Kyle Busch XFINITY Series Notes & Quotes For Darlington

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Kyle Busch: RACE ADVANCE: DARLINGTON

Kyle Busch celebrates his NASCAR Nationwide (Now XFINITY)
Series victory at Darlington Raceway in 2013

(PHOTO: Motorsport.com)

No. 54 Monster Energy Toyota News and Notes:

• Kyle Busch returns to rural South Carolina this week to drive the No. 54 Monster Energy Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) Toyota Camry at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway for the NASCAR XFINITY Series’ 24th race of the season. The historic 1.366–mile track will be the driver’s seventh start in the XFINITY series in 2015, and time back in the No. 54 seat since Busch’s recent Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway night-race win. To date this season in only six XFINITY Series races Busch has earned three victories, five top-five finishes, one pole and 309 laps led. His recent BMS XFINITY Series win garnered Busch his 150th victory across 13 years in all three of NASCAR’s top series (33 Cup, 73 XFINITY, 44 Truck).

• Last week in the No. 54 Camry Boris Said tackled the Road America road course in Elkhart Lake, WI and produced a seventh-place qualifying effort, with a strong top five run early in the race, until a pit-road miscue caused the Monster Energy Toyota to fight back to a sixth-place finishing position.

• Busch will make his 303rd XFINITY Series start piloting the black Toyota Camry Saturday night at Darlington and works to offer the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 54 team their fifth taste of victory this year. JGR’s Monster Energy unit earned wins earlier this season at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn with Busch and again the following week at Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet with young driver Erik Jones. More recently at the famed “Brickyard” or Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Busch started from the pole-qualifying position, led over half the race laps (53) and brought home the checkered flag in style. Busch then followed up the team’s Indy win, with a recent trip to victory circle at the “World’s Famous Half-Mile” on a Friday night at Bristol Motor Speedway.

• Busch has accumulated three wins across NASCAR’s two top-tier series at Darlington. He last experienced victory lane on the South Carolina short track in 2013 in the XFINITY Series, when in dominating fashion he was the race-high laps leader (107 of 147 laps) and captured the win from a front-row pole-qualifying position. In 2014 the JGR team hoped to repeat their 2013 victory performance at the “too tough to tame” facility but ended up with a fourth-place result. Despite not catching the win, Busch started the race again in the pole-qualifying position and led the field four times for a race-high 84 of the 147-lap event.

• The now 30-year old Busch holds a 12-year streak from 2004 to 2015 of consecutive poles within the XFINITY Series, a 44-career total. Busch captured the pole-qualifying position at Darlington Raceway five times within the XFINITY Series in 2014, 2013, 2011 and 2009. His very first series pole also came at the “Lady in Black” in 2004 when Busch became the youngest pole winner there on March 20 at the age of 18 years, 10 months and 18 days.

• Joe Gibbs Racing at Darlington in the NASCAR XFINITY Series covers 43 races, eight wins, 20 top-five finishes and 28 top-10 finishes, five poles and 876 laps led, 464 of those by Busch.

• Crew Chief Chris Gayle’s Darlington Raceway statistics include two races with two top-five and two top-10 results, including three laps led.

• With last Saturday’s Road America course top-10 result, the No. 54 Monster Energy team remains in third place in the NASCAR Owner’s Championship point standings, 89 points from the series leading No. 22.

• Loop Data Statistics at Darlington over the last 10 races record Busch #1 statistically in Fastest Laps (224, 21.6%) and Laps Led (406, 39.2%).

• Race Info: VFW Sport Clips Help a Hero 200, September 5, 2015 at 3:30pm EST live on NBC, covering 147 laps, 200.8 miles.

From the Cockpit:

What are your thoughts going into this weekend’s XFINITY Series event at Darlington?

“It’s important to have good practice time here. Last year we fought the rain and missed out on enough track time to really dial in the car. Our Monster Energy Camry was too loose in last year’s race so hopefully we’ll take those notes and improve on them for this race. I’m looking forward to getting back into the Monster Energy machine. If we dial the car in right--early, then we should be strong for the race.”

From the Pit Box:

How do you prepare this week going into Darlington with Kyle Busch?

“Darlington is a really unique track from a layout perspective and a preferred driving line around the racetrack. It makes for some exciting racing, but also has the potential to end your day if any large mistakes are made. This track also seems to lose a little grip every year and become more of the ‘old' -- before repave --Darlington. This race will also take place later in the season and be an afternoon race instead of a night race as the previous two years. This should also reduce the available track grip and make it a little different for all the competitors this year. It will take a fast car that doesn't abuse the tires to keep the speed at this racetrack. Kyle has won this event a couple of times, and we'd like to help him add to that total this weekend.”