D'Hondt Motorsports Shines in NASCAR Nationwide Series Debut!
Kyle Busch gave everything he had in an attempt to run down Jeff Burton for the lead, late in the "Zippo 200" Saturday afternoon at Watkins Glen International Speedway. Relegated to the back of the field twice, (the second time after the pit crew lost a tire on pit road) Busch stormed his way back with a vengeance consistently clicking off lap times over 3 tenths of a second faster than the rest of the field. Busch in the Jerry Pitts prepared Toyota, battled Jeff Burton for the lead on lap 62 only to have Burton slam the door on him as the duo spun in a two car pirouette in turn 11.
To the roar and amazement of the crowd, remarkably, Busch came out of the spin with the lead over Burton, but his # 92 Zippo Blu Toyota Camry was not unscathed.
With the race lead and the front fenders damaged, the underbelly cooling sheet metal all twisted up, Busch's TRD Toyota engine began to run hot. Just four laps later, Burton was again knocking on Busch's back bumper for the lead with Jimmie Johnson and Marcos Ambrose in hot pursuit of Burton, as well. Burton nudged Busch out of his way as the trio rounded turn ten with just 13 laps to go. Johnson and Ambrose followed Burton past the wounded but hanging on, DMS machine. With Matt Kenseth now all over the back of Kyle's bumper in a battle for the fourth position, Busch drove flawlessly and aggressively to hold off Kenseth, Dario Franchitti and Kevin Harvick as each of them knew Busch's car had damage.
With just three laps to go both Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Burton's machines ran out of fuel handing over the lead to eventual winner Ambrose. Busch, now back in second place, battled to hold off Kenseth and company and did.
Kyle Busch drove his heart out and finished second in the debut of the D'Hondt Motorsports Zippo / Dietz & Watson # 92 Nationwide Toyota Camry, quite an opening act for the new team and a great way to pay tribute to the folks at Zippo and Dietz & Watson who made this effort possible.
NASCAR Nationwide Series: Post-race quotes from Kyle Busch
KYLE BUSCH, No. 92 Zippo BLU Toyota Camry, D'Hondt Motorsports Finished: 2nd
Can you talk about the race today and your incident with Jeff Burton?
"It was a great race for us. I can't thank every one at D'Hondt Motorsports enough -- it wasn't really a last ditch effort, but it wasn't something that we were able to go test and do a full blown out effort on. I really have to thank Zippo Blu and all the guys at Dietz and Watson and Toyota and JGR (Joe Gibbs Racing) for letting me drive this thing. It was fun out there -- we were battling. I didn't know if the 29 (Jeff Burton) could make it the rest of the way or not, and judging by the way that he couldn't make it the rest of the way, then he shouldn't have raced me that way. I got on his inside and he chopped me, we wrecked. It killed my left-front fender, it killed my tow and everything else. People would say that if you knew that then you should have backed off and just waited for him to pit -- I didn't know -- none of us knew. He was the only one that knew."
What happened to your car as a result of the incident?
"When we spun out there it must have pulled the bottom radiator tin out because I saw the front valence chunked out a bunch of dirt spinning across that curb and busted the bottom radiator tin loose. Then you don't have the air flow that you need to go through the radiator. I have to thank TRD (Toyota Racing Development) for this engine because it ran oil pegged and water at 280 (degrees) for the last 18 laps or whatever it was when I got together with (Jeff) Burton. It lasted the whole way."
What was it like to get a second-place finish for D'Hondt Motorsports?
"I'm pleased by the effort by everybody at Eddie D'Hondt Motorsports. I'm happy for Eddie (D'Hondt) that he was able to go off on his own deal and be successful. Hopefully that helps him try to secure some sponsorship that they've got good equipment and they've got a way that they can run up front come next year and they can go out and run some races and try to prolong another driver's career -- I believe it is a young rookie that is going to try to come up through the ranks. Hopefully that will help those guys and it was fun to race for them. Eddie (D'Hondt) and Jeff Dickerson (Kyle's spotter) are pretty good friends, so that's how the whole deal kind of came together and glad we were able to be successful in it."
What was your pit strategy like in the race?
"Thankfully the pit strategy was kind of all 'miscombobulated' and everybody was going every which way with that. We came down the pits and a tire got away from one of the carriers or something like that and we got penalized for not controlling the tire in the pit area and that's a penalty nowadays so we had to come back and go to the tail end of the longest line. We were able to drive through most of those guys and I was getting some cars pretty well picked off and then some guys were pitting under green and other guys -- there was another caution of something and they came in later and pitted which got our track position back. We were crossing our fingers that we would make it to the end and I told them that I would rather run out of gas than come back in one more time(Toyota Motorsports) (08-09-08)
|
