Kyle Busch won his fifth race of the 2010 season in Saturday’s NASCAR Camping World Truck Series (NCWTS) at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
Busch started from the pole and led eight times for 156 (of 175) laps to earn his 21st series victory and 15th in a Toyota. This win also marked the 12th NCWTS trip to victory lane for a Tundra in 19 races this year.
Tundra drivers have now won six straight races this season — the most for Toyota since entering the series in 2004. In addition to Busch’s New Hampshire triumph, he also won at Bristol (Aug. 18) and Chicagoland (Aug. 27) and Todd Bodine was victorious at Nashville (Aug. 7), Darlington (Aug.14) and Kentucky (Sept. 3). Timothy Peters (sixth), Aric Almirola (eighth) and Bodine (ninth) also scored top-10 results for Toyota at the one-mile race track. Tundra drivers Justin Lofton (11th), Donny Lia (12th), Mike Skinner (13th) and David Starr (15th) were also in the field.
Bodine continues to lead the unofficial NCWTS standings following New Hampshire, leading Almirola by 257 points. Peters (fourth), Skinner (eighth) and Starr (ninth) are also in the top-10 in points after 19 of 25 races.
KYLE BUSCH, No. 18 Toyota Tundra, Kyle Busch Motorsports Finishing Position: 1st How exciting of a finish was this win for you? “It was man, it was a close race. Myself and (Kevin) Harvick just battled it out all day long. I can tell you what, it’s nice to have a comfortable seat in the SFI Butler seat was comfortable today and going to have the same thing for tomorrow, so that’s good. I can’t thank these guys and this team enough. All they want to do is come out and win races and that’s what we’re doing. I’m so proud to have guys like Eric Phillips (crew chief) and Rick Ren (KBM competition director and general manager) and all the guys that work so hard on this team. They do such a great job and they gave me a good piece today. I tried messing it up, I couldn’t go for the first 20 laps or so and then after that we could run away. It took that long just to get going. I knew if we were going to have a race with late cautions, it was going to be a pain in the butt. I can’t thank Toyota enough and Traxxas, Flexco, NOS Energy Drink, Marquis Jets, Electric Sunglasses and Gillette — I have a lot of people that have been on here this thing all year long and it’s worth it for them. Hopefully we can get somebody to come on for next year, even if we have to peace it together, it would be nice to come back and return and have someone drive this piece again and be able to race it with me. Thank Camping World and also the fans, it was cool today.” Did you think James Buescher or Kevin Harvick had anything for you at the end of the race? “I just had to get going. It was like once I got going after 20 laps I could run away from those guys but my stuff wouldn’t come in, it was more of a long run truck. We’ve been working on trying to get our stuff to go a little bit more in the beginning of these races and we haven’t quite found it yet. We’ll continue to work. It’s nice to get to victory lane.” How hard did you hit the wall on the final restart? “On the restart before that, I kind of got washed up into the marbles and stuff. Unfortunately I got back there, behind the 31 (James Buescher). On that last restart, I knew I needed to have a good run through (turns) one and two. If I didn’t clear him off of (turn) two, he was going to run all the way down the back straightaway and side draft me and get back alongside of me and get me loose in (turn) three. I knew I had to clear him regardless of what was going to happen, I had to clear him. I tried rubbing off on him and he was still there a little bit and it turned me in the wall. It was a hard hit, it knocked my helmet crooked. I wasn’t sure what I had getting down into turn three but those guys got to racing back there and the truck felt fine through three and four. I was surprised really that it felt the way it did and we were just able to mosey around for the next couple laps and bring it home. I was glad that it was okay enough to drive. I’m sure after 30 laps or so it would get tight because it knocked the fender in pretty bad. Overall it wasn’t that bad, but you have to do what you have to do in order to win the races coming down towards the end and the last restart on a green-white-checker, you got to go.”
ERIC PHILLIPS, crew chief, No. 18 Toyota Tundra, Kyle Busch Motorsports What was your view of Saturday’s race from the pit box? “The pit crew did a good job. The first stop was flawless, we beat Kevin (Harvick) out of the pits pretty easily. The second stop, we knew we had to make our truck better and made the decision to make a track bar adjustment and it probably hurt us a little bit on our pit stop. Kyle (Busch) behind the wheel got back in front on that restart and it was an important part of their day.”
TIMOTHY PETERS, No. 17 Toyota Tundra, Red Horse Racing Finishing Position: 6th Are you happy with a finish like this at New Hampshire? “Our Tundra was good all week long. We knew the truck would be better than I would be. I’ve struggled here the past two years. That was a good test for us getting me better acclimated to the track. I learned a lot about the track and the way it drives and it changes during the race. We kept up with the changes on the truck. Jeff Hensley (crew chief) and these guys did a great job on the calls. I was a little upset about that last restart, but all in all, it was my best finish here so we’ll take it to Vegas and see what we can do.”
What happened on the last restart? “I had position on the 33 (Ron Hornaday Jr.), he drove me up the track. I was trying my best to pass him clean and got loose going into (turn) three and took him out. It was just good, tough racing.”
ARIC ALMIROLA, No. 51 Zyclara/Graceway Pharmaceuticals Toyota Tundra, Billy Ballew Motorsports
Finishing Position: 8th TODD BODINE, No. 30 Germain.com Toyota Tundra, Germain Racing
Finishing Position: 9th How was your race? “It was terrible, we just missed the setup. We were way tight all day. The track was nothing like it was in practice and we just missed it. We fought it and fought it and didn’t gain on them.”
JUSTIN LOFTON, No. 7 VisitPit.com Toyota Tundra, Red Horse Racing
Finishing Position: 11th Were you able to learn anything from today’s race? “The VisitPit.com Toyota Tundra, we kind of missed it today, missed it all weekend actually. It was a frustrating weekend but we still came out with a halfway decent finish – 11th wasn’t bad for us. Really what our truck was all weekend, we’re pretty happy there. We’ll go back and do our homework for Martinsville and Phoenix, the other couple flat tracks we have coming up and hopefully we can get a couple more top-fives, top-10s before the season ends.”
DONNY LIA, No. 90 Toyota Tundra, Stringer Motorsports Finishing Position: 12th
MIKE SKINNER, No. 5 EXIDE/International Toyota Tundra, Randy Moss Motorsports Finishing Position: 13th
DAVID STARR, No. 81 Toyota Tundra, Green Light Racing Finishing Position: 15th
