{"id":24336,"date":"2019-03-17T19:56:39","date_gmt":"2019-03-18T00:56:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=24336"},"modified":"2019-03-17T20:29:48","modified_gmt":"2019-03-18T01:29:48","slug":"nascar-sunday-fontana-notebook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2019\/03\/17\/nascar-sunday-fontana-notebook\/","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR: Sunday Fontana Notebook"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Despite win No. 200, Kyle Busch still rues the ones that got away<\/b><\/p>\n

FONTANA, Calif. \u2013 How intense a competitor is Kyle Busch?<\/p>\n

The victories that elude him seem to bother him more than the wins he celebrates\u2014even monumental ones.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Kyle Busch, driver of the #18 Interstate Batteries Toyota, celebrate after winning the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Auto Club 400 and winning his 200th NASCAR race at Auto Club Speedway on March 17, 2019 in Fontana, California. (Photo by Robert Laberge\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

You\u2019d think that Kyle Busch would have been overcome with elation after collecting his 200th NASCAR national series victory in Sunday\u2019s Auto Club 400 at Auto Club Speedway. After all, that was a milestone goal Busch had announced years ago.<\/p>\n

But when Busch crossed the finish line 2.354 seconds ahead of runner-up Joey Logano, his thoughts quickly turned to the wins that had gotten away.<\/p>\n

Busch had come close in the March 3 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race at Las Vegas, where he ran third. In Saturday\u2019s Xfinity Series event at Auto Club, he dominated until a pit road penalty sent him to the back of the field. Busch rallied to finish second.<\/p>\n

After the obligatory, \u201cOh, yes. Whoo, boy! Awesome race car!\u201d when he crossed the finish line, Busch followed with \u201cCan you imagine if I could have gotten Vegas and yesterday? How many in a row?\u201d<\/p>\n

That hate-to-lose attitude has propelled Busch to the 200-victory mark, and it may well carry him to his next goal\u2014raising his Cup victory total from the current 53 to 100.<\/p>\n

IN KYLE BUSCH\u2019S SHADOW, KURT BUSCH POSTS SOLID RESULT<\/b><\/p>\n

Sixth-place Kurt Busch had the highest-finishing Chevrolet in Sunday\u2019s Auto Club 400, but his strong performance in the No. 1 Chip Ganassi Racing Camaro was overshadowed by the accomplishment of his brother, Kyle Busch, who claimed his 200th NASCAR national series victory in the same race.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, older brother Kurt shared in his brother\u2019s achievement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a big day,\u201d Kurt said. \u201cFor my little brother to have 200 wins, they\u2019re all added up through his hard work and his dedication to perfection. Not bad for two kids with an attitude from Vegas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though each driver has one championship to his credit\u2014Kurt in 2004 and Kyle in 2015–Kyle now has 53 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series victories to 30 for his brother. And Kurt is well aware of the gap.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got to hold up my end of the bargain,\u201d Kurt quipped after falling from fourth to sixth in the final two laps of Sunday\u2019s race. \u201cI\u2019ve gotten too nice, and I\u2019m not winning enough–but I\u2019m having fun.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love the Ganassi guys. Matt McCall (crew chief) wants more. I know he does. I want more. I was hoping for a top five today, but we\u2019ll take it. All in all, we\u2019re running where we need to be running.\u201d<\/p>\n

BRAD KESELOWSKI OVERCOMES EARLY BRUSH WITH THE WALL TO RUN THIRD<\/b><\/p>\n

On Lap 43 of Sunday\u2019s Auto Club 400, Brad Keselowski\u2019s No. 2 Team Penske Ford brushed the outside wall and fell back in traffic.<\/p>\n

Keselowski was 22nd for a restart with one lap left in the first stage of the race, but he didn\u2019t stay there. Though a combination of pit strategy and determined driving, Keselowski charged forward after dodging a wreck on Lap 60.<\/p>\n

On Lap 72, he passed teammate Joey Logano for second. And when eventual race winner Kyle Busch was slapped with a pit road speeding penalty under caution during the break after Stage 2, Keselowski led 38 straight laps and built a four-second lead before a timely caution on Lap 164 put Busch back in the mix for the win.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, Keselowski finished third behind Busch and Logano, but he wasn\u2019t fully satisfied with the performance of his car.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were a little off, really, all day,\u201d Keselowski said. \u201cWe got a lot better from the first run to the end. We were so strong in practice. The track changing kind of threw us for a loop with the wind. Just never could get right off Turn 2. Ended up kind of costing us the race there with the 22 (Logano). I couldn\u2019t stay in front.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut the team, team Penske, these guys worked really hard on this car to get it back. I brushed the wall a little bit earlier. They fixed it, got us back. They kept working on it and (we) still had a solid day.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Reid Spencer, NASCAR Wire Service   Despite win No. 200, Kyle Busch still rues the ones that got away FONTANA, Calif. \u2013 How intense a competitor is Kyle Busch? The victories that elude him seem to bother him more than the wins he celebrates\u2014even monumental ones. You\u2019d think that Kyle Busch would have been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":24321,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[401,399,16],"class_list":["post-24336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-auto-club-400","tag-auto-club-speedway","tag-nascar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/ACS_MENCS_KyBusch_Celebrates_031719.jpg?fit=4507%2C2999","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-6kw","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/676"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24336"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24336\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24339,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24336\/revisions\/24339"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}