Kyle Busch and Matt Kenseth turned in strong runs for Joe Gibbs Racing Saturday night at Kentucky.
When Denny Hamlin slammed the wall due to a tire failure and later Matt Kenseth experiencing tire issues of his own, Saturday night looked like more of the same for Joe Gibbs Racing.
But when the Quaker State 400 at Kentucky Speedway concluded, JGR placed two of its three drivers inside the top five. Kyle Busch was runner-up to Brad Keselowski, while Kenseth rallied to finish fourth.
"We haven't been great this year, so this is certainly a step in the right direction," Busch said. "Feels nice to have a solid run, lead some laps, and although we faded at the end, we gave it a valiant effort, so hopefully we can take some of this and move forward with it."
At a mile-and-a-half in length Kentucky is the size of track JGR has predominantly struggled on this season. The organization's only two victories in 2014 came in March at Auto Club Speedway (Busch), in an attrition-filled race, and then in May at Talladega Superspeedway (Hamlin), a restrictor-plate track. A significant dip in performance for JGR compared to a year ago when Kenseth, Busch and Hamlin combine to win seven races on 1.5-mile tracks.
With half of the Chase for the Sprint Cup tracks the same size as Kentucky, Saturday's results provide hope that JGR is returning to its 2013 form.
"I feel like we're gaining on it," Kenseth said. "I felt like overall it was a positive weekend. We were pretty competitive most of the night tonight."
Kentucky was certainly encouraging sign.
Busch was the only non-Team Penske driver to lead laps Saturday, out front for a total of 31 laps, with Kenseth showing enough speed to overcome an unscheduled pit stop. And Hamlin, who escaped injury despite exiting his car slowly, was running well became crashing out on Lap 30.
The challenge is continuing to make gains, as one solid race doesn't ensure JGR's intermediate track woes are solved.
"This is one week," Busch said. "We certainly need to be able to do it weekly on the intermediates."
Said Joe Gibbs: "I think we were off tonight just enough to wind up getting beat, but you've got to give the other guys credit. They've done a good job. We need to catch up, and hopefully tonight is a step in the right direction."
Sprint Cup standings (17 of 26 regular season races complete)
| Rank | Driver | Points | Wins |
| 1 | Jeff Gordon | 618 | 1 |
| 2 | Jimmie Johnson | 594 | 3 |
| 3 | Dale Earnhardt Jr. | 594 | 2 |
| 4 | Brad Keselowski | 560 | 2 |
| 5 | Matt Kenseth | 555 | 0 |
| 6 | Carl Edwards | 536 | 2 |
| 7 | Joey Logano | 519 | 2 |
| 8 | Ryan Newman | 514 | 0 |
| 9 | Kevin Harvick | 509 | 2 |
| 10 | Kyle Busch | 508 | 1 |
| 11 | Paul Menard | 488 | 0 |
| 12 | Kyle Larson | 474 | 0 |
| 13 | Greg Biffle | 474 | 0 |
| 14 | Clint Bowyer | 473 | 0 |
| 15 | Kasey Kahne | 465 | 0 |
| 16 | Tony Stewart | 460 | 0 |
| 17 | Denny Hamlin | 455 | 1 |
| 18 | Austin Dillon | 455 | 0 |
| 19 | Brian Vickers | 442 | 0 |
| 20 | Marcos Ambrose | 438 | 0 |
| 21 | Jamie McMurray | 432 | 0 |
| 22 | AJ Allmendinger | 413 | 0 |
| 23 | Aric Almirola | 405 | 0 |
| 24 | Casey Mears | 397 | 0 |
| 25 | Martin Truex Jr. | 385 | 0 |
| 26 | Kurt Busch | 379 | 1 |
| 27 | Ricky Stenhouse Jr. | 339 | 0 |
| 28 | Danica Patrick | 322 | 0 |
| 29 | Justin Allgaier | 300 | 0 |
| 30 | Michael Annett | 275 | 0 |
| 31 | David Gilliland | 246 | 0 |
| 32 | Cole Whitt | 244 | 0 |
| 33 | Reed Sorenson | 216 | 0 |
| 34 | David Ragan | 211 | 0 |
| 35 | Alex Bowman | 196 | 0 |
from SBNation.com - All Posts http://ift.tt/1mMH2ZX
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