Kyle Busch made his third XFINITY Series start of the season on Saturday and took home his third victory of 2016 at Phoenix International Raceway.
Busch was once again the dominant force of the afternoon, starting third and leading 175 of 200 laps in the Axalta Faster. Tougher. Brighter. 200. The win was his 79th overall XFINITY victory.
“I can’t say enough about (crew chief) Chris Gayle (and) everyone at Joe Gibbs Racing,” Busch said from victory lane. “We didn’t sit on the pole, but our teammates did, they were obviously really fast, and they made me run hard all day long. There’s nothing left in this car; it’s all used up.”
Busch’s teammates, Erik Jones and Daniel Suarez, were indeed the only drivers who could keep Busch in sight for most of the event. Suarez looked like he could be Busch’s biggest challenger during the first half of the race, but it was Jones who really began to cut into Busch’s lead over the last 50 laps. Jones’ No. 20 car really came to life during the long run, and he slowly closed in on the No. 18 as Busch fought through lapped traffic.
Both drivers made their final pit stop of the day on lap 178. Jones was right on Busch’s back bumper as the two of them came to pit road. After the teammates both made two tire stops, Busch exited pit road with a two second lead over Jones, a lead that only grew when the new tires changed the handling of Jones’ car.
“Unfortunately, on the pit stop, we lost a lot of ground to (Busch),” Jones said after the race. “(We) just got too tight after that and he ran away, and didn’t start really breaking even with him until… a little less than 10 to go.”
Suarez finished third, securing the second-straight 1-2-3 finish for JGR. Busch and Jones led all but 20 laps of the 200 lap contest. Ty Dillon paced the field for 11 circuits after a two tire stop during the race’s final caution period won him the race off pit road. Brad Keselowski led nine laps late in the event while trying to stretch his fuel as long as possible.
After four races, Suarez remains the points leader by eight points over Elliott Sadler, who finished eighth. Dillon wound up sixth and sits only one point behind Sadler.
The Good
The most impressive performance at Phoenix from anyone not in a JGR Toyota was by Justin Allgaier. After starting 10th, Allgaier spent most of the day inside the top 10 and outran many of his fellow XFINITY regulars. His fourth place finish was his first top 5 of the season and fourth finish inside the top 12. He is currently fourth in points.
The Bad
Jeremy Clements had a rough afternoon following an incident on lap 58 (more on that next). He finished five laps down in 28th place, dropping him outside the Chase cutoff for the first time this season.
The Ugly
Nobody’s on-track performance on Saturday was as ugly as FOX’s disappointing coverage of the race. Clements’ mishap occurred during a commercial break and nobody in the broadcast booth really explained what happened to cause the yellow flag to fly. The cameras did catch Clements on pit road after the fact but nothing else was said. Even worse was when the race’s third and final caution came out on lap 97. That one was apparently for JJ Yeley hitting the wall, but Adam Alexander did not mention that Yeley was responsible until after pit stops were complete, and there was never a replay of the incident. The FOX team is in its 16th year of covering NASCAR and held up admirably through a weekend of wacky weather at Las Vegas, so what went wrong on Saturday?
Underdog Performance(s) of the Race
Brennan Poole finally got his first top 10 of the year after coming close on a few occasions. Blake Koch also had a respectable 16th-place finish (give some credit back to the FOX crew for interviewing him after the race).
Double Duty Interlopers
Keselowski tried to get off sequence late in the race, hoping to defeat Busch with pit strategy. The No. 22 team, however, did not get the caution they needed to shake up the field, leaving Keselowski with a ninth-place finish. Two other Sprint Cup regulars, Chase Elliott and Austin Dillon, finished in fifth and seventh, respectively. XFINITY regulars Ty Dillon and Joey Gase, who finished 33rd, will also run Sunday’s Sprint Cup race.
Quotable
“It’s fun to come race here (in the XFINITY Series) and participate, I learn a lot and I do that for a reason – in order to try to make myself better on Sundays.” –Kyle Busch after his third consecutive win
“(This is the) first time we really got a fair shot to race against Kyle this year, but we’ve got really fast Camrys, and it shows every week now with a couple of 1-2-3 finishes.” –Second place finisher Erik Jones, who did not have to serve an early pit road penalty for the first time in three weeks
“We took two tires on that first stop, and it just kind of hurt us when we had to take the green flag pit stop.” –Fourth-place finisher Justin Allgaier, who ran in the top three late but took four tires on a late pit stop when some others took two
“Everybody’s working really hard, it’s not due to a lack of effort, they’re definitely doing a good job at the shop and trying to make gains.” –Fifth-place finisher Chase Elliott on trying to keep up with the JGR drivers
“Holy cow, we were fast on long runs, we just gotta work on our short run speed before we come back, we were one of the fastest cars here after 15 or 20 laps, but restarts hurt us a little bit.” –Eighth-place finisher Elliott Sadler
The Final Word
Another week, and another dominant performance by Busch. Strong results and wins for Busch in the XFINITY Series are nothing new, but he has become the biggest storyline in a season that, with the addition of the XFINITY Chase, was supposed to put series regulars back in the spotlight. There is a lot of racing left to go, and the XFINITY drivers will hopefully take center stage once the championship battle really takes shape in September. However, winning one of the next 22 races looks like it will be a herculean task for any XFINITY regular, especially if Kyle Busch is in the field.
The problem is not so much about the number of Cup drivers anymore, it is about the quality of the Cup drivers and teams. There were four Cup Series regulars in this race. In the then Busch Series race at Phoenix in 2006, there were over three times that number. NASCAR made a good decision in 2011 by limiting drivers to one series in which they can earn points, preventing Cup drivers from winning the XFINITY championship. Yet the Sprint Cup drivers who do continue to compete with Sprint Cup teams remain the heavy favorites on race day. If NASCAR wants to make the win-and-you’re-in aspect of the XFINITY Chase have any real meaning, outside of an occasional upset, further changes should be in order.
Up Next
NASCAR’s West Coast swing concludes next weekend at Auto Club Speedway. The XFINITY Series will run the TREATMYCLOT.com 300 on Saturday, March 19. Coverage begins at 4 p.m. ET on FS1.
About the author
Bryan began writing for Frontstretch in 2016. He has penned Up to Speed for the past six years. A lifelong fan of racing, Bryan is a published author and aspiring motorsports historian. He is a native of Columbus, Ohio and currently resides in Southern Kentucky.
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TOTAL B.S. Sick of this punk taking all the trophies. When guys miss the race that only run in lower series and Cup Drivers all make the show is TOTALLY WRONG…..
The Cup Drivers are ruining the Xfinity Series
I use to not watch Truck Series races that much but I have this year I have since so far Cup Drivers have not raced in that Series and it has been rather enjoying to see the regulars battle it out.
BRIAN FRANCE NEEDS TO PUT A STOP TO THESE GUYS COMING TO RACE IN THE MINOR LEAGUES !!!!!!!!!!!!
This is no longer absurd. It is now sickening stupidity. It is so nauseating listening to Larry McReynolds and Kenny Wallace saying this isn’t the fault of Joe Gibbs and Kyle Busch, but rather, it’s the fault of the other drivers and teams not stepping up their game to beat the super power of Kyle’s cup-light car. McReynolds was falling all over Gibbs, saying that they (Gibbs) knew what was coming, and they got a good jump start on the competition. Plus, Kyle is always shooting off his mouth saying that, since the Toyota Xfinity cars are so similar to the Toyota cup cars, he and his team learn so much by running in the Xfinity series and beating up on the teams who, collectively don’t have the yearly funding that Gibbs has for Kyle to run one race.
And adding to the nauseating garbage is the series regular drivers constantly saying they love having to race against Kyle. It makes them run harder, they say. I would love just one of them (and not that egotistical little twerp Eric Jones either) to say how they don’t like it, as the broadcast always becomes about Kyle, and they don’t even notice the series regulars. Plus, He drops down to this level and he can’t be beat, thus he takes a lot of the money away from the regulars.
I admit, I don’t like Busch. He is too cocky and arrogant. And he is even worse since he was given the greatest gift of all by NASCAR. But, I hope he does win every Xfinity race he enters. And the ones he doesn’t win, I hope another cut driver does. If for no other reason, when it comes time for the final race of the Xfinity chase, no series regular has won a race to automatically get in. Then, maybe that brainless idiot named France will finally do something to get the cup drivers out of this series. The empty stands and non-existent television ratings haven’t worked.
Watched the first half of this race. Not at all upset about missing the second half.
Thank you to NASCAR for their assistance in helping me cure my addiction.
Glad I didn’t watch 1 second of this crap. I’m really amazed anyone at all was in the stands. Like others have said, now I hope Kyle wins every single race just to show what an absolute joke this series yet. Does he really get any satisfaction at all by dominating this minor league series? Joe Gibbs should be ashamed of himself, and I don’t want to hear that BS about needing cup drivers in the series to get fans to watch. look around, the exact opposite is happening!!
Don’t pick on Kyle. You’ll get his fan upset.
Its not entirely the Cup drivers, a lot of it is the resources of the Cup owner who is running the Xfinity series. Go back to 2012 and 2013 when Kyle Busch owned his own Xfinity team, they won 1 race. While i still don’t believe they should but if you are going to let them race let them race for another owner besides a Cup owner. Nothing against the smaller teams because they have much less resources, but put Kyle in a JD Motorsports car or a RSS Racing car and see what he does. I bet you he won’t be dominating like he is now.
Also, stop racing at the same track as the Cup races every weekend. Get back to mostly short tracks and only do a few companion races per year. Cut down on the mile and half tracks (you need some in the schedule to further driver development). Have the trucks and Xfinity companion weekends away from the Cup series.
I’m sure Brian will never make these changes but we can hope.