Is This Heaven? No, It’s Iowa!
Busch, Z-Line Designs Camry Score Dominating Victory in U.S. Cellular 250 Nationwide Race
Date: July 31, 2010
Event: U.S. Cellular 250 (Round 21 of 35)
Series: NASCAR Nationwide Series
Location: Iowa Speedway in Newton (.875-mile oval)
Start/Finish: 2nd/1st (Running, completed 250 of 250 laps)
Winner: Kyle Busch of Joe Gibbs Racing (Toyota)
With all due respect to perhaps the most quoted line from the 1989 classic movie Field of Dreams (“Is this heaven? No, it’s Iowa.”), Kyle Busch will always think of Iowa Speedway in Newton as his own little slice of heaven.
The 25-year-old driving sensation turned in another thoroughly dominating performance in Saturday night’s U.S. Cellular 250 NASCAR Nationwide Series race at the .875-mile oval located smack in the middle of Iowa’s heartland. He took charge of matters from the very start and drove the No. 18 Z-Line Designs/Nebraska Furniture Mart Toyota Camry for Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) to his second victory in as many weeks, his sixth win in his last seven Nationwide Series outings, and his ninth win in 17 starts on the season.
And it was all in an afternoon’s and evening’s work for Busch, who didn’t make his first appearance this weekend on the Iowa Speedway property until some 35 minutes before qualifying after a 2-hour, 20-minute flight from Pocono (Pa.) Raceway, where he’s piloting the No. 18 M&M’s Toyota in Sunday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race. No matter for Busch, whose very first qualifying lap was good enough for a front-row starting spot alongside polesitter Trevor Bayne.
Once the green flag flew, Busch snatched the lead by the end of the opening lap, and he went on to lead 209 of the 250 laps en route to his 39th career Nationwide Series victory and 75th total among NASCAR top three series – Sprint Cup (18), Nationwide (39) and Camping World Truck (18).
With his ninth Nationwide Series victory of the season, he is already just one win away from tying the all-time single-season win mark of 10 victories that he shares with the legendary Sam Ard. Busch accomplished the feat in 2008 while Ard was the first to reach the 10-win milestone during his championship season of 1983. The victory also put Busch just nine victories behind all-time Nationwide Series race-win leader Mark Martin, whose record currently stands at 48 victories.
“It’s pretty phenomenal the racecars these (JGR) guys put out,” said Busch, who finished second in this event a year ago to Brad Keselowski. “This is my 54th win in a Toyota. Can you believe that? There have been an awful lot of them. I’m really proud of those guys and I can’t thank them enough. And, Z-Line Designs – Jim and Monica (Sexton, Z-Line Designs president and his wife) – they’re great people. And, of course, NOS Energy Drink, Combos, Marquis Jets, Gillette, the fans. Man, what an awesome turnout this weekend. It was phenomenal. It was really, really cool.”
Once Busch moved into the lead on the opening lap, it was clear he was going to be difficult to beat. Only Bayne, in the No. 99 Michael Waltrip Racing entry, could even remotely keep up with Busch’s torrid pace. Busch led all but one of the first 75 laps, giving up the point to Bayne for just a brief moment during the race’s first caution and ensuing red-flag stoppage on lap 41.
Bayne managed to get by Busch under green on lap 76 and set the pace with Busch still in close pursuit for the next 20 laps until the race’s second red-flag stoppage on lap 94. When action resumed, the Z-Line Designs crew got Busch out of the pits ahead of Bayne with a quick four-tire stop and a track-bar adjustment under yellow on lap 95. Busch went on to lead the next 110 laps until the most dramatic events of the evening began to unfold beginning with the race’s final caution period on lap 203.
Busch and the rest of the field pitted for tires and fuel for the final time under that caution period on lap 206. Busch and the JGR crew opted for a four-tire stop with 44 laps still to go, but he returned to the track in seventh place behind six competitors who took only two tires.
The race went back to green on lap 208, and by the end of that first green-flag lap, Busch had moved all the way up to second behind race leader Kevin Harvick, who initially opened a hefty margin on Busch and the No. 18 machine.
But Busch gradually reeled in Harvick, passing him for the lead on lap 226, just 24 laps from the finish. And the young driver never looked back, winning by 2.030 seconds over Harvick.
“I thought two tires probably could’ve won with this car, but we played it on the safe side and put four on it,” said Busch, who coincidentally flew from Pocono to Iowa and back in Harvick’s private jet. “I was worried I wasn’t going to be able to run Harvick down, but we had a great-handling racecar tonight. The Z-Line Designs Camry was fast. Harvick raced me clean.
“Starting out today, it was just a little edgy with the sun still on the track, and the track really hot. It was a little slick. Trevor (Bayne) was really good, there in the beginning. Our car was just a little bit too tight. Late center and exit of the turns I couldn’t get it to where I could get the power down the way I wanted. The sun started going down, the track started cooling off and we started freeing up the car and the car was really good. I can’t say enough about Jason (Ratcliff, crew chief) and these guys for giving me an awesome racecar.”
“When we left here last year we knew we missed it a little bit,” Ratcliff added. “It was disappointing. This is one of the racetracks last year that, being the inaugural event and new racetrack, we definitely wanted to win one here and just came up short. We put a lot of effort into this track and made a lot of changes. The car is way different than it was last year. I feel like we made some gains on it and it still needs a little bit of work. We started the race not quite where we needed to but, thankfully, when the sun went down, it kind of played into our hands. And then some adjustments that we made on the last two stops really helped us, as well. The 99 (Bayne’s) car was good, and Harvick made his stuff better and was good there at the end. On the last stop last year, we took two (tires) with about 35 to go and I felt like the tires were definitely a plus. We definitely needed tires. We were making adjustments on our car that were really, really making the thing fast, but we needed the adjustments that we had on the left-side tires. So, to put two on, we weren’t going to get the adjustments we needed. So that’s why we went with four, and it worked out.”
Finishing behind Busch and Harvick was Jason Leffler, with Brad Keselowski and Trevor Bayne rounding out the top-five. Steven Wallace, Michael Annett, Justin Allgaier, Matt DiBenedetto and Carl Edwards comprised the rest of the top-10.
The race featured six caution periods for 27 laps – including the two red-flag stoppages that totaled 23 minutes and 39 seconds – with 16 drivers failing to finish.
While Busch is not running the full Nationwide Series schedule, the No. 18 Toyota is competing for the owner’s title, and it moved into the points lead with Saturday’s victory, 34 markers ahead of the second-place No. 22 Penske Racing Dodge, with 21 of 35 races complete on the 2010 schedule. JGR has won the past two Nationwide Series owner’s championships.
The next event on the Nationwide Series schedule is the Aug. 7 Zippo 200 at The Glen at the road course at Watkins Glen (N.Y.) International. The race starts at 2 p.m. EDT with live coverage provided by ESPN beginning with its pre-race show at 1:30 p.m.