Saturday, July 23, 2011

NASCAR: Kyle Busch takes aim at 100 wins this weekend:







Kyle Busche seeks NASCAR win number 100. LAT PHOTOGRAPHIC
Kyle Busch has racked up 13 wins in NASCAR's top three series this year.

By AL PEARCE on 7/15/2011



Fresh off two wins last weekend, Kyle Busch aims for his historic 100th NASCAR win at Loudon, N.H., this weekend.


Racing's busiest driver goes into the Nationwide Series-Sprint Cup doubleheader at New Hampshire Motor Speedway after getting his 98th win in the recent Camping World Truck Series race and his 99th in the Cup race at Kentucky Speedway.


He's entered in Saturday afternoon's New England Nationwide 200 and Sunday afternoon's Lenox Sprint Cup 301, and he's well aware of what's on the line.


"Whenever the next win is, I'll be cherishing it just as much as I did the last one," Busch said this week. "To me, though, I don't want to wait that long for win number 100."


The Las Vegas native has 13 wins this year, three in Cup and five each in Camping World and Nationwide. He drives Toyotas for Joe Gibbs Racing in Nationwide and Cup, and Toyotas for his own team in Camping World. He won the 2009 Nationwide drivers championship and last year's truck series owners title.


All told, he has 40 NASCAR starts this year: all 18 in Cup, 14 of 18 in Nationwide and 8 of 10 in the truck series. His lifetime stats: 22 wins in 240 Cup starts, 48 wins in 216 Nationwide starts and 29 wins in 93 truck series starts. At 26, he's already NASCAR's third-winningest driver, trailing only seven-time champion Richard Petty (200) and three-time champion David Pearson (106). The late Dale Earnhardt and Darrell Waltrip are tied for fourth at 97 and Bobby Allison is fifth with 87.


A footnote: All 200 of Petty's wins and 105 of Pearson's 106 came in Cup. Petty never ran Nationwide and Pearson ran only six times, and both retired before the truck series appeared in 1995. Waltrip, a three-time champion, won 84 in Cup and 13 in Nationwide; seven-time champion Earnhardt won 76 in Cup and 21 in Nationwide; Allison won 85 in Cup and two in Nationwide.


Busch started strong, winning 11 times in the first three months. He won twice at Phoenix and Bristol, then once each at Fontana, Talladega, Nashville, Richmond, Darlington, Dover and Charlotte. His two wins last weekend in Kentucky were his first since the May 20 truck series race at Charlotte. He's the only driver to sweep the three major NASCAR series on a weekend, last August at Bristol.


And he's done well at New Hampshire, winning the July 2006 Cup race and the '09 and '10 Nationwide races.


"Loudon is a pretty particular race track," Busch said. "It's a flat track and it's really typical of a tough track to pass on. You can't just have a really good car and finish up front. You have to keep track position. You have to keep up all day and make everything work."


The Nationwide entry list shows only 42 teams, one fewer than usual. Busch will face the usual series regulars plus fellow Cup stars Kevin Harvick, Kasey Kahne, Joey Logano, Brad Keselowski and Carl Edwards. The Cup list shows 46 drivers, including 10 "go or go home" drivers who'll compete among themselves for eight of the 43 starting spots. NASCAR's K&N East Series and the Whelen Modified Tour also are on the four-day, four-race, 726-lap program at the 1.058-mile track.


The weekend's on-track schedule:


Friday: 10:30-11:20, Nationwide Series practice; 11:30-1, Sprint Cup practice; 1:40-3, final Nationwide practice; 3:10, full-field Cup qualifying; 5, start of K&N Pro East 125


Saturday: 8:45-9:20, Modified practice; 9:30-10:20, Cup practice; 10:35, full-field Nationwide qualifying; 11:45-12:45, final Cup practice; 1:10 start of Modified 100; 3:30, start of Nationwide 200


Sunday: 1:15, start of Lenox Sprint Cup 301


Camping World Truck Series


While the Nationwide and Cup teams are in New Hampshire, the Camping World Truck Series has a Saturday doubleheader with ARCA at Iowa Speedway in Newton. ARCA teams will practice twice on Friday, then qualify at 1:10 p.m. Eastern on Saturday and run 200 laps for 175 miles at 5:15 p.m. Truck series teams have practice sessions Friday afternoon and night, qualify Saturday afternoon at 2:35 and run their 200-lap, 175-mile race at 8 p.m.


 





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