LONG POND, Pa. — Kyle Busch tossed his young son in the air twice in victory lane and sprayed champagne toward anyone dry within reach. The good times and NASCAR milestones keep piling up for Busch and Joe Gibbs Racing.
Heck, Busch might even give his Pocono Raceway trophy to his wife for a birthday present.
Take Sunday: Busch matched Hall of Fame driver Rusty Wallace for ninth on the NASCAR Cup Series career victory list with 55. He won for the fourth time this season. And the season of JGR that already includes a Daytona 500 championship and a Hall of Fame nod for patriarch Joe Gibbs shows no sign of tapering off.
So, Kyle. Why so glum?
“Am I a positive person?” Busch asked. “It’s rare.”
Busch’s enthusiasm was tempered by another race where NASCAR’s rules package put passing at a minimum and made it laborious to watch 400 miles of racing. Never one to back down from his opinion, Busch has put the package on blast all season and dodged a fine from NASCAR earlier this month for an expletive-riddled rant about the new rules.
NASCAR’s current rules package was designed to increase side-by-side racing and manufacture competition. Busch made one competitive pass for the lead when he zipped past Clint Bowyer on lap 75 and never really looked back as he closed on his first win in nearly two months. Busch took off on the final restart with nine laps left and cruised to the finish line for his 13th top-10 finish in 14 races this season.
When NASCAR haters point fingers and say racing is just cars going in circles, Sunday at Pocono can be Exhibit A.
It was still another wildly successful day for Joe Gibbs Racing: Busch won, Erik Jones was third and Denny Hamlin was sixth. Martin Truex Jr. had a fast car and looked like a contender until engine woes knocked him out of the race. Hamlin opened the season with a win in the Daytona 500 in memory of J.D. Gibbs, Joe’s son who died earlier this year following a long battle with a degenerative neurological disease. JGR has been the class of NASCAR with a series-best nine wins, and Gibbs was elected this month to the NASCAR Hall of Fame.
DETROIT — Scott Dixon won the Detroit Grand Prix, his first victory of the year and 45th of his career, just hours after being honored by Queen Elizabeth II.
The Chip Ganassi Racing driver from New Zealand finished nearly 2 seconds in front of rookie Marcus Ericsson, Will Power, Ryan Hunter-Reay and Alexander Rossi.
Earlier in the day, Queen Elizabeth II announced Dixon was being given the Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in recognition of his services to motorsport. He will receive the award at Buckingham Palace.
Britain’s monarch honors national and commonwealth individuals for their contribution to society in June and on New Year’s Day.
“It’s definitely a huge honor and totally different to any kind of racing accolade I’ve had,” Dixon said. “I think of being very lucky and fortunate on the racing side of things. I’ve achieved a lot. But to get recognition like that, very few people do.”
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