BUSCH, BURTON SCORE TOP-10 FINISHES IN TOYOTA 200
Busch Earns Second Runner-Up Finish of the Week at Darlington Raceway
DARLINGTON, South Carolina (May 21, 2020) – Kyle Busch finished second to lead Toyota at the Toyota 200 at Darlington Raceway on Thursday afternoon.
Toyota Racing Post-Race Recap
NASCAR Xfinity Series (NXS)
Darlington Raceway
Race 5 of 33 – 200.8 miles, 147 laps
TOYOTA FINISHING POSITIONS
1st, Chase Briscoe*
2nd, KYLE BUSCH
3rd, Justin Allgaier*
4th, Austin Cindric*
5th, Noah Gragson*
9th, HARRISON BURTON
18th, RILEY HERBST
20th, BRANDON JONES
22nd, TIMMY HILL
24th, CHAD FINCHUM
30th, MASON MASSEY
37th, COLIN GARRETT
39th, STEPHEN LEICHT
*non-Toyota driver
TOYOTA QUOTES
KYLE BUSCH, No. 54 Thank You Heroes/M&M’s Toyota Supra, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 2nd
How much fun was the battle on the last lap with Chase Briscoe?
“You always like to come out on the better end of it of course, but the real mission today was thanking our heroes and I appreciate Mars/Wrigley Confectionery and all their associates for the red, white and blue Supra here today with M&M’s on it. It was a lot of fun to be able to give back to our heroes. Had a good showing and put on a little bit of an exciting show there at the end. I knew being on the inside going into one wasn’t good, but he (Chase Briscoe) got such a bad run off of four that I had no choice. I thought about blitzing the outside of three and four, but I knew that he would just go in on the bottom and slide up to the top and plug it for me. I didn’t really know what to do so I just tried what I tried and it wasn’t going to be enough. We weren’t close enough. He was super loose, but I had no way of getting close enough to him anyways. We’ll take second I guess, have no other choice, right? Topped the list or maybe I already did that for the most second-place finishes. I might have beat Mark Martin for second-place finishes so that’s something I guess.”
Were you aware of the situation with Chase Briscoe and his wife losing their baby earlier this week and when you went through that, was racing therapeutic?
“It wasn’t more difficult to get in the seat, it was more difficult with the world still going on around you and we weren’t quite as open about it at that particular time. Nobody really knew what was going on or what we were going through, but had all their own opinions about what was happening and what was going on so that was pretty disrespectful. We’re respecting Chase’s (Briscoe) privacy and everything. My wife, Samantha, actually asked me to reach out and find his phone number so we could reach out to them. We have their contact information and I’m just not sure if Samantha has reached out to her yet in order to talk to her about anything.”
Have you spoken with Chase Elliott and if so, how did that go?
“Yes, Chase (Elliott) and I talked. Went really well. He’s a class act, we’ve all seen that. Conversation overall was good.”
Is traffic at Darlington more difficult with the Xfinity cars?
“Oh yeah, with anything that has lesser downforce on it, less grip, it makes for a really hard time. I ran into the wall twice in the first 25 laps probably just because I was over-driving the car for the race track and the tire and the downforce and the limits that were there compared to the Cup cars. Took me a little bit to kind of get used to that, but once I was able to kind of set in and get a rhythm going, I felt pretty good about it. I hated that we had the pit road speeding penalty. We have lights that are set and these lights are different, they’re a tachometer rather than the dash we have in the Cup cars is through the ECU so I think it’s a little bit better than these tachometers. No excuses just got busted for speeding, unfortunately, and had to go to the back. Hopefully put on a good show for the fans.”
What happened on the last lap with Chase Briscoe and did you think you had a chance to get by or did you think you were both going into the wall?
“He (Chase Briscoe) got such a bad run through three and four and got really loose on the exit and actually got into the fence a little bit. I had no choice but to go to the bottom and I wish he would have slowed his momentum just a little bit more because then I would have been clear of him and wouldn’t have had to deal with him. He was just enough there and I was probably as much clear as Chase Elliott and I were last night that I thought about getting up and getting in front of him, but I thought better of it and just tried to stay low because I was loose already and then once his forward momentum got to my right side it just got me super loose and drug me up the race track into him. We touched each other just a little bit, I guess he touched the fence just a little bit and we got through there luckily. I thought I was going to have the lead and everything was going to be cool or we were going to be crashed. Fortunately, we weren’t crashed and I didn’t have the lead and we had another shot at it in three and four. Just didn’t have enough.”
Win or lose, is it fun to go through a finish like that?
“Yes and no. If I didn’t have the speeding penalty, I probably wouldn’t have been in that situation anyways, we would have probably been leading on the restart and would have been in Chase’s (Briscoe) position, but he ran a great race. I passed him early on in the race and he ran the typical Darlington and was pretty smart about it. A few of the other guys were running on your door and all that sort of stuff, which Chase did at the end. It’s the last lap, you’ve got to. You have to keep yourself in that position and do all that it takes to get it done. He did a smart thing, did a good job and held onto it and we’re able to talk about the exciting finish of it. Just a little unfortunate that both exciting finishes the Busch brothers have been in here at Darlington, we’ve both come out on the losing end of it. That’s a little disappointing, but we’ll see what happens in the next one.”
How have the weather delays impacted your training schedule as you run all these upcoming races?
“It’s actually taken away from my workout times. I was here on Tuesday in enough time for all the check-in procedures and things like that. That eliminated my ability to workout on Tuesday and then I was stuck here overnight raining and everything. Then all day yesterday, got the Cup race in and then again been here overnight and in the bus the whole time just waiting for the Xfinity Series race today. I’ll go home tonight and chill out, relax and then try to workout tomorrow and then take Saturday off and get ready for the 600 miles on Sunday. I probably missed a day of working out overall and rehydrating. Obviously, I’m a day later on getting my hydration ready for the 600 miles, but it shouldn’t be that big of a deal.”
Do you feel you’re in race shape now that you’ve run three races?
“I felt good. We had the race on Sunday and it was a little warmer out and I saw a couple guys get out of the car and kind of sit next to their car and they were pretty wet and kind of hot and overheated maybe a little bit. I felt find. Then last night I had no issues and then today again I had no issues. I’ve got enough cooling and things like that where I feel pretty good and ready to go.”
How do you feel all the procedures have gone through the first three races back for NASCAR?
“I think the procedures and everything have been really smooth, really easy. I compliment and applaud NASCAR as much as possible just on their efforts and the things that they’ve done in order to go through and get us to this point to have us an opportunity to come out here and put on a show for the fans on television. Obviously, we miss having the fans here at the race track although my weekend today and yesterday have probably been a little bit easier without the fans being here, but it’s a great effort by everybody involved to get us to this point. It’s been way smoother than I thought it was going to be and I hope that it continues to be as smooth and seamless as possible for everybody and we can get through a couple months of just getting back with our feet going and getting the show going and then maybe we can get back to a little more normalcy here in I don’t know, say a couple months.”
HARRISON BURTON, No. 20 DEX Imaging Toyota Supra, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 9th
How was your first experience at Darlington?
“Yeah, it was a really tough race track. I struggled quite a bit, honestly. Early in the race especially. My (turns) three and four were decent, and my (turns) one and two were not as decent. It felt like our car was a top five car, and the driver didn’t have the experience. It was hard to plan for what this place is like. It’s such a hard race track. There’s no excuses. It was the same for everyone. I hate finishing ninth, so that will be good motivation for Charlotte. I know that our team is capable of winning each and every weekend. That’s the bar we set for ourselves. Hopefully, we can go out and get another win soon.”
Does this give you momentum heading into Charlotte?
“Yeah, definitely. My confidence level heading into Charlotte is really good, before and after this. That’s the good thing about our team. Our confidence is not based off of one week or another. We know that we have good people, and we feel like we can win if we all do our jobs. We were definitely operating under some strange circumstances. It was definitely weird not having the fans there. You obviously can’t tell when you are driving, but before and after the race the energy is not the same. It’s a little bit tougher to get focused in. Glad to have gotten a race under my belt, because now I feel like I can come back here and really fire off good. I’ll be confident we can go out and contend for a win. Just needed that time to learn, and now that we have it should be good.”
RILEY HERBST, No. 18 Monster Energy Toyota Supra, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 18th
What was the experience like today?
“It was cool to be back at the race track. Awesome to be back, honestly. It was weird without the fans. It kind of felt like a Friday practice day – just cruising out on the track with no fans and no one in the hot pits. It was weird after the race. Nobody yelling or anything like that. That was probably the biggest thing.”
Talk about your finish today.
“Yeah, it was crazy. I’ve never been to this place before. We started fifth. I think we finished stage one in 11th or 12th. We stayed there most of the day. The on the final few laps, I was passing for 10th and I got my Darlington stripe – more like a Darlington wreck, and I killed the car off of (turn) two. It killed our finish. Overall, it was a good experience.”
You get to race again on Monday. Are you excited for Charlotte?
“I’ve actually seen Charlotte – been around that place. I’m looking forward to that. Still with no practice or qualifying, I think that’s going to benefit me because we are equipped and we have a really good setup for Charlotte. We are not behind the eight ball because me and Harrison (Burton) have actually been to Charlotte, so we will be ready to go.”
BRANDON JONES, No. 19 Toyota Service Centers Toyota Supra, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 20th
How was the experience getting back to the track today?
“It was bizarre after the race. There was no sound at all. So that was a big difference for me. Everything else seemed as normal. Race-wise, we probably wanted a little bit of practice there, and at the end of the day it was probably the loose wheel that cost us a top-five. That was our issue at the end. But still was kind of lacking some speed from the 54 (Kyle Busch) especially. You could tell that he was able to work traffic really well. So we will go back, and pick apart his setup a little bit. That’s the joy of having Kyle come run. We can see exactly what setup he had in his car and kind of go back on our SMT some and dig through that a little bit. We got another race here, so I think we can come back a lot stronger than we showed up today.”
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