Kyle Busch would like to think a mind game forced a rare Jimmie Johnson error, as he backed up Saturday’s Nationwide win with a victory at the NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Dover.
After leading the most laps Johnson’s last pit stop resulted in a speeding violation as he accelerated in an attempt to beat Busch off of pit road. He reckons the speed was measured at a timing light just outside his pit stall.
“Evidently, I got out of the pits much better than I did the other times,” a chagrined Johnson said. “I got nailed. I must have launched much better than before. It’s disappointing to have the day end up like that.” Johnson finished 16th and dropped to fourth in the standings.
After the race a NASCAR official wrote “Pit road speed today was 35MPH. The 48 car was clocked at 40.09 in segment 6 of 8 segments on pit road.” NASCAR allows five mph over-the-limit so Johnson missed it by nine-hundreds of a second.
Kyle Busch jokingly said after the race “the race off of pit road won it for us. Did I coax him to make an error? I don’t know but I’m gonna say it,” he said with a wry smile.
“I wouldn't say that we psyched Jimmie out. I mean, he's won four championships so he's pretty much been through all the head games in this world,” Kyle Busch said with a wry grin.
“I feel like our car was at least good enough where we could at least challenge them for the it, and I'm going to go out on a limb and say that we could have beat him today, with or without the penalty, but he had a fast race car all day,” he added. “It was fun racing him.”
Jeff Burton bounced back, from last week’s Darlington disaster with a second-place performance. “The way things were going; the track was so rubbered up, if you got out of the groove you’d wreck,” he said. Did he want a yellow to help him close up on Kyle? “I probably wanted the race to get over. We got everything we could today. For the majority of the race the 48 was better than us.”
Matt Kenseth, quietly staying in contention for the Chase finished third where he stands in the points. “Even when we're running bad at other places, we usually still run pretty respectably here. I think this is one of our best tracks. And I didn't think no matter what we did to the car today we had a shot to win. The 48 and 18 had us, and the 31 if he would have had track position in front of us was better all day, as well.”
Kevin Harvick, who finished seventh, leads Busch by 69 points.
For a bit of irony, Busch could have made it a hat-trick weekend as he dominated Friday’s race in a truck he owns, leading 172 of the 204-laps run only to run out of gas near the
Busch wasn’t broken up by missing the hat trick “It's not going to hurt my feelings too bad to go home Monday or to go to bed tonight knowing that I lost Friday. I'm going to think more about today and what this Sprint Cup Championship means more than what winning in one of my trucks does.
I want to win anything I can get in, but if I've got to give one up that way, I'd rather give it up Friday than Sunday.”
After leading the most laps Johnson’s last pit stop resulted in a speeding violation as he accelerated in an attempt to beat Busch off of pit road. He reckons the speed was measured at a timing light just outside his pit stall.
“Evidently, I got out of the pits much better than I did the other times,” a chagrined Johnson said. “I got nailed. I must have launched much better than before. It’s disappointing to have the day end up like that.” Johnson finished 16th and dropped to fourth in the standings.
After the race a NASCAR official wrote “Pit road speed today was 35MPH. The 48 car was clocked at 40.09 in segment 6 of 8 segments on pit road.” NASCAR allows five mph over-the-limit so Johnson missed it by nine-hundreds of a second.
Kyle Busch jokingly said after the race “the race off of pit road won it for us. Did I coax him to make an error? I don’t know but I’m gonna say it,” he said with a wry smile.
“I wouldn't say that we psyched Jimmie out. I mean, he's won four championships so he's pretty much been through all the head games in this world,” Kyle Busch said with a wry grin.
“I feel like our car was at least good enough where we could at least challenge them for the it, and I'm going to go out on a limb and say that we could have beat him today, with or without the penalty, but he had a fast race car all day,” he added. “It was fun racing him.”
Jeff Burton bounced back, from last week’s Darlington disaster with a second-place performance. “The way things were going; the track was so rubbered up, if you got out of the groove you’d wreck,” he said. Did he want a yellow to help him close up on Kyle? “I probably wanted the race to get over. We got everything we could today. For the majority of the race the 48 was better than us.”
Matt Kenseth, quietly staying in contention for the Chase finished third where he stands in the points. “Even when we're running bad at other places, we usually still run pretty respectably here. I think this is one of our best tracks. And I didn't think no matter what we did to the car today we had a shot to win. The 48 and 18 had us, and the 31 if he would have had track position in front of us was better all day, as well.”
Kevin Harvick, who finished seventh, leads Busch by 69 points.
For a bit of irony, Busch could have made it a hat-trick weekend as he dominated Friday’s race in a truck he owns, leading 172 of the 204-laps run only to run out of gas near the
Busch wasn’t broken up by missing the hat trick “It's not going to hurt my feelings too bad to go home Monday or to go to bed tonight knowing that I lost Friday. I'm going to think more about today and what this Sprint Cup Championship means more than what winning in one of my trucks does.
I want to win anything I can get in, but if I've got to give one up that way, I'd rather give it up Friday than Sunday.”