday, Gordon had to battle the heat and said over the radio for his pit crew to dump water on him during a late pit stop.
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During the pre-race drivers” meeting, Indianapolis Motor Speedway President Doug Boles brought the room to laughter, formally recognizing Sunday as “Jeff’s second “last event.’ “at the track”.
