Busch Completes Comeback; Wins Race And Title

NASCAR’s comeback story is now a championship tale.

Busch is the 2015 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion following a late-race pass of Brad Keselowski on a restart with eight laps to go to win Sunday’s season-ending Ford EcoBoost 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Homestead-Miami Speedway.

Busch would stare out the window at the birds and watch races on TV, thinking about all he was missing.

He followed up this season with three wins and rebounded from the brink of elimination in the Chase by winning the third playoff race at Dover to propel him the rest of the way as the heavy favorite.

“I knew it was time to go”, Busch said. To get an opportunity to race at this level, to have the success that I’ve had, to have the sponsors that we’ve had and to have the fans that we have. We just kept powering through and doing as much as we could, as quick as we could, and we were able to power through and get back. (“How about that?” Gordon said of his guest wheelmen.) He got to feel the love from the grandstand, where fans flipped cards that spelled out “Thank You Jeff 24ever”. “To put it all together here tonight, this night wasn’t all that hard”. Harvick the defending Sprint Cup champion, won the race last season to secure his first title.

And on a night when Busch’s childhood hero, Jeff Gordon, raced for the last time, Gordon offered up his admiration for the newly-minted champion.

Harvick finished a distant second, Gordon was a mediocre sixth and Martin Truex Jr., the fourth driver in the championship field, finished 12th.

Over the course of 24 years, Gordon raced 797 times, earned at least one pole in a record 23 consecutive seasons, and won 93 times, most ever in NASCAR’s modern era.

Busch had held the top spot among the four Chase contenders as the laps wound down running second behind Brad Keselowski who had led the final 86 laps.

Take a look at the season statistics for the top drivers in the Sprint Cup. Gordon, 44, said before the season started he would retire after this race. After starting 11th and surging to the front, Truex struggled with his car’s handling and faded deep into the top 13-where he spent a good chunk of the afternoon battling Gordon. I said, “This is interesting”. “After a year ago, I felt like we had everything go our way, and tonight it didn’t go our way”.

Gordon eventually made his way to victory lane to congratulate Busch, who began his career as Gordon’s teammate at Hendrick Motorsports.

The 2014 champion even smiled while watching Busch’s emotions during the post-race celebration, saying “It’s just exciting”.

Truex, the underdog driving for single-car team Furniture Row Racing, also didn’t have enough in his Chevrolet to contend despite a handful of gutsy pit calls the team used out of desperation. I powered on through all of that to get better, to go through rehab and become stronger mentally and physically.

Keselowski and Logano had to settle for third and fourth, with Kyle Larson fifth but a potential victor had the final yellow not come out when he had passed Busch for second and started closing on Keselowski.

Crew chief Cole Pearn made the decision with about 100 laps to change only two tires during a pit stop, which briefly shot Truex to the lead. Kevin Harvick tried to make a race of it, but Busch had a vehicle that was untouchable, finishing by a roughly 20-car lead. “A dream of a lifetime, a dream come true and something that only happens every so often”.

“It sure did”, Busch said. A 30-year-old driver who started the season by crashing badly and breaking his leg winds up winning both the final race and the title.

After getting out the vehicle for the final time, Gordon hugged team owner Rick Hendrick, then was joined by his family, as Busch celebrated behind him.

NASCAR presented Gordon with a tribute video during the pre-race drivers’ meeting and then everyone in the room, including drivers, sponsors and dignitaries, gave him a standing ovation. Barney (team owner) and Joe Garone (general manager) have given us the leadership to be competitive.