By Ryan - Posted on June 2, 2010
All in all, it has been a pretty nice week for Kurt Busch. Last week, he held off the field to win the Sprint All-Star Race (and the million dollars that goes with it), and Sunday evening, he finished nearly a second ahead of Jamie McMurray to win the Coca-Cola 600. This was Busch’s second win of the season, and it moved him from ninth to sixth in the Sprint Cup points standings.
Busch was determined to win the race for Roger Penske, especially since there was a Ganassi car (McMurray) competing with him for the win. A Ganassi driver (Dario Franchitti) had won the Indy 500 earlier in the day, and McMurray nearly gave him a second legendary win in one day. Earlier in the season, McMurray had given Ganassi the Daytona 500 win, so Ganassi was the first to have a Daytona 500 and Indianapolis 500 win in the same season. Busch clearly wanted to prevent a third historic win, saying, “I thought about that Ganassi car behind us. He wasn’t going to get by us.”
As has been the case in several races this season, the outcome came down to the last pit stop. Jamie McMurray was running away from the field when the caution was brought out by a Marcos Ambrose crash on lap 377. Both Kurt Busch and Matt Kenseth led McMurray off pit road. In addition, Jeff Gordon, Mark Martin, and Ryan Newman opted to stay on the track rather than pit, so McMurray restarted on lap 382 in sixth place. One lap later, Busch and McMurray had passed the cars on older tires, and started to separate from the pack.
One usual Charlotte contender – Jimmie Johnson – had problems before the halfway point of the race. On lap 167, he hit the outside wall of turn 4 with the rear of the 48 car. He spun, causing Denny Hamlin to slide down to the infield, which caused damage to the front of his car. During the caution laps following this incident, Kyle Busch and Brad Keselowski tangled on pit road, causing damage to both cars.
These incidents didn’t end the problems for the typical front-runners. Johnson spun again on lap 273, this time hitting the front of his car into the wall. The crew did what repairs they could, and Johnson finished 37th. Kyle Busch ended the race in third place, but was confronted by usually mild-mannered Jeff Burton after the race. Burton took issue with contact Busch made with him, which resulted in a cut tire on Burton’s car, and a 25th place finish.
Mark Martin finished fourth in the race, and David Reutimann finished fifth. The top ten was rounded out by Jeff Gordon, Clint Boyer, Paul Menard, Ryan Newman, and Matt Kenseth.
