Furniture Row driver finishes 35th
BROOKLYN, Mich. (June 16, 2013) – What started out as a promising day ended in major disappointment for Kurt Busch and the Furniture Row Racing team in Sunday’s Quicken Loans 400 Sprint Cup Series race at Michigan International Speedway.
Busch, who started on the outside pole, was dominant early with his Secretariat-like Chevrolet, leading the first 21 laps with a margin at times of more than 20 car lengths.
But on Lap 30 while running in fourth place after the first pit stop, Busch’s car came loose in Turn 2, sending the spinning Furniture Row/Sealy Chevy into the wall, resulting in severe damage to all sides of the No. 78 machine.
The team’s crew was able to make temporary repairs to get Busch back on the track, but when he did return to action he was multiple-laps down with a crippled race car.
He finished the 200-lap, 400-mile race in 35th place and seven laps down.
“The car just broke loose,” said Busch. “We had a really fast car all weekend and it’s a shame that we didn’t capitalize on what we had. The driver feels the hurt, the same way the crew and the entire organization does. But these things happen and all we can do is put this behind us and get ready with the same intensity for next weekend’s race.”
The finish dropped Busch five positions in the standings – from 15th – 20th. He is still a catchable 33 points out of 10thplace.
“We’ve had these misfortunes before and rebounded,” noted Busch, who was fastest in both practice sessions Saturday. “I don’t see any reason why we won’t do it again.”
The race winner was Greg Biffle. Rounding out the top-10 in order were: Kevin Harvick, Martin Truex Jr., Kyle Busch, Tony Stewart, Matt Kenseth, Clint Bowyer, Carl Edwards, Joey Logano and Jeff Burton.
The race had 22 lead changes among 13 drivers and eight cautions for 38 laps.
The next race is Sunday (June 23) at the Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway road course.
