[media-credit name=”Todd Warshaw, Getty Images for NASCAR” align=”alignright” width=”300″]
[/media-credit]When the playoffs begin in most sports around the country it becomes win or go home situation. For Kyle Busch and his No. 18 M&M’s team at Joe Gibbs Racing, just getting to NASCAR’s version of the playoffs has that mentality.
Busch qualified second for Sunday’s event at Watkins Glen, the Finger Lakes 355 at The Glen. A rare dose of something good that has gone his way during what has been a rough last two months. After a win at Richmond in May, followed by four straight top five finishes, Busch entered June and suddenly slid off the map.
He’s been locked out of Victory Lane and plagued by anything that could go wrong. There were three straight weeks of engine failures, then four straight weeks of finishes 10th or worse. And just as quickly as Jeff Gordon became the poster child of bad luck and fighting for a Chase spot, Busch joined him there. It wasn’t until Indianapolis two weeks ago that he earned his first top five since May.
Only to hit the turn one wall last weekend in Pocono on lap 19 after a rear brake rotor disintegrated. He fell to 15th in points and out of a Wild Card position. Now with just five races remaining before the Chase starts, Busch and his team need more than a solid day on Sunday.
“I want to win here. This is the next one on the list and this is one I like to run well at,” he said on Saturday after qualifying. “I’ve won here before. I put it on my list every year to come here and try to compete and run up front and win this thing. That’s our goal tomorrow and that’s what we are set out to do.
“Hopefully we can achieve that and put the M&M’s Camry in Victory Lane. You do that and we’ll have that second win for the Wild Card and we’ll go on into the last four races and see if we can’t either keep ourselves in front of the 24 [Jeff Gordon] in points in case he does get a win, or maybe even get ourselves another win.”
While Busch has never been known as a road course ace, his performance the last few seasons has turned him into a contender. In 2008, his first season at JGR, he dominated and swept the road course races. And since his rookie year in 2005, Busch hasn’t finished worse than ninth at Watkins Glen and he’s led a total of 116 laps.
That includes last season in this race. He started on the pole and finished third after leading 49 laps. Except he had been leading on the final restart on lap 91 of 92 before he went off wide into turn one and was passed by eventual winner Marcos Ambrose and Brad Keselowski.
His success at road racing hasn’t come easy. Busch attributes it to both time behind the wheel and getting better at understanding the car. What he can and can’t do with it, how to finesse it, how hard he can throw it around the corners. Once he figured it out the results started to show and now he needs them more than ever. In order to lock himself in the Chase he needs a win or maybe two.
“To lock, three is a lock, but you can have two and just try to keep yourselves in front of the guys that do have one win in case they do get a win,” Busch feels. “Right now, us having one win, Jeff Gordon having one win – that’s who I feel like we’re racing. If we pass him back in points, obviously that will get us back in the Chase.
“He runs really, really well at Atlanta and he also runs good at Bristol, too. There’s an opportunity there for him to get another win, which would make it two. If he gets two and we’re in front of him in points with only one win, then he’s in and we’re out. If you have two, I think we’ll be okay.”
As things stand Busch and Gordon are fighting for the second WC spot. Gordon’s teammate Kasey Kahne currently holds the first spot because he has two wins in his back pocket. So Busch’s approach Sunday and beyond is simple and it’s one that depending on the outcome, will either make or break his season.
“It’s ‘win or bust,’ basically,” he said. “Finishing second or third or fourth isn’t going to get us anywhere.”
