Third Time Lucky

Kyle Busch tamed the Monster Mile to pick up his fourth win of the season. He finally took the chequered flag first after problems in the Truck and Nationwide race denied him from taking a hat-trick of victories.

‘Wild Thing’, who has won pretty much in anything he has driven this year, took the victory after a number of lightning quick green flag pits that allowed him to overhaul Carl Edwards. For much of the day it looked a given that a Roush driver would win. Greg Biffle led from the outset but his #16 Ford Fusion once more ran into mechanical difficulties. However, unlike the last number of races, the problems were manageable and he came up in third. A victory for Biffle is surely around the corner. Along with Busch, the pair have looked nigh unbeatable when out front.

An opportunity to win didn’t seem to be on the cards for Busch, but his pit crew dragged the #18 into contention. His efforts were aided by Busch, who as ever pushed the limit when it came to pit entry. Despite leading the championship and the majority of the top-12 having issues, it was refreshing to see Busch maintain that ‘always on it’ mentality. Although you get the feeling it may come back to bite him down the line.

A wreck inside the first twenty laps put a number of contenders out of contention. These Chase runners Earnhardt Junior, Stewart, Harvick, Bowyer, Kahne and Hamlin were all involved in the shunt. All except Hamlin returned to the track at some stage with their cars in various sorts of condition. It’s the fantastic thing about the COT platform; it takes a whole lot of wrecking to knock the car out of contention. The results of this have been seen when you look at the race results. There is very few retirements this season. Of course, the flip side to that is if a front runner has a bad day, in all likelihood they will finish in around the 40^th position as opposed to previous years where they could gain a number of spots.
It’s what fans like to see though! The more cars on track, the more action we get to see.

The big winner of the wreck was Matt Kenseth. The former champion is in a race against time to make it for the Chase. The wreck involving a number of the Chase contenders has allowed him to drag himself back up into a position to challenge to make it. Only six cars finished on the lead lap, with Jeff Gordon in 5^th and last year’s winner Truex Junior in 6^th.

PC’s Driver of the Day: Kyle Busch. He didn’t have the best car, but some awesome pit work saw him in the position to win. His fourth victory of the year, a season high, has already bagged the Las Vegas native 40 points in the Chase.