Gibbs' racing wins again
KANSAS CITY, Kan. — At the season-opening Daytona 500, Joe Gibbs Racing proved it was unquestionably the fastest, from Denny Hamlin taking the checkered flag to its quartet of cars leading more than three-quarters of the race.
It turned out to be a harbinger of things to come.
After watching Kyle Busch drive away from Kevin Harvick to win Saturday night’s Sprint Cup race at Kansas Speedway, Gibbs drivers have won six times in the first 11 races. Everybody on the team has a win except Matt Kenseth, and the former series champion finished a season-best fourth at Kansas.
“The hardest thing in pro sports is to stay up there every week and right now it’s been a thrill,” Gibbs said after celebrating Busch’s first Sprint Cup win at a track that’s caused him so much trouble.
“In a sport where we have so many great teams, so many great owners — it’s so competitive, it’s so hard to get on a hot streak,” Gibbs said. “I appreciate how nice it is to reel off several wins like this.”
In fact, things have been so good for Gibbs that Martin Truex Jr., whose Furniture Row team has a technical alliance with JGR, may have been the fastest of anybody at Kansas. If it wasn’t for a fluke tire-change issue, he might have been the one celebrating the end of his misfortune there.
That was just about the only lament Gibbs had Saturday night.
“The Gibbs cars are better than everybody pretty much everywhere,” said Brad Keselowski, who has given Penske Racing a pair of victories Las Vegas and Talladega. “I think that’s pretty obvious.”
Gibbs knows something about dominance, of course. He led the Washington Redskins to three Super Bowl victories and a bunch of other playoff appearances during his NFL coaching career.
This feels like uncharted territory, though.
Busch has led a season-high 679 laps while winning three times, not including his win in the second qualifying duel at Daytona. Carl Edwards has led the second most laps with 626, and he won back-to-back races at Bristol and Richmond. Hamlin won the Sprint Unlimited before his Daytona 500 victory.
Kenseth may be searching for his first win, but he’s led the fifth most laps of anybody.
“I’m happy for Kyle and them,” Kenseth said Saturday night, after starting right alongside Busch on the final restart. “I thought we were as good as the 18 if we could have had position.”
The fact that Busch finally won at Kansas may be the best proof yet of JGR’s supremacy.
