Yahoo Autos Kyle Busch Dominates in Second Straight Brickyard 400 Win
From beginning to end, this was a weekend less about an individual race and more about two legendary champions tied closely to Indianapolis and its legendary Motor Speedway saying goodbye to stock car racing at the track one last time (well, for one of them, another last time). A big part of the reason that there was so much time to concentrate on the retirement of Tony Stewart and re-retirement of Jeff Gordon, however, was how predictable Kyle Busch made the race itself.
Though it gained its stature as NASCAR's second-biggest race because of its association with the Indianapolis 500, the Brickyard 400 has maintained its level of importance among teams, even if not among fans, because the track's famous size and shape make it the ideal circuit to reward both the fastest cars and the best strategies of a given year. It stands in staunch opposition to the Daytona 500, a race won influenced by speed, strategy, and talent, but at the end of the day won by a driver's ingenuity. At its best, the Brickyard 400 can become a race of converging strategies like the best 500s, represented by years like 2011 where the leader is fighting both their fuel tank and drivers on alternate strategies hunting them down. All of that is lost, however, when an entry comes together so well that no strategy can really stop it. That was Kyle Busch and his #18 team today.
Busch won after leading 149 of 170 laps, with an alternate strategy run by Brad Keselowski the only thing keeping him from leading the race outright all day long. Late accidents, including a pile-up that brought out a red flag with less than ten to go in regulation, forced Busch to survive multiple restarts, but he was so strong that the extra chances to lose were almost irrelevant. On the final restart, over just two laps, he put two full seconds on Matt Kenseth, his own teammate.
The quirks of the Chase system introduced in 2014 make a win like this almost meaningless in the championship hunt, but for what it's worth, a fourth win on the season evens Busch with Brad Keselowski for most during the regular season to date. The most notable movement on the Chase bubble came from Kyle Larson, who moved past Kasey Kahne and the sidelined Dale Earnhardt Jr. to put himself in position to make the Chase for the first time since Tony Stewart shortened the size of the Chase bubble by one with his win in Sonoma.
Earnhardt, who is aiming to return in two weeks, remains in strong position in the owner's championship Chase, which for the third straight year has an outside chance of playing out differently than the championship playoff for drivers, thanks to a 13th-place run by Jeff Gordon. Tony Stewart would finish two positions ahead in 11th, marking a good-but-not-great final day at the Brickyard that didn't feel particularly final for either driver.
NASCAR's race to chase the Chase for the Sprint Cup Championship continues next weekend at Pocono.
