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Dover: Kyle Busch NASCAR Nationwide Race Recap
Kyle Busch earned his 20th top-five finish of the 2009 NASCAR Nationwide Series season, thanks to a fourth-place finish at Dover International Speedway Saturday afternoon.
The solid outing didn’t come without adversity. Busch, who claimed his third pole of the season during qualifying, learned early in the 200-lap contest that his crew and spotter could not hear him over the radio. Despite the unexpected communication lapse, Busch’s NOS Energy Drink Toyota Camry set a torrid pace early, holding steady as the leader through the first 100 laps, only relinquishing it briefly during green-flag pit cycles.
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Eventual race winner Clint Bowyer passed Busch on lap 118, and, as the race continued with caution flags and pit stop opportunities, Busch fought a loose-handling car and never grew comfortable with the tires placed on his Toyota Camry. Any adjustments that Busch needed weren’t communicated to the team, due to the faulty radio.
Busch drove to a fourth-place finish after a final restart with 11 laps to go.
Thanks to the finish, Busch now holds a 211-point lead NASCAR Nationwide Series standings. He leads second-place Carl Edwards with seven races left on the 2009 schedule.
KYLE’S QUOTES ON THE DOVER 200
How did your car handle today?
"The NOS Energy Drink Camry was fast, but we might have started off a little bit tighter than everybody else. The more the race went on, the looser we got for some reason. The guys made adjustments in order to tighten it up and I don’t know if it was just the tires, or what, but every time we put a set of tires on we just kept getting looser and looser. It’s not accustomed to what we are used to. We gave it all we had today. Jason (Ratcliff, crew chief) did a good job with what he had for information. We ended up fourth, but we were only one spot ahead of Carl (Edwards). It’s very frustrating when you run that hard and run that good and you ended up only making only five points or four points, or whatever it is."
Could you have had a better finish if radio communication was not a problem?
"I don’t think so. I think it was just a mix-matched set of tires unfortunately. We didn’t make a whole lot of changes and so when you don’t make a whole lot of changes the track doesn’t change -- it’s been the same since we started. The tires just threw us for a loop. Unfortunately, we didn’t adjust right to what we had with the tires. The guys did a great job. They were good on pit road. Unfortunately, all we had was a sixth-place car and we ended up fourth. I was so loose there throughout the race that I was barely hanging on."
PaddockTalk Perspective
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