NASCAR Sprint Cup Standings: Update after New Hampshire

Kyle Busch is becoming unstoppable in ever ridiculous ways. Only Jimmie Johnson has more wins n the Sprint Cup circuit this year.

Busch rolled on Sunday in the 5-Hour Energy 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, winning for the second straight weekend and the third time in the past four Cup races. It’s an outlook the likes of Yogi Berra or the Philadelphia Flyers can understand.

The No. 24 sustained severe damage and his crew furiously worked at repairs to avoid moving to a backup vehicle and dropping to the back of the field for Sunday’s race. Keselowski was among the drivers who pitted during the first caution of the race on lap 22. Joey Logano and Dale Earnhardt Jr. rounded out the top five.

For the past few weeks, Busch has been the class of the field, and there’s no slowing down.

“I think everyone understands by the nature of how much product we have to produce, and the time it takes to produce them, we’re not as flexible as everyone else is”, Stucker said. “Every week it keeps getting better and better”. “But that was a calculated risk that I felt like I needed to take at that particular moment”. “I’m not sure we’ve unleashed the beast at all”, he said.

It seems pretty safe to say that a shattered leg and foot can’t keep Kyle Busch down.

This season has been one long comeback.

Mulder wins in Tahoe >> Mark Mulder won the American Century Championship, holding off fellow former major league pitcher Eric Gagne by a point in the celebrity event. Afterward, the smoldering, pouting Busch reappeared – his version of older brother Kurt Busch’s rants – and he refused to speak to the media.

Busch needs only to finish in the top 30 in the regular-season standings to earn a spot in the 16-driver Chase for the Sprint Cup field. As he caught the leaders on Lap 251, Busch went high down the frontstretch, nudged Brad Keselowski out of the way and cleared Kevin Harvick to return to the lead lap just as NASCAR called a caution for fluid on the track.

Could he imagine, days after a horrific crash at Daytona, that he would become a title contender? Bowyer, who has two New Hampshire wins will start 18th. If it were Lap 100, then, no, I don’t think that would have happened. “The way he’s handled everything, disappointments, handled that really well, too”. Since his return from missing the season’s first 11 races due to injury, he’s is one of the biggest threats to win each week.

“We had a really fast vehicle and led a lot of laps”, Keselowski said.

“When I first started going there, if you didn’t feel like you could get around him, you were going to get passed by the guy behind you”. The irony of this scenario is that Busch is extraordinary at adapting physically, particularly to different cars and changing circumstances.

During the pre-race drivers’ meeting, Marcus Smith, president and chief operating officer of Speedway Motorsports Inc., parent company of NHMS, observed the track’s 25th anniversary season by recognizing the Bahre family – Bob, Sandy, and son Gary Bahre – all of whom were in attendance. He got a carbon seat this year to meet the rules.

Bowman returned to the race once the vehicle was fixed. Then to top it all off, he got two speeding penalties.

With seven races remaining before the Chase, Busch is ranked 33rd, just 58 points out of the top 30. Can he win it all – and add a Sprint Cup title to all those victories?

He also won at the Sonoma Raceway and at the Kentucky Speedway last week but noted that they have not yet “unleashed the beast at all”.