{"id":5688,"date":"2011-06-14T20:42:31","date_gmt":"2011-06-15T00:42:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/?p=9076"},"modified":"2011-06-14T20:42:31","modified_gmt":"2011-06-15T00:42:31","slug":"kurt-busch-expects-fuel-mileage-battle-michigan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/2011\/06\/kurt-busch-expects-fuel-mileage-battle-michigan\/","title":{"rendered":"KURT BUSCH EXPECTS ANOTHER FUEL MILEAGE BATTLE AT MICHIGAN"},"content":{"rendered":"

-Shell-Pennzoil Dodge Driver Cites Track\u2019s History & Recent Trend For His Line Of Thinking-<\/strong><\/p>\n

BROOKLYN, Mich. (June 14, 2011) \u2013 Benjamin Franklin is credited with the old saying that the only thing certain in life is death and taxes. Shell-Pennzoil Dodge driver Kurt Busch says it would appropriate to add another entry to Ben\u2019s list. The 2004 NASCAR Sprint Cup champ says it\u2019s a sure thing that this weekend\u2019s NASCAR Sprint Cup battle at Michigan International Speedway will be a fuel-mileage battle.<\/p>\n

\u201cSunday\u2019s race at MIS a fuel-mileage race? That\u2019s a no-brainer\u2026of course it will,\u201d Busch said of this weekend\u2019s Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips 400 on the 2.0-mile Irish Hills Area of Michigan. \u201cMichigan is one track where you always come in there planning on it to have fuel mileage involved in the equation.
\n
\n \u201cIt\u2019s always been a track where there aren\u2019t many cautions and that works to push the fuel mileage aspect to the top of the list as far as strategy goes,\u201d said Busch, who finished second at Pocono last Sunday and remains sixth in the Sprint Cup point standings. \u201cBut there\u2019s a lot more to it these days than it being just the nature of that track.<\/p>\n

\u201cReally, the fuel mileage importance has become the nature of our sport, like it or not,\u201d said Busch. \u201cWith NASCAR changing the points system around and throwing the \u2018wild card\u2019 entry into the Chase by race wins, it\u2019s sent the importance of winning through the roof. Teams are willing to take more chances than ever. They\u2019ll roll the dice and throw caution to the wind.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve seen it in almost all the races recently. At Charlotte in the Coca-Cola 600, there were all the cars trying to go the distance stretching their fuel and running out at the end. At Kansas, it was my Penske Racing teammate, Brad Keselowski, able to score a huge win for his Miller Lite Dodge Team by stretching his fuel mileage. It\u2019s just that important to score the wins these days.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not quite to the point where the crew chief\u2019s pit strategy sees them really run the race backwards with the pitting strategy like it is on the road courses, but it\u2019d definitely a key part of the strategy to know what the final fuel window is,\u201d said Busch. \u201cIf you get a caution flag and you\u2019re remotely close to being able to make the distance, you have to consider it seriously. You can start rolling off the throttle early, cutting off the engine\u2026whatever it takes to conserve fuel. I\u2019d say that you\u2019ll likely see all those things come into play there at Michigan this Sunday.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just the norm \u2013 it\u2019s to be expected \u2013 especially these days,\u201d said crew chief Steve Addington. \u201cI\u2019ll bet if you look back at the record book, you\u2019ll see that a huge proportion of the Michigan races were won because of fuel mileage. The reason for that is simple \u2013 there are always so few cautions on that track. It\u2019s so wide and there is so much racing room, you don\u2019t see guys running into each other like you do on most of the other tracks. But with the importance of getting the race wins and probably 20 or more teams out there truly capable of winning, you can bet on it being a fuel-mileage deal at Michigan.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 20 career races at Michigan, Shell-Pennzoil Dodge driver Kurt Busch has recorded two wins, three top-five finishes and 8 top-10s. Entering this weekend\u2019s race, he has a 12.0 average start and a 20.4 average finish. He has led a total of 350 laps at Michigan and has a 83.346 percent lap completion average (3,248 of 3,897 laps). Busch has been running at the finish in 14 races (six DNFs) and has finished on the lead lap in 12 of the races.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you look back on the races there over the last several years, our win there back in 2007 was one of the most dominant wins and stands as perhaps the major exception to the rule,\u201d said Busch. \u201cWe were able to win that race on sheer strength and performance of the car. We led half the laps and survived late cautions that took fuel mileage totally out of the equation. Even with a green-white-checkered finish, we still won by half a second over the second-place guy. I really don\u2019t think that can happen again this weekend, but if it does, we hope it happens to the \u2018double deuce\u2019 team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Busch enters this weekend looking for his third consecutive Coors Light Pole Awards along the Sprint Cup tour, after claiming the poles for the two most-recent races at Kansas and Pocono. Perhaps there\u2019s no better track for Busch to pull it off as he won the pole for last June\u2019s race at Michigan (with a lap of 37.898 seconds\/189.984 mph).<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was a super solid weekend for our Steve Addington-led Penske Racing team at Michigan last June,\u201d offered Busch. \u201cWe\u2019re definitely coming in there this weekend looking for more of the same. We won the pole, led a ton of laps, ran in the top-three or four all day long and finished third. Those are the kind of weekends that championships are built on. We certainly could use another one just like that this weekend at Michigan.\u201d <\/p>\n

Busch, Addington and the \u201cDouble-Deuce\u201d team will be racing their \u201cPRS-749\u201d Shell-Pennzoil Dodge Charger this weekend at Michigan. This car was debuted in the April 30 Crown Royal 400 at Richmond where Busch started 36th and finished 22nd. That is the only race so far for this chassis and it has been totally reworked in preparation for this weekend\u2019s battle at MIS.<\/p>\n

This weekend\u2019s Michigan International Speedway action gets under way on Friday with practices set from 12:30 p.m. till 1:50 p.m. (live on Speed-TV) and from 3:30 p.m. till 4:50 p.m. (live on Speed-TV). Qualifying for all 43 starting positions is set for Saturday at 1:10 p.m. (live on Speed-TV). Sunday\u2019s Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips 400 (200 laps, 400 miles) on the 2.0-mile track is scheduled to get the green flag just after 1:00 p.m. EDT. Race No. 15 of 36 points-paying events on the 2011 NASCAR Sprint Cup schedule will feature live coverage by TNT-TV and MRN Radio.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

-Shell-Pennzoil Dodge Driver Cites Track\u2019s History & Recent Trend For His Line Of Thinking- BROOKLYN, Mich. (June 14, 2011) \u2013 Benjamin Franklin is credited with the old saying that the only thing certain in life is death and taxes. Shell-Pennzoil Dodge driver Kurt Busch says it would appropriate to add another entry to Ben\u2019s list. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[15775],"class_list":["post-5688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nascar","tag-nascar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5688","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5688\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}