Sunday’s Southern 500 at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway marked the second NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race in a row that Kurt Busch, driver of the No. 41 Haas Automation Chevrolet SS for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR), was in position for a strong finish before contact from another driver would cause him to fall deep in the pack. But also for the second consecutive week, Busch was able to rally back to earn a respectable finish. This time he did it in dramatic fashion, coming back to contend for the win in the closing laps.
Photo Credit: stewarthaasracing.com
Busch was running third when, with just 60 laps remaining, he was hit from behind by Martin Truex Jr. The contact resulted in a spin through turns three and four that flattened all four of Busch’s tires, but the 37-year-old driver was able to avoid making any additional contact. He brought his retro-schemed racecar to pit road for fresh tires and was scored in 29th place when the race restarted. Busch chipped away at the traffic in front of him, using his fresher tires to his advantage. It took just 35 laps for Busch to break inside the top-10, and only three more to advance to seventh.
With 13 laps remaining, Jeb Burton spun to bring out the record-setting 18th caution of the race. Busch followed the rest of the leaders to pit road, where he would come off sixth. He battled to better his position over the final handful of laps and was credited with a hard-fought sixth-place finish.
“We had a race-winning Haas Automation Chevrolet,” Busch said. “We got the lead at one point. It was short-lived, but the car definitely loved the clean air. We hadn’t gotten to the clean air until halfway though. Once we did and led those nine or 10 laps it was great. Then we had a poor pit stop when we came in as the leader. Some guys stayed out and it kind of bottled us up for a while. Then we worked our way back up, and once you get past 100 laps to go, restarts get really congested. We cleared the No. 78 (Truex) off turn two. We had been working with him all night. You’ve got to race the racetrack and he let us in off (turn) two and everything was fine. Then he just drilled us going into (turn) three.
“I just hate that it’s another 500-mile race where you work so hard and have such a good race only to have something happen and that be the storyline of the night,” Busch said. “I ran second most of the race, third; when we did get to the lead it was like the car found another gear. This rule package in general is a nice balance of slip sliding around and being on the edge. Overall, I’m pleased with our day; we came back strong after a mishap. I just have to thank all the guys for their hard work. This was our second attempt at the low downforce and we made big gains since Kentucky. Definitely still where you struggle is in dirty air. There needs to be less differential between clean air and dirty air.”
There was a track-record 18 caution periods for 89 laps with four drivers failing to finish the 367-lap race.
With round 25 of 36 complete, Harvick leads SHR in the championship point standings. He is first with 948 points, 42 ahead of second-place Logano. Kurt Busch is ninth with 752 points, 196 out of first. With two wins apiece, Harvick and Busch are locked into the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. Patrick is 23rd with 527 points, 126 out of 16th, the cutoff position to make the 16-driver Chase field on points. Stewart is 24th with 496 points, 157 out of 16th.
The next event on the Sprint Cup schedule is the Federated Auto Parts 400 at Richmond (Va.) International Raceway on Saturday, Sept. 12. The race starts at 7:30 p.m. EDT with live coverage provided by NBC Sports Network.
