Joe Gibbs Racing, and Toyota continue to dominate the NASCAR Nationwide series as Kyle Busch won the Dollar General 300 at the Chicagoland Speedway in Jolliet Illinois.
Busch led the event twice to lead 101 of the scheduled 200 circuits.
Pole sitter David Reutimann got out in front early but fine tuning on Busch’s Toyota made it come alive and he pulled away to a 3.120 second margin of victory.
“When we made those adjustments on the car there I think it was lap ninety, a little bit before half way and did that pit stop and really got the thing woken up.” Said Busch. “We took the lead. Great race by all the guys in the Nationwide Series, being able to run that many laps green.”
The event only saw fifteen caution laps as the yellow flag flew just three times, one short of the track record.
The win marked the fifth series win this season for Busch, setting up the first half of his weekend sweep at Chicago. In addition to his Nationwide wins, Busch has seven victories in Sprint Cup, and two in Craftsman Truck.
Busch is having a season that will be talked about for decades. More impressive then Busch has been the performance of Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR).
JGR fields one full time team in the Nationwide series and one part time team. The two team combined have won thirteen of the twenty events run this year in the Nationwide series, with Chicago making three in a row behind New Hampshire and Daytona. Tony Stewart, Denny Hamlin, and Joey Longano have all garnished wins for the JGR stable
The Domination has led to many in the garage area wondering what kind of power Toyota is putting in their cars. A fact that Busch addressed after celebrating in victory lane.
“You can make an engine look exceptional if you’ve got a car that goes through the corners as well as it does and I blew by a lot of guys in the corners and not necessarily just down the straight away tonight. We’ve got good bodies and great chassis.”
During the event there were ten lead changes among six drivers, but in the final half of the event, no one had anything for the Gibbs Toyota.
Finishing behind Busch were Denny Hamlin, Brad Keselowski, Brian Vickers and David Reutimann,
Four of the top five cars were Toyota. Toyota has dominated the series with fourteen wins this season. A tremendous accomplishment considering it is only its second season competing in the series.
With all the success of JGR and Toyota, the steady run of series point’s leader Clint Bowyer has been overlooked.
Bowyer has been on top of the series points lead for thirteen races. In nineteen events he has posted sixteen top ten finishes. He currently is two hundreds and two points ahead of Brad Keselowski in the championship hunt. This is not the runaway performance that we have seen in the past two seasons with Carl Edwards and Kevin Harvick but it is solid, and hands down at this point in the season the championship is Bowyer’s to loose.
Next week the series heads to Gateway International Raceway for a stand alone event.
Series Notes.
NASCAR has announced it is scaling back on plan to introduce a “car of tomorrow” chassis in the Nationwide series. Initially, teams were notified that the change was slated for 2009, however due to the significant financial burden this will place on teams, the plans have been put on hold until at least 2010.
The number 60 Roush/Fenway Ford driven by Carl Edwards had brake Calipers confiscated by NASCAR officials following the Chicago event. NASCAR inspectors randomly pick cars to be torn down and inspected after each race. The apparent issue on the car was that the brake components were not approved parts. In addition, NASCAR seized nine engines from various teams to Dyno test.
