Kyle Busch Wins, JJ Penalized

So, who's your lead NASCAR dog now?

By Brant James - ThatsRacin.com Contributor

Sunday, May. 16, 2010

DOVER, Del. – The storyline of the week was the heralded end of the dynasty, a notion prodded along when team owner Rick Hendrick quipped that perhaps Joe Gibbs Racing had "lapped" his mighty Cup team with its recent performance.

The face of that new regime was Denny Hamlin, who had won three times in six races.

Not that the teams involved were buying into the whole idea, but if so, perhaps there’s been a changing of the guard within the changing guard itself.

Kyle Busch completed a near-spotless weekend on Sunday, tilting with Hendrick’s Jimmie Johnson until the four-time defending series champion made a crucial mistake with 37 laps left. Busch then ran off with the Autism Speaks 400 at Dover International Speedway.

Busch led 172 of 204 laps in Friday's Truck series race only to run out of fuel in the final laps and finish 16th. The younger of the Busch brothers then led 191 of 205 laps to win the Nationwide race on Saturday. He led six times for 131 laps on Sunday.

Busch now claims the hard-earned mantle of JGR standard-bearer of the moment, having won two of the last three Cup races.

Jeff Burton was second, a distant 7.551 seconds back, followed by Matt Kenseth, Hamlin and David Reutimann.

“I'm going to go out on a limb and say that we could have beat him today, with or without the penalty,” Busch admitted, “but he had a fast race car all day.”

Extremely, judging by Johnson’s 225 laps led and his ability to run off from Busch on long runs. But one burst down pit road undid what was shaping into a splendid slump-buster for driver who won two of the first three races of the season but had wrecked out in two of his last three.

Johnson, who swept the Cup races at Dover last season, was leading when he entered the pits on Lap 363 of 400 for the final stop of the race. Then he was penalized for speeding on exit, even though Busch nudged him at the line.

Johnson served a pass-through penalty and fell a lap down, finishing 16th, and sinking two spots, to fourth, in the driver standings.

“I guess I got busted in the segment just leaving, or after our pit box, the very next one. So what I can take from this is that I got a much better launch out of my pit box than I did on other pit stops and then was speeding in that given area,” Johnson said.

NASCAR said the winner of four straight championships had traversed the sixth of eight 35-mph segments at 40.09 mph. Drivers are granted a 5-mph buffer.

“At the end, I wasn't busted. I knew Kyle had me beat when I saw the jack drop for him and he was easing away from me. And I kind of gave up at that point on racing him off of pit road because I knew we needed to be single-file on the apron.”

The mistake ruined what figured to be a rousing battle to the checkered flag before it began.

While Busch had able to pass Johnson three times for the lead on restarts, Johnson’s No. 48 Chevrolet had been dominant on the long green-flag runs that uncharacteristically typified the race.

Busch, though, had seemingly improved on long runs as the race progressed and was set to start on the lead.

"There at the end, it was going to be a dogfight,” Johnson said.

Instead, JGR will be cast as the alpha dog another week, as Joey Logano – who endured a multitude of tumbles in a crash at Dover last fall – finished 10th to put all three JGR drivers in the top 10.

Hendrick, meanwhile, failed to place a driver in the top 10 for just the second time in 12 races this season. Jeff Gordon was the team’s top finisher at 11th.

Though JGR executives, crew chiefs and drivers insist the change from a rear wing to a spoiler seven races ago has not given the team any advantage, Busch, Hamlin and Logano have combined for three straight wins and five overall since the aerodynamic device returned at Martinsville seven races ago. And, as for the new regime talk, team owner Joe Gibbs was having not of it.

"You can kind of get on a run in pro sports,” Gibbs said, “(but) I'm always conscious of, the knuckle sandwich is waiting right around the corner.

"We're just getting started, really, here. I'm thrilled that the last seven, eight weeks have gone so well for us, but the reality is that can all turn in a week.

“We've got great teams out there. We've talked about the 48, and to say that we're there would be ridiculous.”