Toyota Post-Race Recap
NASCAR XFINITY Series (NXS)
Kentucky Speedway
Race 16 of 33 – 300 miles, 200 laps
July 8, 2017
TOYOTA FINISHING POSITIONS
1st, KYLE BUSCH
2nd, Ryan Blaney*
3rd, ERIK JONES
4th, Kevin Harvick*
5th, Ty Dillon*
14th, MATT TIFFT
17th, DAKODA ARMSTRONG
19th, JEB BURTON
25th, JJ YELEY
38th, TIMMY HILL
*non-Toyota driver
TOYOTA DRIVER POINT STANDINGS**
1st, Elliott Sadler* 578 points*
7th, MATT TIFFT 357 points
9th, DAKODA ARMSTRONG 338 points
15th, JJ YELEY 261 points
*non-Toyota driver
**unofficial point standings
· Camry driver Kyle Busch claimed his second NASCAR XFINITY Series (NXS) victory of the season in Saturday afternoon’s rain-delayed race at Kentucky Speedway.
· Busch led 70 laps (of 200) after starting from the pole en route to his 88th career NXS win and 77th behind the wheel of a Camry.
· Fellow Toyota driver Erik Jones led a race-high 77 laps in the race before finishing third in the race.
TOYOTA QUOTES
KYLE BUSCH, No. 18 NOS Energy Drink Rowdy Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 1st
How does it feel to get back to victory lane again in the XFINITY Series at Kentucky?
“It’s certainly nice to get to victory lane anytime you can. It’s been a heck of a year on the bad front for us so it’s nice to have this as a little bit of a turnaround. Our Toyota Camry has been really fast all year long and this NOS Energy Drink Camry – this is the first time we’ve gotten the Rowdy paint scheme to victory lane. I appreciate my buddy helping me design this thing and making it look so good. Joe Gibbs Racing engines, the race fans – we appreciate them and XFINITY as well. It’s fun to have the opportunity to run in this series, I enjoy it and I like running as much as I can, it just gives me a little better idea for the night time and the big races on Sunday obviously, but tonight being a Saturday night one.”
What did you learn today that can be used in tonight’s race?
“I think the biggest thing was just the line selection and how the restarts were and then too how the runs progressed and how the tires kind of wore on. There was a lot of fall off, more fall off then I expected, but it is a day race so it will probably get better tonight. The way the groove kind of came in or went away from restarts and stuff like that. Got a few ideas that will hopefully help us out tonight.”
How do you feel after the race with another 400 miles ahead of you tonight?
“I feel okay right now so hopefully I can continue to get some more fluids in me and maybe take a nap – I don’t know, we’ll see what Brexton’s schedule is like and I’ll nap with him otherwise we’ll get back ready and have it tonight.”
This win didn’t seem to come easy today?
“It didn’t, it was a little more challenging. That’s what racing is all about, these guys keep getting better and we just bide our time a little bit as well today. We did what we needed to do to be there at the end and gave it our best opportunity there. We took four tires and that kind of got us behind there with two pit stops to go and then some of those guys came in again. Obviously our car was really fast out front and once I got in clean air I didn’t think anybody had anything for us.”
Are you surprised to have 88 XFINITY Series wins?
“Yes and no. It certainly would be nice to have 88 on the other side, I would like to feel what Jimmie Johnson feels. Still it’s fun to come out here and race in the XFINITY Series, I have that opportunity and I’ll take advantage of it when I can and hopefully be able to get more wins in this NOS Energy Camry. All these guys at Joe Gibbs Racing bust their tails and work so hard and I’m very appreciative of them and always want to try to get them to victory lane so it’s special to do that. I hope this means a little bit for tonight and then we can have a good run there and hopefully get out Snickers Camry to victory lane right here.”
How hot was it in the car today and how will you prepare for tonight’s race?
“It wasn’t too terrible out there today. I expected it to be a little bit worse than it was. It wasn’t 95 degrees, but it was probably 85 or 88. It’s certainly a challenge just to make sure you get enough fluids in you and be able to get the fluids back in. I’m still sweating and leaking so you have to be able to put that back so we’ll see how it goes. It was just like going for a bike ride and I’m sure Jimmie (Johnson) did that today and maybe some others. I’ll be ready to go, it’s just about being able to get back, get some rest, get in some cool air and get some fluids down.”
What are your restart procedures from the initial start through the race?
“You’re looking for those guys that are laying back. I try not to lay back from those in front of me. It felt like the furthest back I got was about a half a car length and I think that’s respectable. Sometimes I think there are guys behind me when Erik Jones and myself are on the front row, they were two lengths back. You have to just wait as far as you can into the zone for them to get back to your back bumper and the restart zone here is so late and so close to the start-finish line that it makes it look really, really bad because everybody is anxious to go and we’re not even to the zone yet. Just trying to make sure that you don’t get pinned in a bad spot when you’re up front and when you’re behind you try to do it right and you’re trying to do the right things and not manipulating what NASCAR wants you to do.”
Do you notice anything different with the tire dragging as it relates to the middle groove?
“Yeah, until they oil down the backstretch and that lane getting into turn three, I thought the track was really racey. Hopefully they can burn that in a little bit more down the backstretch and that quick dry that they put down in order to take up some of that oil, they can burn that off and get it back to black instead of white. After that, it got to being about one groove again and I didn’t see anybody widening it out. You were afraid to get into the white stuff because the car will just take off up the race track on you. The other thing I saw was the race track was really good in one and two, it got really wide and definitely nothing out there to race in, but at least it’s safe if you do slip and get out there and you can still catch your car. There’s room for lapped cars to go out there and not feel that they’re going to crash. They were pretty mindful of the leaders today and we’ll see how all that goes tonight.”
What did you think of the car’s handling on the final restart?
“Yeah, I was a little nervous just based on being on those older tires, hot tires and picking up all the rubber off the race track and hopefully getting them clean and then being able to take off and feeling out what the grip was going to be. It was a little lower than I expected it to be and I thought the guys behind me were going to pounce and catch up, but they must have been worse off than I was so it was nice to have what I needed in clean air to be able to drive off a little bit there. I felt like our car was really fast out front. If we could get out front, I felt that we could hold everybody off through much of the day. There was a couple times when I caught (Ryan) Blaney or I caught Erik Jones and I just couldn’t quite get the run on them that I needed in order to get by them early in the race and would then kind of fade back off of them just from pushing the car too hard. Just kind of learned my lesson on those sorts of things and was able to do a better job of that late in the going. Eric (Phillips, crew chief) called for four tires on that one pit stop there and it ended up being the second to last stop and that gave us the opportunity in order to stay out for that final stop where everybody else had to pit and get more tires they felt like because they were losing time to us for sure.”
What do you expect with restarts in tonight’s race?
“I expect the same thing. I think we saw last year some wild moments. I thought the 24 and the 21 were probably the most exciting and then they ended up crashing together. It’s just because you feel like you’ve got so much room in one and two to kind of be two wide and then off of turn two everybody wants to fan out and make it three wide or four wide and they’ll run straight down the inside lane down the backstretch and then you make what feels like a 90 degree turn the other way and a lot of guys will slip and hit somebody on their outside or the outside comes down and hits the inside, whatever it might be because it’s just so narrow over there. That’s why it did look pretty good early on with restarts being okay, the track was wider at the moment and then it narrowed up after that oil dry was put down. Hopefully they can burn some of that oil dry back off in turn three and widen it back out again to where it was because I felt like we were really arcing the corner and getting corner entry pretty wide over there into three on the long runs.”
ERIK JONES, No. 18 Reser’s American Classic Toyota Camry, Joe Gibbs Racing
Finishing Position: 3rd
What made the difference between you and a victory in today’s race?
“He (Kyle Busch) had almost 30 laps better than us is what it was. We put on two tires those last couple stops and it just wasn’t good enough. Lefts just mattered more than what we thought and we couldn’t really hang on. We saw the 12 (Ryan Blaney) come back through the field with better lefts than everybody and just drove by everyone. Just need to get a little bit better and hopefully get the Reser’s Camry to victory lane again.”
