{"id":29026,"date":"2020-02-28T15:50:38","date_gmt":"2020-02-28T21:50:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/racedaysa.com\/?p=29026"},"modified":"2020-02-29T10:11:02","modified_gmt":"2020-02-29T16:11:02","slug":"kyle-busch-ready-to-run-well-at-auto-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/2020\/02\/28\/kyle-busch-ready-to-run-well-at-auto-club\/","title":{"rendered":"Kyle Busch ready to run well at Auto Club"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

It has certainly not been the season start to a robust defense of his 2019 NASCAR Cup Series<\/a> championship for Kyle Busch<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Kyle Busch. (Photo by Brian Lawdermilk\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

A pair of sub-par showings in the opening two races have placed the driver of the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota in a rather unfamiliar position \u2013 not even among the top-20 in the NASCAR Cup Series points standings. But he arrives at California\u2019s Auto Club Speedway for Sunday\u2019s Auto Club 400 (3:30 p.m. ET, FOX, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) with at least four good reasons to feel optimistic about turning the early season tide. Trophy, trophy, trophy and trophy.<\/p>\n

Appearing all-businesslike at his media press conference Friday morning at Auto Club, the defending racer winner minced no words about his desire to get back on track, in all senses of the expression.<\/p>\n

A disheartening 34th-place finish in the season-opening Daytona 500 \u2013 due to an engine issue \u2013 followed by a 15th place showing in his hometown Las Vegas race last week has left the two-time series champion 27th-place in the rankings. It\u2019s the lowest he\u2019s been ranked after two races since 2013 when he was 33rd heading into the third event.<\/p>\nhttp:\/\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/NCS_ACS_KyBusch_022820.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

\u201cIf you look at last year, look at Vegas as a trend over the last few years, besides (JGR teammate) Martin (Truex Jr.) kind of being the anomaly, JGR cars haven\u2019t really run very well at Vegas for a while,\u2019\u2019 Busch said. \u201cWhen you come to California, here, we\u2019re always one of the guys that are up front \u2013 cars that are to beat.<\/p>\n

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Kyle Busch. (Photo by Sean Gardner\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t look at this week as being too worrisome for us. It\u2019s going to be nice to hopefully come out here with a good run, be able to run up front, maybe win like we did last year. That would certainly be really good for then getting into Phoenix with the different package.\u201d<\/p>\n

Certainly, the two-mile Auto Club Speedway presents a more than reasonable expectation of celebrating in Victory Lane for Busch. Only the track\u2019s all-time winningest driver, six-time victor Jimmie Johnson, has more checkered flags. Busch has earned seven top-10 finishes in the last eight California races, including three of his four wins (2013, \u201814, \u201819), a runner-up in 2012 and a pair of third-place showings (2011 and 2018).<\/p>\n

His 807 career laps led is second only to Johnson\u2019s 980. And perhaps most encouraging about this total for Busch, is that he\u2019s led 564 of those in that last seven-year span \u2013 69.8 percent. And then there\u2019s that feel-good part of the equation in that Busch earned the first of his 56 career NASCAR Cup Series wins at Auto Club Speedway in 2005. He remains the youngest winner in track history \u2013 aged only 20 years, four months and two days when he won in September, 2005.<\/p>\n

In other words, there\u2019s plenty of reason for Busch to feel optimistic about returning to form Sunday afternoon. Even if he wouldn\u2019t exactly declare himself the favorite.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have no idea,\u2019\u2019 Busch said when asked what he expected of the race.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d like it to be a cake-walk for the 18 (Busch) and nobody is within the vicinity, but that\u2019s not always exciting,\u2019\u2019 he said. \u201cThe Interstate Batteries Camry here last year was really, really fast and (Martin) Truex was a little better in the final run, but we had much of the guys covered throughout the race.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere in that final run we were just as good and we were able to hold everybody off. Can\u2019t say what\u2019s going to happen this time around, there\u2019s been a year\u2019s worth of development on everybody\u2019s side to get to this point. Could be a completely different race, but I would like to hope not.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n

Busch is not a good loser. And he\u2019s really not had to learn to be considering he\u2019s much more accustomed to winning with a record 209 victories over the three major NASCAR Series \u2013 the NASCAR Cup Series, Xfinity Series and Gander RV & Outdoor Truck Series.<\/p>\n

While his Cup start has been a bit off, Busch has already hoisted a big shiny NASCAR trophy \u2013 winning the Las Vegas Gander RV & Outdoors Truck Series race last Friday night. His dominance in the series \u2013 he\u2019s won the last seven races he\u2019s entered dating back to 2018 \u2013 have even incited a little social media revolution.<\/p>\n

Fellow NASCAR Cup Series driver Kevin Harvick along with the CEO of the Gander RV & Outdoor retail chains, Marcus Lemonis, have offered a \u201cbounty\u201d of sorts. Should another NASCAR Cup Series driver beat Busch in one of the remaining Truck Series races he\u2019s slated to compete in, then big money – $100,000 – will be donated to that driver\u2019s charity. Should Busch prevail, the money would go to his and his wife Samantha\u2019s charity, The Bundle of Joy Fund, which helps couples who require fertility treatments to conceive.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s still a bit hard to read Busch\u2019s gut reaction to the proposal, but he certainly embraced the additional publicity it would bring to one of NASCAR\u2019s perpetually most exciting series shows. He was glad to see the chance for major money to help out a charitable fund.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all good,\u2019\u2019 Busch said, allowing a slight smile. \u201cIt\u2019s going to be interesting, exciting, whatever you want to term it. I guess Cup drivers in the Truck Series do sell tickets so take that for what it\u2019s worth.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s a unique opportunity for more attention on the series, which is good. Maybe if more drivers had more teams that had rides then there would be someone else there than just myself. I don\u2019t remember who I told, but once (Kevin) Harvick kind of put the idea out there, I thought the guy that really has a shot is (Kyle) Larson at Homestead. Bring it on.\u201d0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Holly Cain, NASCAR Wire Service It has certainly not been the season start to a robust defense of his 2019 NASCAR Cup Series championship for Kyle Busch. A pair of sub-par showings in the opening two races have placed the driver of the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota in a rather unfamiliar position […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":676,"featured_media":28890,"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":[399,59,16],"class_list":["post-29026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nascar","tag-auto-club-speedway","tag-kyle-busch","tag-nascar"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/racedaysa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/DIS_NCS_KyBusch_020820-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1668&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7hzTZ-7ya","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29026","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=29026"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29026\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29030,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29026\/revisions\/29030"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racedaysa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}