{"id":21291,"date":"2018-08-17T22:04:39","date_gmt":"2018-08-18T03:04:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=21291"},"modified":"2018-08-17T22:08:42","modified_gmt":"2018-08-18T03:08:42","slug":"kyle-busch-branded-the-driver-to-beat-at-bristol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2018\/08\/17\/kyle-busch-branded-the-driver-to-beat-at-bristol\/","title":{"rendered":"Kyle Busch branded the driver to beat at Bristol"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service<\/em><\/p>\n

Immediately upon taking his seat in front of the microphone Friday for a press conference at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway, Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series<\/a> championship leader Kyle Busch<\/strong> was posed with a rather philosophic question. And he was ready.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Kyle Busch, driver of the #18 NOS Energy Drink Toyota, qualifies for the NASCAR Xfinity Series Food City 300 at Bristol Motor Speedway on August 17, 2018 in Bristol, Tennessee. (Photo by Sarah Crabill\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

With the championship points lead, six wins and perennial contention for another win each week, Busch was asked about being branded the \u201cdriver to beat\u201d as the circuit prepares to wind down the regular season with the Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race on Saturday night (6:30 p.m. ET, NBCSN, PRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). The 16-driver playoff field will be set following the Sept. 10 race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway \u2013 only three races away.<\/p>\n

Busch is the two-time defending Bristol race winner and has a remarkable total of 21 wins in the three NASCAR national series at the short track – nicknamed \u201cToo Tough To Tame\u201d for apparently everyone not named Kyle Busch.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a long time, I guess, in being with different teams and different crew chiefs and different people that I\u2019ve felt this strong,\u2019\u2019 allowed Busch, driver of the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had this sort of thing on the Xfinity side with many a crew chiefs, whether it\u2019s been (Jason) Ratcliffe, or Adam (Stevens) or Chris Gayle \u2013 a few of them on the Xfinity side. Dave (Rogers) \u2013 we felt like we had that going for a couple years on the Cup side with Dave, but there is just something maybe a little bit more about myself and Adam and the team that we have.<\/p>\nhttp:\/\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Bristol2_MENCS_KyBusch_081718.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cMany of the team guys \u2013 couple of them are the same as what they were back with Dave many years ago and a few of them are from the Xfinity team when I felt so good with Adam on the Xfinity side. We brought some of those guys over and we\u2019ve kind of mixed and blended some other guys over the years here and there. It\u2019s certainly been very rewarding to all of them, I\u2019m sure, as well as me to have this group right now and hopefully we can keep it together for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n

The mix of team members and that stability certainly suggests good times remain ahead. Even when Busch doesn\u2019t win, he keeps the winner honest. He and seven-time race winner Kevin Harvick along with four-time race winner, defending series champion Martin Truex Jr. are affectionately referred to as the series \u201cBig 3\u201d and have certainly delivered a title chase for the ages.<\/p>\n

In the 17 races that Busch hasn\u2019t won, he\u2019s finished second or third eight times \u2013 runner-up in four of those races. In all, he\u2019s finished top-three in 14 of 23 races, a remarkable statistic in this era of high competition. He leads Harvick by a healthy 62-points in the standings with a 15-point playoff bonus awaiting the regular season champ.<\/p>\n

Certainly at Bristol, Busch must feel especially confident. He has seven Cup wins, nine Xfinity Series wins and five Camping World Truck Series victories. This weekend last year, Busch won in all three series \u2013 something he has achieved twice at Bristol (also in 2010) and something no other driver has ever done.<\/p>\n

\u201cCertainly, Harvick has been fast there, too,” Busch said. \u201c\u2026But, obviously we\u2019re kind of on a hot streak with Bristol. We love going there. I would like to think that we can go there, be fast and be able to respond, absolutely. So we\u2019ll see what we can do getting there, and hopefully having a fast racecar and doing what we normally do there, just try to stay out of trouble. It\u2019s a tough place to stay out of trouble.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the first time we\u2019ve had M&M\u2019S White Chocolate on the car, so hoping it keeps the good-luck streak alive and we can win three Cup races in a row for the first time there.\u201d<\/p>\n

He has good reason to feel hopeful well beyond Bristol too. He has a win and eighth top-10 finishes in 13 starts at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway where the series races after Bristol. He was runner-up in the race last year.<\/p>\n

At Indianapolis Motor Speedway, home of the 2018 regular season finale, Busch is a two-time winner (2015-16) joining Jimmie Johnson (2008-09) as the only drivers to win back-to-back races at the historic track. He has an amazing 10 top-10 finishes in 13 starts there including a pair of runner-up finishes in addition to his two victories. And he is the two-time defending pole winner there.<\/p>\n

At this point, those two races loom as extra opportunity. A third consecutive win at Bristol Saturday night would ironically tie a mark set by Busch\u2019s older brother Kurt, who drives the No. 41 Ford for Stewart-Haas Racing. Other than the Busch brothers only NASCAR Hall of Famers Cale Yarborough (four consecutive wins, 1975-1977) and Darrell Waltrip (seven consecutive wins from 1981-1984) have longer winning streaks.<\/p>\n

\u201cBristol Motor Speedway is one of the best racetracks on the circuit,” Busch said. \u201cAll the fans love it because of the excitement, the run-ins and the close-quarter action with all the cars being packed on top of one another at a half-mile racetrack with us 40 lunatics running around in a tight circle.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the fans, the atmosphere there always makes for a good time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Especially when you\u2019re celebrating in victory lane.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service Immediately upon taking his seat in front of the microphone Friday for a press conference at Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway, Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series championship leader Kyle Busch was posed with a rather philosophic question. And he was ready. With the championship points lead, six wins and perennial contention […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":21293,"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":[177,59,16],"class_list":["post-21291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-bristol-motor-speedway","tag-kyle-busch","tag-nascar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/357358.jpg?fit=4821%2C3214&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-5xp","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/676"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21291"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21295,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21291\/revisions\/21295"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}