{"id":18681,"date":"2015-04-29T10:14:53","date_gmt":"2015-04-29T14:14:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/?p=18681"},"modified":"2015-04-29T09:17:42","modified_gmt":"2015-04-29T13:17:42","slug":"busch-dominates-in-the-commonwealth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/2015\/04\/busch-dominates-in-the-commonwealth\/","title":{"rendered":"Busch Dominates in The Commonwealth"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"rgbdfgdf\"<\/a>Kurt Busch, driver of the No. 41 Haas Automation Chevrolet SS for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR), turned in a dominating performance on Sunday at Richmond (Va.) International Raceway \u2013 leading six times for a race-high 291 laps \u2013 to score his first win of the 2015 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season and all but lock himself into the 16-driver Chase for the Sprint Cup Championship.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an incredible feeling and a total team effort,\u201d said Busch, now a two-time Richmond winner having won the fall race in 2005. \u201cThe way that everything came together just seemed like we were building and building and building toward a great finish like this. And I have this opportunity because of Gene Haas and everybody that\u2019s part of our family at Stewart-Haas. It feels great to do this here in Richmond and to do it with Haas Automation, Chevrolet, Monster Energy, Mobil 1, Rush Truck Centers and everybody that\u2019s part of our family. Tony Gibson is just an amazing crew chief, and I\u2019m glad I\u2019ve got the chance to work with him. Thanks to everybody, we got it done today.\u201d<\/p>\n

After starting third in the rain-postponed Richmond 400, Busch took the lead for the first time on lap 95 and maintained the top spot for the next 35 circuits around the .75-mile oval. Busch would go on to exchange the lead a handful of times with his SHR teammate Kevin Harvick over the course of the next 100-plus laps, but he never dropped lower than third in the running order.<\/p>\n

Throughout the 400-lap event Busch noted only minor issues with the handling on his No. 41 Chevrolet, specifically asking for help with short-run speed during the middle stages of the race. Busch took the front spot for the last time on lap 354, leading the final 47 trips around the Richmond oval en route to victory lane.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis win is all about the team, the people and chemistry within the organization,\u201d Busch said. \u201cFor us the last few weeks, we\u2019ve not given away wins, but we\u2019ve made some small mistakes and we\u2019ve had some things go against us that just made us stronger. It really created a bond between all of us, and we knew that the wins would come. We didn\u2019t need to force it. We sort of just settled in for the long run and here we are \u2013 winners in April. It feels good. We have plenty of time to do fun things to build the team up, get stronger, learn from all these races coming up and continue to go forward; and like Gene Haas said, one win is great but I want four or five more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Harvick, driver of the No. 4 Jimmy John\u2019s\/Budweiser Chevrolet SS, finished .754 of a second behind Busch in the runner-up spot. It was his seventh top-two finish in nine starts this season. Leading two times for two laps on Sunday, Harvick brought his laps-led total at Richmond to 987 and has now led 952 total laps through the first nine NASCAR Sprint Cup Series races of 2015. Harvick has only led more laps than that in a single season once \u2013 in 2014 with 2,137 laps led.<\/p>\n

Danica Patrick, driver of the No. 10 GoDaddy Chevrolet SS for SHR, finished 25th.<\/p>\n

Tony Stewart, driver of the No. 14 Mobil 1\/Bass Pro Shops Chevrolet SS for SHR, finished 41st after a late-race accident cut his day short.<\/p>\n

Rounding out the top-five finishers at Richmond were Jimmie Johnson, Jamie McMurray and Joey Logano. Kasey Kahne, Matt Kenseth, Jeff Gordon, Clint Bowyer and Martin Truex Jr. comprised the remainder of the top-10.<\/p>\n

There were eight caution periods for 53 laps, with three drivers failing to finish the 400-lap race.<\/p>\n

With round nine of 36 complete, Harvick leads SHR in the championship point standings. He is first with 357 points, 33 ahead of second-place Logano. Patrick is 16th with 230 points, 127 out of first. Busch is 18th with 222 points, 135 out of first. Stewart is 30th with 148 points, 209 out of first.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kurt Busch, driver of the No. 41 Haas Automation Chevrolet SS for Stewart-Haas Racing (SHR), turned in a dominating performance on Sunday at Richmond (Va.) International Raceway \u2013 leading six times for a race-high 291 laps \u2013 to score his first win of the 2015 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season and all but lock himself […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[45,21],"tags":[15775],"class_list":["post-18681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nascar","category-sprint-cup","tag-nascar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18681"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18681\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18682,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18681\/revisions\/18682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}