Kyle Busch
Shooting for North American Road Course Trifecta in Montreal
August 25, 2009
HUNTERSVILLE, N.C. (Aug. 25, 2009) – It all started for Kyle Busch in March 2008 with a Mexican hat dance in victory lane at the legendary Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez road course in downtown Mexico City. He then blasted through a few more road courses with thoroughly dominating victories in the rich, wine-growing regions of Sonoma, Calif., and Watkins Glen, N.Y. Now, Busch heads northward to Canada for Sunday’s NAPA Auto Parts 200 NASCAR Nationwide Series in Montreal.
Busch, driver of the No. 18 Interstate Batteries Toyota Camry for Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR), looks to add his third North American country to his road course victory list over the past two seasons when he makes his first career appearance at another legendary Formula 1 circuit – Montreal’s 2.708-mile, 15-turn Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. If his ability to master this one is anything like his performance at the former home of the Mexican F1 Grand Prix back in March 2008, Busch just might be hoisting another magnum of champagne come Sunday afternoon.
And that would be a sight to behold for the Canadian dealers and distributors of Interstate Batteries who, for the first time in 18 years of the company’s sponsorship of JGR, will get to root for the familiar, green No. 18 Interstate Batteries machine on their home soil.
After going winless in his first three seasons of running NASCAR Nationwide and Sprint Cup cars on road courses, Busch burst the floodgates wide open last year and immediately elevated his status as a driver to beat on tracks that turn both left and right. In his four road course appearances of 2008, Busch won three of them and finished a close second in the other. He led twice for 22 laps en route to his first career road course win in the Nationwide Series race at Mexico City. He backed that up by sweeping both 2008 Sprint Cup road course outings at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma and Watkins Glen International, leading 130 of 202 laps in the process. For good measure, Busch led another 12 laps and posted a strong runner-up finish to Marcos Ambrose in last year’s Nationwide race at Watkins Glen.
This year, while Busch was shut out of victory lane in the road course events at Infineon and Watkins Glen, he was very much a threat at all three. In June, he qualified on the front row and led 10 laps early at Infineon before a couple of on-track incidents took him out of contention. In the Nationwide-Sprint Cup road course doubleheader at Watkins Glen three weekends ago, Busch led a combined 30 laps while finishing runner-up to a determined Ambrose in the Nationwide race and a solid fourth in the rain-delayed Sprint Cup race.
With six Nationwide Series wins already this season and a hefty 248-point lead in the championship standings over second-place Carl Edwards, Busch will have a rare treat as he tries to learn Montreal’s historic F1 circuit in relatively short order, for there is no added Sprint Cup or NASCAR Camping World Truck Series duty this weekend. Considering his recent success on the road courses, that stands to only help the odds of Busch completing his own, personal North American road course trifecta
