Kyle Busch gains on Martin Truex Jr., but ‘there’s a lot of racing to go’

DOVER, Del. -- With two consecutive wins in the opening round of the 2017 NASCAR playoffs, Sunday's race winner Kyle Busch has convincingly put himself atop the list of contenders for the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup trophy. He is there along with leader Martin Truex Jr., who won the first of the three playoff races in Chicago and has methodically collected enough playoff points to make his appearance in the Championship 4 at Miami a near-certainty. MORE: Dover race results | NASCAR Playoffs standings Yet when the 2015 champ Busch considered whether his early work in the playoffs places him alongside Truex as a sure-bet championship contender yet, Busch answered quickly and succinctly. "No," he deadpanned. "There's a lot of racing to go," he explained. "You know, I think week to week, you can probably change your favorite. Early in the first third of the (season) I probably would have said (Kyle) Larson is your new championship favorite, but you've got to let these things play out. "I don't know that there's necessarily a favorite. Maybe it closes our gap that the 78 (Truex) had on us a little bit where I still think it's 78, 18 (Busch), 42 (Larson), and there's different distances between us each and every week, I guess, depending on how we run and what all kind of goes on, so it's all about getting the stars to align and doing your job and having everything go your way." Busch is the first to win back-to-back races in the playoffs since Joey Logano won three straight in 2015. Kevin Harvick won the final two races of 2014. RELATED: Busch steals Dover win from Chase Elliott It's a perpetually productive, well-decorated group crowding Busch at the top of the standings -- something Busch isn't alone in acknowledging. Predicting the four drivers who will compete for the title at Homestead-Miami Speedway still isn't any easier, according to those hoping to be among the group. "When you run fourth and you're disappointed it shows what your team is made of," Truex said. "Proud of everyone, they did a good job all weekend. I am looking forward to the next round and feel good about where this Furniture Row Racing team is at right now." Kyle Larson, who finished fifth Sunday and is third in the playoff standings, has four wins and has been a consistent championship threat. Brad Keselowski is leading the Ford contingent and sits fourth in points -- between Larson and a guy with seven large championship trophies at home: Jimmie Johnson. The reigning champ finished third at Dover and sounded very much ready to make a run at a historic eighth title. RELATED: Johnson adjusts to new playoffs format "I think when we unloaded on Friday, we realized how much speed all of our Hendrick cars had," said Johnson. "As we look back over the summer, it just seems like tracks with more banking, our combination works well, and we were able to exploit that this weekend. "I wished I would have qualified better. I really think we had a shot at winning the race today, and at times I was better than the 24 (Chase Elliott) and the 18 (Busch) and was catching them there at the end. I just never really had track position to race for the win. I finally got top three there on the last run and we were out of laps. "A solid day, though. Charlotte is a great track for us, as well, and typically when we run well at Dover, it carries over to Charlotte, and we're optimistic about next week, too." That's rough news for the rest of the field. But not surprising. Even the early achievement in the playoffs combined with the team's past performance doesn't seem to make Busch and his Joe Gibbs Racing No. 18 Toyota crew overly confident. Just confident. And ready. "Talladega is just a crapshoot, kind of like playing Bingo," explained Busch's crew chief Adam Stevens. "Bingo is not really fun for me, so you need to have all the bonus points you can going into that, and NASCAR was smart to put it in the middle of the segment. "Everybody is going to have to race their guts out all day long. But as far as the next round, any time you eliminate four drivers, the field gets thinner and the points you need to score to advance are even more. "You know, you're going to have to be that much sharper, that much better, and have that many fewer mistakes. Aside from winning, you just have to perform each and every week, and it just ramps up each time we go to a new round."