All four of team’s cars place in top five in Quaker State 400
SPARTA, Ky. — Winning a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race is a proud accomplishment for any team in the league. But to take the checkered and land all four of a team’s drivers in the top five is an even bigger success. It’s a feat so impressive that it hadn’t been done since Roush Fenway Racing in August 2008 at Michigan International Speedway.
That is, until Joe Gibbs Racing rewrote record books Saturday night at Kentucky Speedway.
JGR’s four-car powerhouse was led by Saturday’s Quaker State 400 race winner Kyle Busch, followed by teammates Denny Hamlin, Carl Edwards and Matt Kenseth in third through fifth, respectively.
“What a great night for Joe Gibbs Racing,” Kenseth said after the race. “I am really happy for all those guys and the organization, and I think we all learned a lot of stuff. You know, we were kind of off all night, but we kept fighting and had some great pit stops and good strategy and got a decent finish out of it.”
As Kenseth alluded to, the task wasn’t an easy one for the team, as all four cars were dealt a heavy hand with the new rules package debut atop of the standard trickiness of Kentucky Speedway’s uneven surface. Busch’s win among the difficulties was another feather in the No. 18 team’s hat, as the group has been battling the odds since the driver’s return to full-time competition in May following his early-season injuries.
“Obviously, the night went real well for us,” Busch said in a post-race winner’s press conference. “But in general, man, it was really, really good to get out there and race like that tonight and to run up front and put on a good show … but most importantly I can’t say enough about (crew chief) Adam Stevens, my team, everyone that did such a great job for me and gave me a great race car to go out there and perform like I did and just to be able to put it all together throughout 400 miles.”
For Edwards, the top-five finish was the defeat of a frustrating battle he had been fighting throughout the weekend.
“I talked to Carl today on the phone for quite awhile, right before I flew over,” team owner Joe Gibbs said. “And we were kind of ‑‑ and to be quite truthful, he was worried. He said, ‘you know, I just didn’t feel good with the package, I thought some of our other cars were better than me’ and we had a long discussion on it.”
The newest member of the Joe Gibbs Racing clan, Edwards joined the organization at the beginning of the 2015 Sprint Cup season. While he won the Coca-Cola 600 in May at Charlotte, the No. 19 driver’s performance this season has been mediocre the remainder of the year, only recording one other top 10 besides his win before Kentucky.
“I got to tell you, I was, I had a big applaud when I saw that 19 come roaring up through there,” Gibbs said of Edwards. “It was really a big deal.”
Edwards and the rest of his teammates seemed to have found something strong in the new rules package this weekend, an achievement that stumped other big-name teams such as Stewart-Haas Racing and Hendrick Motorsports. It’s an aerodynamic change that awarded a plethora of control to the driver — and exposed any flaws in driving ability.
“We’ve been working on it,” No. 20 crew chief Jason Ratcliff said after the race. “As soon as we knew it was coming, we know that if you put it back in the driver’s hands, it’s going to be good for JGR. We’ve got what I think is four of the best in the business and it showed tonight. So we’ve been working on it hard and it’s just one of those weekends where it paid off for us.”
While raw talent has proven beneficial in the Sprint Cup Series, another crucial element is the ability to work with one another, despite the notion that stock car racing is often considered a solo sport. This weekend, the Joe Gibbs drivers seem to work as a cohesive unit, evident in each of their improvements throughout the weekend.
“We have just been working very well together as a group,” Edwards said. “Denny (Hamlin) was basically my counselor the other day after practice. I was so frustrated, I thought my car was terrible. I went straight over and talked to him and he helped me a little bit.
“… It’s a good group and it’s cool to be a part of it. These guys, they really push me a lot. It’s cool when your teammates are this fast. It’s really neat for me.”
Hamlin agreed, adding, “Any time you have a driver of caliber of when Kyle (Busch) came in, Matt (Kenseth), and now Carl (Edwards), it just continues to push you to go faster. And push you to do your job better and that’s what ‑‑ when you can feed off each other like that, that’s typically how you get to an elite level.”
Saturday night’s showdown in the Bluegrass State saw the JGR drivers rise to the occasion, battling to the front. And while the group works together melodiously off the track, the race even witnessed the teammates battling one another for the lead. It was a sight that showed the drivers’ competitiveness, but probably also set owner Gibbs’ nerves awry, according to Ratcliff.
“I would say when they were three-wide, he was probably hiding his eyes,” Ratcliff said with a chuckle. “I would be.”