Busch Wins Sunday at Infineon Raceway
June 26, 2011
SONOMA, Calif. (June 27, 2011) - Penske Racing's Kurt Busch turned in a dominant performance on Sunday afternoon in wine country as he scored his first-ever NASCAR Cup Series road course victory by winning the Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Infineon Raceway.
Driving the No. 22 Shell-Pennzoil Dodge, Busch seized control early after starting the race from the 11th position. The former Cup Series champion led four times for a race-high 76 laps as he cruised to a 2.685-second victory over Jeff Gordon.
The win was the first points-paying victory for Busch this season and it marked his 23rd career Cup Series win and his 10th consecutive season with at least one series victory.
The key to Sunday's performance for Busch, crew chief Steve Addington and the Shell-Pennzoil Dodge team was getting great fuel mileage early on while working a two-pit stop strategy to perfection.
"It was one of those unbelievable days where having a game plan going in, we weren't questioning it," said Busch after the victory. "It was just old school on how we were going to make it on two stops. With the pace dropping off like we saw it in practice, it was going to take one of those perfect efforts to make sure we maintained our lap time throughout the run to be able to make it on the stops and not worry about tires as well as the fuel strategy side of it. It was great calculations by the guys."
With the performance, Busch and the No. 22 team improved three spots to fourth place in the Cup Series standings.
Keep visiting PenskeRacing.com for more on Sunday's impressive win.