In position to win
Kyle Busch on the pole for Brickyard 400 again
INDIANAPOLIS — Less than an hour after watching one winning streak end Saturday, Kyle Busch started working on another.
Now the winner of the past two Brickyard 400 races is in the best possible position for an unprecedented three-peat at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Busch became the first NASCAR Cup Series driver in nearly two decades to win back-to-back poles at the historic track by saving his fastest lap for the final one of the day. His speed of 187.301 mph was almost a mile per hour faster than second-place Kevin Harvick and was the second-fastest pole-winning speed in the race’s 24-year history.
“Obviously, we’ve had a really fast car,” Busch said after winning his fourth pole of the season. “We’ve been focused on race trim, and I felt like we did a pretty good job with that. But I wasn’t sure about qualifying. So obviously they were listening to what our teammates had to say.”
He couldn’t quibble with the results. Harvick’s No. 4 Ford was second at 186.332 and Jamie McMurray, in the No. 1 Chevrolet, wound up third at 186.274. Nobody else topped 185.
If the 2015 Cup Series season champion wins today, he will join former Formula One star Michael Schumacher as the only drivers with three straight wins at Indy in the premier series of their respective racing bodies. Schumacher won the U.S. Grand Prix four consecutive times on the road course, but nobody has ever won three straight races on the 2.5-mile oval at IMS.
“We’ve just got to keep it there, stay up front and, of course, lead the last lap,” Busch said as his 2-year-old son, Brexton, giggled into a microphone.
For Busch, it was another marathon session on another hot, humid midsummer afternoon in the No. 18 Toyota.
He drove in both of the morning practices for Cup Series drivers, qualified for the Xfinity Series race in the early afternoon and had his four-race winning streak at IMS snapped after a late pit stop dropped him from first to 21st. Busch finished 12th.
After about a 30-minute break, he was back in the car for three more qualifying rounds. His last lap allowed him to join Jeff Gordon (199596) and Ernie Irvan (1997-98) as the race’s only back-to-back pole winners.
It certainly wasn’t the result of strategy.
“When you’re in such a short window, five minutes, you couldn’t come back and get the tires cooled in time to make another lap,” he said.
But it was good enough. Harvick, meanwhile, found the consistency he was seeking but avoided going too hard to get into trouble.
“I think that was the right approach,” Harvick said. “I’ve tried to get too much in the last round, and this is just not the place where you can overdrive the entry and make up for something. The problems compound fast here, but it’s good to have that speed.”
One of Harvick’s spotters, former driver Tim Fedewa, had his credential taken away briefly Saturday after dropping a sandwich from the spotter’s stand. NASCAR spokesman Matt Humphrey said the hard card was returned after a short investigation.
There was also a more typical violation on the track — for the second consecutive week, series officials threw out a qualifying speed.
Kyle Larson’s pole-winning run was disallowed last week at New Hampshire, and this time it was B.J. McLeod who drew the penalty after a post-qualifying inspection showed his No. 51 car had taped shut a cooling aqueduct that was supposed to remain open. Now McLeod will start from the back of the 40-car starting grid after initially qualifying 35th with a speed of 176.294.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. will start 13th today as he tries to join Al Unser and Al Unser Jr. as the only two father-son winning tandems in track history.
“Considering how our season has gone,” said Earnhardt, who last won in November 2015, “winning here would right all the wrongs.”
Chase Elliott, who qualified 16th, also has a chance to join the father-son winner’s list today. Bill Elliott won the 2002 edition of the race.
“Obviously, we’ve had a really fast car. We’ve been focused on race trim, and I felt like we did a pretty good job with that. But I wasn’t sure about qualifying. So obviously they were listening to what our teammates had to say.” —KYLE BUSCH