NASCAR XFINITY Series (NXS)
Atlanta Motor Speedway
Race 2 of 33 – 251 miles, 163 laps
Saturday, March 4, 2017
TOYOTA FINISHING POSITIONS**
1st, KYLE BUSCH
2nd, Brad Keselowski*
3rd, Kyle Larson*
4th, Kevin Harvick*
5th, Elliott Sadler*
12th, MATT TIFFT
16th, COREY LaJOIE
20th, DENNY HAMLIN
21st, DAKODA ARMSTRONG
33rd, TIMMY HILL
36th, JJ YELEY
*non-Toyota driver
** Unofficial finishing positions
TOYOTA DRIVER POINT STANDINGS**
1st, Elliott Sadler* 70 points*
5th, MATT TIFFT 56 points
6th, DAKODA ARMSTRONG 47 points
16th, SCOTT LAGASSE JR 31 points
21st, BRANDON HIGHTOWER 24 points
27th, JJ YELEY 14 points
30th, BENNY GORDON 10 points
33rd, TIMMY HILL 4 points
*non-Toyota driver
**unofficial point standings
• Camry driver Kyle Busch was victorious in the NASCAR XFINITY Series (NXS) at Atlanta Motor Speedway on Saturday afternoon.
• Busch led the field twice for 26 laps (of 163) en route to his 87th-career NXS victory – adding to his series record for wins.
• The victory is Busch’s second-consecutive NXS triumph at Atlanta following his 2016 win at the track.
• The victory is the first win for Toyota in the 2017 NASCAR season.
TOYOTA QUOTES
KYLE BUSCH, No. 18 NOS ENERGY Drink Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 1st
Was this win an example of hard work?
“Yeah it was. We weren’t great early on. We weren’t great through the middle and Scott Graves (crew chief) and these guys, they worked on this car all day long. Really brought the NOS ENERGY Drink Toyota to life there at the end. Pretty proud to put ourselves in Victory Lane here once again. Two years in a row. It took me so long to get here to begin with and now we won two in a row. That feels really good. Can’t say enough about Toyota, TRD and everybody that works so hard. Everybody at Joe Gibbs Racing. All these guys on this team. Of course, XFINITY. Their XFINITY Stream App. That’s pretty cool to have. I love watching that thing all over my cell phone. And then of course too, Cessna. We appreciate them. DBX, the race fans, Incredible Bank. What else can I say? We just keep knocking them out of the park here in the XFINITY Series. But we love it and we wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.
How does it feel to get him to Victory Lane?
“It was. Thanks. It certainly means a lot to get him to Victory Lane – to get this group of guys to Victory Lane. They just won a championship. They’re fresh off of that so certainly they want to get back to Victory Lane any chance they can get. And we got ten chances here this year with me. Looking forward to that opportunity. If anybody wants to put a bounty out there and I’ll go race for it. I’m one for one right now. Maybe I can get an extra million if I win all ten. I don’t know.”
What adjustments did you make during the race?
“We just kept working on it you know. It wasn’t perfect at the beginning but rarely are they. We just kept trying to make it better and better and this NOS ENERGY Drink Camry was awesome there at the end. It really came to life. We just kept having to get rear grip in the car, but also up front. We were just kind of lacking a little bit overall most of the day, but we kept making it better, kept doing the right changes and got it to where we needed it there at the end for that final run. Can’t say enough about my pit crew. These guys did awesome getting me off pit road first for that final run.”
What was going on there on the outside line there at the end? Was it you, the car or something with the track?
“It must be me. There was a couple of other guys that did a way better job at it than I did here today. Unfortunately, I just haven’t been able to figure it out, but man once we got going we were pretty good. It means a lot to get these guys to Victory Lane. This group, they’re fresh off a championship last year with Suárez, so they’re used to winning. But we want to make sure we keep them winning and in Victory Lane. Hopefully we can go ten for ten. We’re one for one right now. Let’s keep it going.”
SCOTT GRAVES, crew chief, No. 18 NOS ENERGY Drink Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
What was it like getting ready for this race?
“I know we were all a little anxious to get out here and see what it was going to be like obviously with practice being the first time we had seen this package for us the other day. A lot of hours spent in the off-season thinking about, working through some different scenarios – if it’s going to be this then we need to work on this direction – so we had a lot of things planned out. Luckily, when we started off, it actually wasn’t too far off, so engineers on the team, everyone at Joe Gibbs Racing, all the guys worked really hard to get it that way, so really fortunate the way we started off.”
How is Kyle Busch different from the other drivers you’ve worked with?
“Yeah, it’s just the experience level. I mean, obviously he (Kyle Busch) can guide you a lot more throughout practice. The younger guys, it’s more of a mentoring – you spend a lot of time talking about, ‘Here the car’s here. We think this is what it’s going to do during the race and how we need to have it feel at the end of practice.’ Kyle obviously has a lot of that built in. When he comes into it, he knows what he wants, so from that point it’s a big help really and I can take some of my ideas and we try them and then he’ll have ideas and we’ll try them, so it’s definitely a lot different from what I’ve had, but really looking forward to more races.”
