Kurt Busch shows he could be one to watch in Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte
If Saturday night's NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race was a preview of things to come in next weekend's Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, the competition better watch out for Kurt Busch.
While the Stewart-Haas Racing driver finished the non-points event third behind winner Denny Hamlin and teammate Kevin Harvick, Busch was a factor throughout the entire race.
In a race that was determined by clean air and aero-dependence, Busch was unable to make a charge for the win over the final 10 laps despite having one of the strongest cars in the field.
"What a great night for the Haas Automation Chevy," Busch said. "We won a segment, but not the important one. We performed well, didn't finish worse than fifth in any of our segments. The pit crew was great on pit road, we just didn't deliver tonight. I don't know why we are standing here third. I thought we had a better car than that."
Busch's chance at victory slipped away on the final restart of the night, when -- in Busch's opinion -- Hamlin took off early.
"We restarted second and we are going to have to go to the tape and look at it and see if Denny went too soon. I was anticipating the restart zone, which is right here," Busch said as he pointed to the restart zone painted on the outside wall. "His car went two car lengths before that in my mind."
Despite the final segment, Busch was pleased with the overall effort by the Tony Gibson-led team.
"It was a great night," Busch said. "We didn't finish worse than fifth in any of our segments, we did our job and I was asleep at the wheel on a restart."
