[media-credit name=”Brad Keppel” align=”alignright” width=”246″]
[/media-credit]With every lap and every race Kyle Busch runs at the Charlotte Motor Speedway, it becomes one of his better racetracks.
Good news if Busch plans to contend for the championship since Charlotte is not only in the Chase but several other mile-and-a-half tracks are as well. Busch and his No. 18 M&M’s team continue to improve their program and Sunday night was another step in the right direction.
After leading 55 laps and spending nearly all 400 laps in the top-10, Busch came home with a third place finish. In the last two Charlotte races Busch hasn’t finished worse than third and has led 166 laps. His last nine races are even more impressive: besides a wreck in the Coke 600 last year, Busch hasn’t finished worse than eighth and has four third place finishes.
The only thing missing is a win.
“Man, I want to win at Charlotte so bad,” said Busch when asked about it. “This stinks – second, third, fourth every single time here. It’s a little frustrating being able to finish in the top five like that all the time when you are that close.
“It’s also good to finish like that. We just need to carry on that momentum. This a good race for us so we can bring back some good notes for when we come back in October.”
The finish marks the 10th time Busch has finished in the top-10 in his 17 starts at Charlotte. But for all the success that he’s earned there with wins in the Camping World Truck Series (4) and the Nationwide Series (6), it hasn’t carried over – yet.
He and his team though did many things right during the Coca-Cola 600. His car was one of the few that stayed fast during day and into the dark night, not fading off and needing many adjustments.
After starting 21st he quickly found a comfortable spot in the top-10 and the only concern for the team was keeping up with the changing track conditions. Every time he came to the attention of his crew on pit road they never flinched and quickly got him back out onto the track.
With the race going into long green flag runs, that certainly helped. At times it appeared his car was better on shorter runs before losing positions the longer a run went on. According to Busch though, a driver could then search around on track and make a line work where others weren’t.
“It took so long for the cars to slow down to a certain point that then you could make speed up on the top side,” Busch said. “I could do that but it just took so long in the run to get to that point. If you went up there too early, you’d lose spots.
“I did that a couple times today. It’s 600 miles here. It’s the Coke 600 – that’s what you get.”
The finish moves Busch to eighth in points and while he would certainly like to win, he knows getting locked in the Chase is a priority. The way the month of May has been going, he’s hasn’t finished outside the top four, Busch is putting up a strong fight for a Chase spot.
It’s a good change for a team who found themselves behind when the season started. Not performing to standard and leaving many questioning if something was wrong. Now they’ve moved from 16th to the top-10 in points.
Busch loves what he sees from behind the wheel. His team is getting stronger, the cars are getting faster and they’re closing in on what they need to win.
“I think we’re good,” said Busch about his team. “We’re definitely a contender each and every week. We’re just not winners yet. I wish we knew what it was to get us to that point. There’s just a little bit of something lacking – whether it’s speed or whether it’s longevity in the runs.
“It seems like we can have one or the other and we have to put it all together. The guys did a great job – Denny [Hamlin] finishing second, we run third so that’s really good for us. We’ll move on and go to Dover and see what we can get there.”
