The expectation was that the EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix at Circuit of the Americas would run through one of the road course specialists but this was a NASCAR Cup Series race and foundational stars shown brightest in the closing laps.
Not even a tire advantage and a fortuitous caution with 16 laps to go could give Shane Van Gisbergen an opening.
Instead, Kyle Busch, mired in a 56-race winless streak, needed to fend off a legion that included Christopher Bell, Tyler Reddick and Christopher Bell. He did not. Instead, Bell methodically picked Busch off with 10 laps to go, three laps into the final green flag run, but then himself needed to fend off Byron and Reddick.
It was a professional hard-nosed Stock Car style race that did not devolve into chaos but was still tremendous theater.
“I mean, I can’t reiterate enough how amazing it was to have such respectful, clean, and hard racing,” Bell said. “That was a beautiful ending to a race.”
Bell has now won back-to-back races, has once again established himself as a best bet to reach the final four, but with no shortage of additional storylines throughout the field either.
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
It is a rare sight in the modern NASCAR Cup Series that a race, especially one on a late restart, did not devolve into a series of bump-and-runs or figurative body slams.
Watching from the pit box, race winning crew chief Adam Stevens called it for what it was.
“I think there’s just a tremendous amount of respect between all those guys and all of the competitors that tend to race around each other week in and week out,” Stevens said. “I know we traded paint with (Busch) a couple of times, especially here (in the 2024 race) completely unintentionally and something that as a team we felt bad about.
“That’s not something we wanted to repeat.
“I think we saw an instance there too where Bell felt he had a run on him in Turn 1 and knew late in the breaking zone that he was going to contact him if he stuck with it and he bailed on it. I think that’s the level of respect you have to have if you want to be raced with respect.”
That was reciprocated but also, in this instance, Busch felt like he was the most offensive driver with the defensive moves he made trying to hold on to the lead.
“I could run all the lines I wanted to run; I didn’t have to run defensive lines and use up my stuff even more when (Bell) was right on me,” Busch said. “I’ll give Christopher credit, though, where credit is due. He ran me really hard and I was a complete butt-head. He did a great job just working me over and doing it the right way and being able to get by.”
Chase Elliott wasn’t part of this battle, but in finishing fourth, was close enough to really appreciate what he saw.
“That right there was a great example of three very respectful talented race car drivers duking it out for the win without crashing each other,” Elliott said. “It was awesome to watch.”
His teammate, Byron, finished second and concedes he could have pulled the trigger on a slam but just wasn’t going to do it either.
“Bell got by (Busch) and I felt like once he got by him and clear, his car was super loose and it kind of gave me a couple of shots at him,” Byron said. “I just couldn’t ever get beside him. We have always raced really well together, so I didn’t want to move him blatantly.”
It was a rare display of entirely professional racing under close quarters by all involved.
Drought
Busch led six times for a race high 42 laps but still hasn’t won since June 4, 2023 at Gateway.
During that time, Busch has lost races in no shortage of dramatic ways, including back-to-back playoff spot deciding gut punches last year at Daytona and Darlington to end the regular season. The performance of the Richard Childress Racing has been mixed the past two seasons and two-time champion has also started to press to try to compensate for it.
On Sunday, Busch seemingly was on his way to the win if the race had stayed green but a caution for Denny Hamlin and a beached Austin Dillon reset the proceedings. Crew chief Randall Burnett kept Busch out on old tires but there was no obviously right call in giving up the track position too.
Still, Busch left Austin in positive spirits because he is becoming a regular contender more and more since last summer.
“I hate it for all the guys and everybody with Rowdy Nation and RCR,” Busch said. “We’ve got the grit. We’re from Welcome and we’re going to outwork anybody there is to work. The guys did a phenomenal job with the race car that we brought to the racetrack — unloading not the way I wanted it and being able to make as many adjustments as we did there in practice and qualifying, and then there in the race having a really good race car.
“I wish we had a little bit more there at the end. I feel like maybe the two-lap fresher tires the No. 20 had was the difference. All things considered, I’d love to have equal tires to the No. 20 and get back after it and see what we could do that way. But I also hated to see that yellow that came out. I felt like we had a little bit of a gap there, enough of a gap that I was protecting my tires.”
Elliott, Chastain
Elliott recovered to a decent enough finish but was also left wondering what could have been and what happened to get turned by Ross Chastain on the opening lap of the race.
Chastain barreled into Elliott on the first corner, and it left him furious in real time, with crew chief Alan Gustafson even venting that he has had enough of being raced a certain way by Chastain and that they need to retaliate in some form.
When asked about it after the race, Elliott didn’t offer much.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I really don’t.”
Chastain decline comment to attending reporters.
Elliott hadn’t even seen it when he spoke to reporters.
“I’m curious to see it,” Elliott said. :I still haven’t seen it to know whether or not I did something wrong. I’m happy to own it, if I did. I just felt like it was the first corner of the first lap, and it’s just a bummer to get behind and then we had damage.
“Alan and the guys did a great job fixing it and getting it that close. We got behind on a restart there and just had to play major catchup there. Alan made a great call there at the end to put tires on it. We were rolling up through there really good at the end. Obviously when you have a good car like that, I would have liked to have been in the fight with those guys, but it was a great recovery from where we were at during the end of the second stage.”
Ringers through the ringer
Van Gisbergen was the first half foil for Busch but especially struggled on restarts and finished sixth.
Zilisch pretty much had his Cup Series debut ended before the first corner. He caught some damage in the first lap melee triggered by Chastain and Elliott and lost all of his track position.
He still recovered to 14th but then slammed into a spinning Daniel Suarez on Lap 50; had nowhere to go.
“I’ve had so much fun preparing for this event,” Zilisch said after exiting the infield care center. “That second stage, driving from outside the top-30 to 14th, was a lot of fun. I was passing a lot of guys that I used to watch on TV growing up.”
AJ Allmendinger was in the top-10 for most of the race but a bad reaction to his last set of tires mired him deep in the field as well.
Playoff Grid
Christopher Bell WW
William Byron W
Ryan Blaney +47
Tyler Reddick +44
Chase Elliott +28
Bubba Wallace +27
Alex Bowman +20
Michael McDowell +18
Kyle Busch +14
Ricky Stenhouse +13
Austin Cindric +13
Chris Buescher +10
Joey Logano +10
John Hunter Nemechek +9
Carson Hocevar +5
Kyle Larson +4
Denny Hamlin -4
Shane Van Gisbergen -8
Todd Gilliland -8
Ross Chastain -9
Riley Herbst -11
Erik Jones -15
Justin Haley -19
Ty Dillon -23
Brad Keselowski -28
Noah Gragson -29
Austin Dillon -30
Daniel Suarez -33
Ryan Preece -33
