Busch Wins Second of the Year; Hope Springs Eternal for Gen-6 Race Cars

Rowdy pulls into victory lane for the second time this year (Google Images)

Ever since NASCAR rolled out the Car of Tomorrow, fans and drivers alike have hated it. From it's shape, to it's handling, to the stupid wing that used to be on the back, there was never much good to say about it. Kyle Busch won the first race with the new style car at Bristol in 2007 and emerged in victory lane, only to say, "I'm still not a very big fan of these [cars]. I can't stand to drive 'em. They suck."

Well after a few design tweaks in 2011 and the release of the Gen-6 car (short for the sixth generation NASCAR body style) that we have seen on track the last three seasons, the look of the cars have greatly improved. They no longer look like something Lego would use if they ever came out with a NASCAR video game. They look like race cars. Perhaps more importantly, they also look like their Ford, Chevy and Toyota counterparts that fans can buy in the showroom. Win on Sunday, sell on Monday might not be dead quite yet. The racing has also improved over the last few years, especially with this past weekend's race at Kentucky. NASCAR hit one out of the park with the new aero package they unveiled and the racing was absolutely incredible.

Drivers never got to test the new package or qualify their cars because of the steady rains that plagued the Bluegrass State all week. But once Saturday night came, it was Busch again who pulled into victory lane. This is Rowdy's second win of the year and his second win since breaking his leg in a XFINITY Series wreck at Daytona this past February. Kentucky has been something of a playground for Busch since the Sprint Cup Series began racing there in 2011. He edged David Reutimann for the win in that inaugural race and has never finished worse than tenth in the four subsequent events there.

With qualifying rained out, Busch started ninth, while Kyle Larson started from the pole flanked by Brad Keselowski, the other dominant force at Kentucky Speedway. He won two races at the mile and a half speedway going into this event and only has one finish outside the top ten (33rd in 2013). Aside from Busch's Joe Gibbs Racing teammates, Keselowski would prove to be his biggest challenger for the win. That is, if they could keep their No. 2 Ford up front for a few laps.

Carl Edwards poses with some of his pint-sized pit crew members
(Google Images)

Keselowski jumped out to an early lead, but a rash of slow pit stops and issues with his crew, the No. 2 couldn't hold the lead for very long. Instead it was the Joe Gibbs Racing trio of Busch, Denny Hamlin and Carl Edwards who dominated the Quaker State 400. Busch missed the first part of this season, many wrote him off as a Chase contender. But with the solid runs he's been posting lately and with winning two of the last three events, he could very well do it. Busch needs to break into the top 30 in points to qualify for the Chase and he's currently 35th, 87 points behind Cole Whitt. Many of the cars around where Busch is in the standings don't run as well as him on a weekly basis, so when you couple that with the fact that the No. 18 team has really caught fire lately, Busch and his Adam Stevens-led team might just be able to make a run for the championship after all.

But the biggest aspect of this race was the fact that the new aero package NASCAR unveiled worked! After toying with track-specific aero packages for certain venues, NASCAR debuted their latest idea to improve racing in the Bluegrass State. And it was a resounding success.

Keselowski and his crew kept losing the lead, but they still managed to come back to finish sixth because Keselowski was able to pass cars on his way to the front. The race also saw a track record 22 green flag lead changes, the last of which came with 23 circuits to go when Busch edged eventual runner- up Joey Logano. The cars were slower than they have been before, they drove worse and the racing was better than we've ever seen with this new car. Clean air was still an advantage for the leader, but the second place car was able to drive under the left rear of the first place car without stalling out or sliding into him. It was the kind of close racing we saw in the pre-CoT era and it was beautiful to watch.

"All the drivers were kind of striving for this," Busch said. "I felt like it was a positive thing when I was chasing Joey down. Right when I got to him, he moved up and tried to block my lane. With the old package, you'd get stalled out, and get stuck behind the guy. I just moved down and went a little bit lower and got my Camry to stick and was able to power through and get back by him.


"We swapped the lead back and forth a couple times. I thought it was pretty good racing. You don't want to spend too much time racing around and putting on too good of a show for the fans to take yourself out of a win. I thought that was a really good race, at least it wasn't a guy who checked out on the last run and you didn't see a pass for the lead coming down the final stretch."

Brad Keselowski's pit crew did him no favors Saturday night
(Google Images)

Edwards has long been a proponent of making these cars harder to drive and he also had nothing but good things to say after the race.

"This package, we need to keep going in this direction," Edwards said. "We could race closer together -- I was steering right. We were using the whole car. We just need to keep taking downforce away. It was an awesome show. Just an awesome, fun day and I'm glad Kyle got the win."

Joe Gibbs Racing edged Team Penske for the win with Busch beating Logano, but Busch's JGR teammates, Hamlin, Edwards and Matt Kenseth rounded out the top five. Keselowski, Penske's other driver, was dominant early, but his pit road problems relegated him to sixth place. The rest of the top ten was made up of Hendrick-powered Chevys. Jeff Gordon finished seventh, Kevin Harvick eighth, Jimmie Johnson ninth and Kurt Busch tenth.

Next week, Kyle Busch will look to make it two in a row in Loudon, New Hampshire. The week after that, NASCAR will use another low downforce package when the Sprint Cup tour rolls into the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. There's a lot to look forward to leading up to the Chase for the Sprint Cup and it will be very interesting to see how all of these different changes and variables play into who gets in and who doesn't.