Whine and Cheers: Kyle Busch Wins in Sonoma

Had you asked Kyle Busch before the start of the Toyota/Save Mart 350 if he felt he could shake his recent troubles on the road course in Sonoma, Calif., he would have scoffed at the idea. But as the No. 18 Toyota team has proven numerous times this season, there is no counting them out.

Despite an ill-handling racecar early in the weekend and a 30th starting spot, Busch prevailed, winning his fifth Sprint Cup Series race of the season on Sunday and his first on a road course, leading 77 of the extended 112-lap event. The dominant Busch also held off a hungry David Gilliland through a green-white-checkered finish around the 1.99-mile, curving Infineon Raceway road course.

“We unloaded here this weekend and we were absolutely horrible,” Busch said. “We were so bad we didn't know what was going on. These guys worked their tails off and never gave up. We worked on it and worked on it — made changes to everything and finally figured it out.”

The win was actually the second of his NASCAR career on a road course but his first in Cup competition. He scored a win earlier this season on the road course in Mexico City in the Nationwide Series.

Unlike weekends past where Busch was greeted with a swarm of boos, he exited his car, still billowing with tire smoke after his burnouts and was showered with applause and cheers.

Whatever the reason for the crowd’s sudden warming up to Busch, he rebuilt some of his lead in the point standings, which now stands at 103 over Jeff Burton.

David Gilliland and Jeff Gordon both took advantage of a multi-car crash on lap 105 and picked up the contending second and third positions, narrowly missing the melee which began when Kevin Harvick charged hard through Turn 4 and into Jamie McMurray. McMurray spun and collected Tony Stewart along the way.

“We weren't as good as Kyle (Busch) and we weren’t as good as Jamie (McMurray),” Stewart explained. “You know, we got ourselves in a position to run second there, and then it just didn’t work out.”
 
When asked what sparked the incident he replied gruffly, “I don't know. You can see it better than I could, I’m inside the car.”

Despite his upset at losing a shot at a top-3 finish, Stewart rallied to 10th in the closing laps.

The restart fell on lap 108 but within a lap, another caution was displayed when Scott Pruett, who was filling in for Reed Sorenson, had troubles. His Dodge laid fluid on the track forcing the red flag for just over 12 minutes for cleanup. Once the engines refired, Busch was in the catbird seat for the final three-lap run.

“I got good restarts, so that was probably a little bit of the reason, just being able to get off the line really well and get up the hill,” Busch said. “David Gilliland was behind me there in the last restart and he’s a really good friend of mine and I wasn’t sure exactly how hard he was going to push it to get his first win but he did a phenomenal job today.”

During the final three-lap run to the checkers, Gilliland held Gordon, who has five wins at Sonoma, at bay and grabbed a career-best finish of second.

“Obviously I wanted to catch Kyle, but once I got up to Turn 4, I quit worrying about that and focused on keeping my car on the racetrack,” Gilliland said. “We went through there once and I thought, well, the next lap is probably going to be better because there’s 40 cars gone through there and the last lap, it was every bit as slippery as the first lap going through there. It was everything could I do to keep my car on the racetrack at that point and Kyle was sliding around, I was, Jeff was, and so it was a handful.”

Gordon, still seeking his first win of 2008, also noted the slick racing conditions.

“I don't know if we had anything for those guys,” Gordon commented. “I thought I might have a shot at Kyle and then that last caution, oh, my goodness, there was so much speed I don’t know if I’ve ever had tougher conditions to run the last two laps of a race than that. One time I thought Kyle was going off, it looked like he got in there a little hot and got real side ways and I thought he was going off and then the 38 (of Gilliland) got real sideways as well, and overshot (Turn) 11, and I just couldn't do anything.”

Clint Bowyer and Casey Mears closed out the top 5.

2007 winner Juan Pablo Montoya was sixth while Ryan Newman, Matt Kenseth, Carl Edwards and Stewart rounded out the top 10.

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